Projects Affiliated with CREATE

LEVERS: Leveraging Engagement and Vision to Encourage Retention in STEM

Leveraging Engagement and Vision to Encourage Retention in STEM (LEVERS) is a five-year, $1.5 million project funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The award was given to Michigan State University (MSU) to improve introductory courses that serve as gateways to continued studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In doing so, faculty hope to change the institutional culture around the teaching of STEM, raise student engagement, and increase the number of students graduating with STEM degrees.

Automated Analysis of Constructed Response

The Automated Analysis of Constructed Response (AACR) Research Group is a collaboration of researchers from seven universities with backgrounds in various STEM disciplines, linguistics and educational research. The project is exploring computerized analysis of students’ writing in large enrollment undergraduate STEM courses. We are pursuing multiple approaches to using linguistic analysis software for identifying conceptual categories in students' written responses and using that data to build statistical models of students’ thinking in biology, chemistry and statistics. These techniques have potential for improving assessment practices across STEM disciplines.

Inscriptions Math Project

A DRK-12 math project

Collaborative Research: Enhancing Middle Grades Students’ Capacity to Develop and Communicate Their Mathematical Understanding of Big Ideas Using
Digital Inscriptional Resources

 

Crafting Engagement in Science Environments

PIRE: Crafting Engagement in Science Environments is a five-year, $3.6 million research grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The researchers and teachers involved are working to boost interest and engagement in science for all students. They are also providing students with the skills and opportunities to pursue science in the future.

Projects and Practices in Physics

Projects and Practices in Physics (P-cubed) is a community-based learning environment for introductory physics. The project focuses on engaging students in scientific practice through the use of computational modeling and analytical techniques. Researchers aim to transform introductory physics classes from their lecture- and instructor-oriented structure to a model that better benefits students.

Supporting Secondary Students in Building External Models

This 3-year project is (1) developing and testing a modeling tool and accompanying instructional materials, (2) exploring how to support students in building and using models to explain and predict phenomena across a range of disciplines and (3) documenting the sophistication of understanding of disciplinary core ideas that students develop when building and using models in grades 6–12. The project is, thus, engaging learners in using crosscutting concepts with various scientific practices (particularly modeling, but also analyzing and interpreting data and engaging in argument with evidence), blended with disciplinary core ideas. Because the research and development work will be carried out in schools in which students typically do not succeed in science, the products will also help produce a population of citizens capable of continuing further STEM learning.

Tools for Teaching and Learning Engineering Practices: Pathways Towards Productive Identity Developing in Engineering (I-Engineering)

Achievement and interest gaps remain in engineering for students from underrepresented backgrounds. The STEM education field needs research and development that addresses both the learning problem—supporting students in learning engineering design—and the identity problem—supporting students in recognizing that they belong in engineering. By engaging students in both the technical and social dimensions of engineering design, students both learn important engineering practices and develop a personal identity of being an engineer that can lead to a long-term commitment to STEM study and future careers.

ELeVATE: Investigating How Students Build an Integrated Understanding of Energy Over Time

This National Science Foundation-funded CREATE project, with partners from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and the Leibnitz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education in Germany, is developing both innovative curriculum and a set of assessments to determine which instructional approach is most effective in helping middle school students build a robust understanding of energy. The goal is for students to understand energy as both a disciplinary core idea within individual areas of science and a crosscutting concept that spans the sciences. Assessments will capture student learning, student learning progressions and student self-efficacy—the degree to which students feel confident in their ability to apply their understanding of energy concepts to explain phenomena they encounter at school and in the world.

Teaching Science Outdoors Project

CREATE staff are collaborating with partners from MSU Kellogg Biological Station on the Teaching Science Outdoors Project to build a professional development program for elementary school teachers. The goal of this effort is to increase the ability of teachers to use the outdoors—whether in their schoolyard, neighborhood or community—as a component of doing strong science teaching aligned with NGSS.

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