Developing Middle School Students' Interests in STEM via Summer Learning Experiences: See Blue STEM Camp

It is a well‐known fact that, in general, many students have a lack of interest and proficiency in mathematics and science. Therefore, it is imperative that we prepare and inspire all students, specifically students of underrepresented populations, to learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) content. Now in its fourth year, See Blue STEM Camp was created in order to expose middle‐level students to a variety of STEM fields and STEM professionals through hands‐on project‐based learning experiences in order to increase their interest in STEM. This paper describes the structure and the activities of the camp. In this innovative project, we utilized an embedded mixed methods study design to investigate the extent middle level students' attitudes, perceptions, and interest in and toward STEM fields and careers changed after participating in an informal learning environment of a five‐day day camp held on the campus of a major university in the mid‐south. The results revealed an increase in their motivation and interest in STEM fields; in fact, there was 3% increase from pre to post in interest in STEM careers. The data also revealed that a majority of the participating middle school students found the STEM content sessions “fun” and engaging, specifically citing the hands‐on experiences they received.     

Inquiry Learning of High School Students Through a Problem‐Based Environmental Health Science Curriculum

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which high school students improved their inquiry capabilities in relation to scientific literacy through their experience of a problem‐based environmental health science curriculum. The two inquiry capabilities studied were scientific questioning and approaches to inquiry into their own questions. A total of 129 high school students taught by two teachers in one school wrote responses to environmental health issues at the beginning and at the end of a 10‐week long inquiry curriculum. An additional group of 46 students of one of the two teachers learned an alternative curriculum and participated as a comparison group. The students using the inquiry curriculum performed significantly better than those using the alternative curriculum in posing active inquiry questions and generating hypothesis‐driven approaches to inquiry into their questions. The inquiry curriculum students also improved significantly from the pretest to the posttest in both measures of inquiry capacity. Among the students who were less prepared for inquiry in the beginning, 68% improved inquiry‐questioning capability, while among the students who were more prepared for inquiry, 36% improved in generating hypotheses‐driven approaches. Implications for curriculum design and implementation were provided along with further research suggestions.     

Learning to See: Making Sense of the Mathematics of Change in Middle School

In this article, we will describe the results of a study of 6th grade students learning about the mathematics of change. The students in this study worked with software environments for the computer and the graphing calculator that included a simulation of a moving elevator, linked to a graph of its velocity vs. time. We will describe how the students and their teacher negotiated the mathematical meanings of these representations, in interaction with the software and other representational tools available in the classroom. The class developed ways of selectively attending to specific features of stacks of centimeter cubes, hand-drawn graphs, and graphs (labeled velocity vs. time) on the computer screen. In addition, the class became adept at imagining the motions that corresponded to various velocity vs. time graphs. In this article, we describe this development as a process of learning to see mathematical representations of motion. The main question this article addresses is: How do students learn to see mathematical representations in ways that are consistent with the discipline of mathematics? This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Exploring Problem‐based Learning in the Context of High School Science: Design and Implementation Issues

This paper reports on the experiences of a small collaborative inquiry group consisting of a high school science teacher, Deidre, and two university researchers, the authors of this paper, as they explored an active, inquiry‐based approach to teaching and learning referred to as Problem‐Based Learning or PBL ( Barrows, 1994 ; Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980 ). Although PBL is not new and has an established tradition in medical education and other professional schools, the use and scholarship of PBL at the secondary level is only starting to emerge. This small‐scale collaboration allowed the co‐inquirers to delve into the complexities of PBL and to examine its feasibility as a curriculum and instructional approach in the context of high school science teaching and learning. The three collaborators adopted an action‐based inquiry method referred to as Collaborative Inquiry (CI), a “process consisting of repeated episodes of reflection and action through which a group of peers strives to answer a question of importance to them” ( Bray, Lee, Smith, & Yorks, 2000 , p. 6). Data collection methods and sources included student‐generated work, classroom observation, student interviews, and audio‐taped planning meetings. The outcomes of the study focus on the issues that arose during PBL design and implementation, such as selecting a PBL topic, determining the level of structure to be incorporated into the PBL experience, selecting appropriate assessment approaches, facilitating groups, and providing optimal student feed‐back. In addition, outcomes related to student perceptions of PBL indicated that the majority liked learning through PBL because it promoted active learning, made science relevant, provided variety in learning, and supported group work. The authors discuss implications for the adoption of PBL in K‐12 settings.     

Integrating Science,Mathematics, and Technology in Middle School Technology‐Rich Environments: A Study of Implementation and Change

The GTECH project, funded through a grant from the GTE Foundation, prepared school teams of science, mathematics and technology teachers and an administrator to set goals for their local schools regarding implementation of electronic technology and integration of content across curricular areas. A variety of teacher‐centered staff development strategies were used to enable participants to achieve local school objectives, model and encourage active learning environments involving technology, develop integrated curriculum and provide training to their peers. GTECH staff provided workshops and summer institutes based on teacher feedback and classroom observations. Data from the Stages of Concerns Questionnaire assisted the staff in designing effective staff development activities. Over the 2‐year period, teacher teams developed and implemented integrated instructional materials and developed skills in using HyperStudio, PowerPoint, telecommunications applications, and instructional resources from the Internet. They also linked instruction to new state and national standards in science, mathematics, and technology. GTECH teachers reported that their students have expanded their knowledge and skill in problem solving, teamwork, technical expertise, and creativity.     

High School Students' Views about the Nature of Science: Results from Three Countries

During the last two decades, massive efforts have been directed at uncovering different science concepts held by school age students. This particular study focused on identifying high school students' views regarding the nature of science. Thirty-two students were chosen from each of the following three countries: Canada, the United States, and Australia. Interviews were conducted with each student. The interview protocol contained the same core questions with an opportunity built in to allow both the student and the interviewer to seek clarification and extension as necessary. All of the interviews were audiotape recorded and transcribed. Some major differences and many commonalities were observed among the three groups of students. These results should be potentially useful to a wide range of science educators and curriculum developers in that one's ability to become scientifically literate is greatly impair ed when the nature of science is not completely understood.     

Learning Mathematics in a CAS Environment: The Genesis of a Reflection about Instrumentation and the Dialectics between Technical and Conceptual Work

The last decade has seen the development in France of a significant body of research into the teaching and learning of mathematics in CAS environments. As part of this, French researchers have reflected on issues of ‘instrumentation’, and the dialectics between conceptual and technical work in mathematics. The reflection presented here is more than a personal one – it is based on the collaboration and dialogues that I have been involved in during the nineties. After a short introduction, I briefly present the main theoretical frameworks which we have used and developed in the French research: the anthropological approach in didactics initiated by Chevallard, and the theory of instrumentation developed in cognitive ergonomics. Turning to the CAS research, I show how these frameworks have allowed us to approach important issues as regards the educational use of CAS technology, focusing on the following points: the unexpected complexity of instrumental genesis, the mathematical needs of instrumentation, the status of instrumented techniques, the problems arising from their connection with paper & pencil techniques, and their institutional management. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Teacher Learning and Mathematics Manipulatives: A Collective Case Study About Teacher Use of Manipulatives in Elementary and Middle School Mathematics Lessons

This collective case study analyzes the use of manipulatives in math lessons developed and taught by 4 groups of elementary teachers (K‐8) involved in lesson study as part of a professional development program. The study found that in three of four lessons studied manipulative use was turned into an end in and of itself, rather than a tool, and that in the fourth lesson manipulative use hindered rather than helped student learning. These problems with manipulative use by teachers in the lessons provide helpful guidance for planning of future professional development for math teaching. Our conclusion contains recommendations for successful implementation of manipulatives for both teachers and professional developers. Most importantly, we stress the need to emphasize the link between pedagogy and content, not the specific use of manipulatives.     

Teaching Multiple Modes of Representation in Middle‐School Science Classrooms: Impact on Student Learning and Multimodal Use

This quasi‐experimental study investigated how explicit instruction about multiple modes of representation (MMR) impacted grades 7 (n = 61) and 8 (n = 141) students’ learning and multimodal use on end‐of‐unit assessments. Half of each teacher's (n = 3) students received an intervention consisting of explicit instruction on MMR in science discourse, in addition to regular science instruction enhanced by a focus on MMR; comparison groups of students received regular science instruction. Three ordinary least squares regression models used student demographic variables and whether or not students received the intervention to predict students’ (a) gain scores on end‐of‐unit tests, (b) voluntary use of embedded MMR on unit tests, and (c) retention of science knowledge as measured by a state end‐of‐level criterion‐referenced assessment. Analyses showed that explicit instruction on MMR did not make a significant impact on student gain scores, the amount of embeddedness on unit tests, or end‐of‐level scores. However, Models 2 and 3 showed Hispanics and females used MMR more on end‐of‐unit tests than Whites or males, respectively, whether or not they received the intervention. Hispanics and females scored lower than Whites or males, respectively, on end‐of‐level, multiple‐choice assessments. Implications for classroom teachers and educational researchers in relation to these underserved populations are discussed.     

Sociocultural Factors Influencing Students' Learning in Science and Mathematics: An Analysis of the Perspectives of African American Students

The voices of African American students reveal sociocultural factors that influence their achievement in science and mathematics classes. Using a sociocultural theoretical framework ( Mercer & Covey, 1980 ), this ethnographic study interpreted the perspectives of five African American students as they discussed their learning experiences in science and mathematics classrooms. This framework acknowledges the vulnerability of the educational system to societal influences that inevitably assert cultural values and norms. The students' discussions provided insight into their beliefs about the varied ways in which sociocultural factors impact their learning in science and mathematics classrooms.     

Conceptual issues in understanding the inner logic of statistical inference: Insights from two teaching experiments

We report on a sequence of two classroom teaching experiments that investigated high school students’ understandings as they explored connections among the ideas comprising the inner logic of statistical inference—ideas involving a core image of sampling as a repeatable process, and the organization of its outcomes into a distribution of sample statistics as a basis for making inferences. Students’ responses to post-instruction test questions indicate that despite understanding various individual components of inference—a sample, a population, and a distribution of a sample statistic—their abilities to coordinate and compose these into a coherent and well-connected scheme of ideas were usually tenuous. We argue that the coordination and composition required to assemble these component ideas into a coherent scheme is a major source of difficulty in developing a deep understanding of inference.     

Implementation of a Preconditioning–Technique in the Hybrid Flow–Solver TAU+

The present paper describes the implementation of a preconditioning method in the hybrid DLR–TAU⁺–code and its application to nearly incompressible flows. The method is designed in order to get an efficient and accurate solution even for very low Mach numbers using a time stepping scheme for the solution of the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. The algorithm is based on the work of Choi and Merkle. The numerical results obtained for inviscid and viscous flows indicate, that for Mach numbers lower than 0.1 the accuracy as well as the convergence properties are almost independent of the fluid speed, like for incompressible codes.     

Science Attitudes of Selected Middle School Students in China: A Preliminary Investigation of Similarities and Differences as a Function of Gender

Evaluating the attitudes of science students is important for teachers, curriculum developers, and those working with preservice teachers. Although in the United States a great deal of attitudinal research has been conducted with regard to science education, in the People's Republic of China very little work concerning science attitudes has been completed. This study will report on an evaluation of Chinese boys' and girls' attitudes toward selected science topics. Students attended a middle school in the city of Shanghai. Analysis indicated that when the male and female Chinese students differ in their response patterns, females select more intense responses (“strongly agree” as opposed to “agree,”“strongly disagree” as opposed to “disagree”). Furthermore, the surveyed females often selected responses suggesting that they were more interested in the science topics and issues presented in the survey.