STEM Education Curriculum Development for Middle School Science

1. University of Pennsylvania The 21st Century Center for Research and Development in Cognition and Science Instruction The 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education Funded by: through Grant R305C080009 to The 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the U.S. Department of Education

2. Purpose & Objective Purpose of this Center: To develop specific theoretically driven modifications to existing middle school science curricula To conduct a systematic series of studies to test and refine such strategies for improving the design of curricula Objective: To improve current curricula and identify general principles for the design of curriculum that could be easily applied to other science curricula to improve student learning. Overview

3. Cognitive Science Senior Team Members Chris Schunn, Co-PI Assoc. Professor of Psychology, Intelligent Sys Program, Learning Sciences and Policy Research Scientist, LRDC Kalyani Raghavan LRDC Research Associate,and Director of Model Assisted Reasoning in Science project Tim Nokes Asst. Professor, Department of Psychology Director, Cognitive Science Learning Laboratory Overview Nora Newcombe, Co-PI Professor of Psychology and PI of the NSF Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center Jennifer Cromley, Co-PI Asst Professor of Educational Psychology, 2010 recipient Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Chris Massey, Co-PI Director for Research and Education, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science

4. The Design Challenge Textbook Kit based Overview

5. Overview

6. Process to Test Cognitive Scientist’s Modificatons 1. Recruit schools for study, 180+ Revise and repeat for 2nd cohort 2. Randomize schools into 3 groups, T1, T2 and Control 3. Create 6 Cognitive Science Modified Units, 3 + 3 4. Design Prof Development for Cognitive Science Treatment Arm 5. Design Prof Development for Content Treatment Arm 6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs 7. Develop six end-of-unit assessments 8. Print, deliver and collect student end-of-unit assessments 9. Develop teacher content tests, SEC surveys 10. Administer teacher content tests, SEC surveys 11. Collect 8th grade student level state test data + previous years 12. Analyze data

7. 6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs “Cog Sci Arm”

8. 6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs “Content Arm”

9. 8. Print, deliver and collect student end-of-unit assessments

10. Role: The 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education • PI F. Joseph Merlino Lead project by practicing “Servant Leadership” : • Keeping focus on the big purpose of the study and maintain integrity of • original proposal intent . • Keeping roles of partners within the lines, setting decision boundaries , helping to define issues and facilitate consensus , maintaining communication bridges between partners • Interact with IES, oversee budget • Project Director: Gary Cooper and 5 staff (Donna, Bates, Nancy, John, Deanna, Lisa) • Manage/facilitate all 12 elements of process as it related to school sites . • Business team as Fiscal agent (Elysa, Giselle, Neil) • Manpower = 7.O FTE