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1. Desirable uncertainty in science teaching: Exploring teachers’ perceptions and practice of using student scientific uncertainty as a pedagogical resource

   Starrett, Emily; Jordan, Michelle; Chen, Ying-Chih; Park, Jongchan; Meza-Torres, Carlos (February 2024, Teaching and teacher education)

   Science practice introduces inevitable uncertainties that are desirable for learning. Yet, navigating student scientific uncertainties can be a challenge for teachers. This qualitative study explored how teachers perceive and utilize uncertainty during science instruction. Analysis of interviews and classroom observations collected from 14 middle school teachers in the United States indicated limited awareness of uncertainty’s use as a resource in science. Teachers perceived uncertainty as a way to induce curiosity and persist through struggle; however, they were quick to reduce students’ scientific uncertainty throughout lessons. Findings suggest that teachers need support to understand how uncertainty navigation can benefit student learning. 

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2. Toward a Theoretical Framework for Data Fluency Teaching and Learning in Middle School STEM

   Wong, N; Elsayed, R; Perez, LR; Daehler, KR; Chen, P (March 2024, Ninety-seventh annual international conference of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST))

   This paper presents findings from a qualitative study of eleven experienced STEM educators who worked alongside developers to design and implement data-rich lessons in their grades 6–9 mathematics and science classrooms. In the context of a project that seeks to develop professional learning for data fluency, researchers documented the co-development process to articulate a model of what teachers need to know and be able to do in order to support their students’ data fluency. The project team distilled key findings into two framing documents: 1) a description of high-leverage areas of focus for PL which highlight challenges faced by teachers, which are common, important for data fluency, and represent opportunities for supporting teacher and student growth; and 2) a logic model that describes how the PL course under development is expected to influence teacher, classroom, and student outcomes. This paper contributes to the larger education community by defining the professional learning needs of educators who wish to integrate data into their STEM classrooms. These frameworks provide designers and researchers with touchpoints to structure and study PL experiences, lesson materials, and other classroom resources for both new and veteran educators. These tools can provide STEM teachers with guidance for reflecting on their current knowledge, skills, beliefs, and teaching practices that help their students become more data fluent. 

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3. Teaching Students With Learning Disabilities to Solve Secondary School Algebra Problems

   Hord, C.; Hoyng, C; Krumpelman, M. L.; Baker, J. (April 2021, Insights on learning disabilities)

   In this paper, we make a case for the importance of teaching secondary school level algebra to students with learning disabilities (LD). Furthermore, we illustrate how they struggle and present best-practices on how they are best supported. We demonstrate effective ways of how teachers can show students with LD how to solve challenging algebra problems. In particular, we depict how educators can help learners with LD show their work on paper in ways that support their thinking processes as they engage with challenging algebra problems. 

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4. Impact of a Teacher Action Planner Capturing Student Ideas on Customization Decisions

   Gerard, L. (January 2020, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   This design-based research takes advantage of advanced technologies to support teachers to rapidly respond to evidence about student ideas generated in their classrooms. Leveraging advances in natural language processing methods, the Teacher Action Planner (TAP) analyzes students’ written explanations embedded in web-based inquiry projects to provide teachers with a report on student progress in developing the three-dimensional understanding called for by the Next Generation Science Standards. Based on the pattern in student scores, the TAP recommends research-based ways for teachers to customize instruction. This study examines how ten middle school teachers in 4 schools used the analysis of student ideas and suggestions for instructional customization presented in the TAP. This paper reports on how well their implemented customizations addressed student learning needs. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of the findings for redesign of the TAP. 

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5. What Does It Take to Support Problem Solving in Programming Classrooms? A New Framework from the K-12 Teacher Perspective

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3706599.3719763  

   Limke, Ally; Islam, Saminur; Riahi, Bahare; Tian, Xiaoyi; Hill, Marnie; Cateté, Veronica; Barnes, Tiffany (April 2025, ACM)

   Developers rarely build programming environments that help secondary teachers support student learning. We interviewed 11 K12 teachers to discover how they support students learning to program and how tools might assist their teaching practice. Based on thematic analysis and organizing teacher activities around student actions, we have derived a new framework that can be used to design a programming learning system to support teachers. Our results suggest that teachers structure their activities based on their ideals about effective programming teaching and learning, and student problem solving and help-seeking processes. Therefore, our framework relates the themes we discovered about teacher activities to ideals and student problem solving in a time-based framework that can inform the design for new programming learning systems. 

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