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1. Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Efforts to Engage Students through Academic and Social Support

   Jansen, A. (January 2019, Proceedings of the 41st annual meeting of the North American Chapter for the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Teachers' efforts to support students, both academically and socially, can play a role in how high school students productively engage with mathematics in the moment. To examine the connection between teacher support and student engagement, we conducted an exploratory mixed-methods study combining data from 20 high school classroom observations with student self-reports taken during the observed activity. Our findings indicate that when teachers provide academic support to their students during a lesson, they are also likely to provide social support. Higher teacher support of both kinds correlates with higher student self-efficacy, as well as social and cognitive engagement. Investigating relationships between observations of teaching and students' self-reports of engagement in-the-moment is a potentially revealing approach for uncovering engaging instructional strategies in secondary mathematics classrooms. 

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2. The Ripple Effect of Epistemological Framing: Linking Epistemology, Teacher Moves, and Student Learning

   Southerland, S. A.; Schellinger, J.; Jaber, L.Z.; Morandi, S.; Krishnan, H.; & Tekkumru-Kisa, M. (January 2021, Annual meeting program American Educational Research Association)

   null (Ed.)

   This work explores epistemological framing dynamics in a middle school biology classroom and how such dynamics shape student engagement and learning opportunities. Our data sources include student and teacher interviews, classroom videos of three multi-day lessons with a focus on argumentation, and work products collected across one academic year. Our analysis reveals that while the teacher made room for students to generate and negotiate ideas, brief but influential moves emphasizing single correct answers undermined students’ sensemaking. These instructional moves, while only occupying a small amount of instructional time, framed students’ sensemaking efforts not as a process to seek the strongest explanation from a number of possibilities, but rather to wait for the correct explanation to be revealed from an authority. 

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3. Factors Associated with High-Quality Computer Science Instruction: Data from a Nationally Representative Sample of High School Teachers

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366831  

   Banilower, Eric; Craven, Laura (February 2020, SIGCSE '20: Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)

   This paper shares results from surveys administered in spring 2018 to a nationally representative sample of nearly 300 U.S. high school computer science teachers. It describes the nature of high school computer science instruction and the extent to which teacher background, classroom factors, and school context predict the type of instruction students experience. Data from the study were analyzed using path modeling-a form of regression analysis that estimates both direct and indirect effects (i.e., through intermediary variables)-to examine relationships between teacher, classroom, and school factors, and the extent to which teachers (1) emphasize reform-oriented instructional objectives (e.g., learning about real-life applications of computer science) and (2) engage students in computer science practices (e.g., recognizing and defining computational problems). Sample findings include that students are most commonly engaged in activities related to testing and refining computational artifacts, but are less often engaged in aspects of computer science related to end users (e.g., create a computational artifact to be used by someone else). The path analysis highlights several factors that are related to greater engagement of students in the computer science practices, including teacher participation in professional development and the use of coherent instructional materials. 

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4. Of Teams and Ties: The Power of Required Team Membership to Foster Teacher Instructional Support Networks.

   https://doi.org/0013161X18785868.  

   Woodland, R.; Mazur, R. (July 2018, Educational administration quarterly)

   This study examined an urban district’s capacity to diffuse instructional innovations. Social network analysis (SNA) was used to examine the relationship between “informal” teacher support networks and “formal” teacher support networks engineered by administrators through required membership on a team. This study also sought to uncover how school leaders considered study findings in light of their district’s theory of change to improve teacher collaboration. Method: About 1,100 employees responded to a sociometric survey that queried for demographics, team membership, and advice-seeking behavior. SNA methods were used to examine network cohesion (i.e., size, density, isolates, ties) and degree centrality. Statistical analyses (chi-square and multinomial logistic regressions) were performed to examine how team membership were associated with teachers’ advice-seeking behaviors. Visual inspection of sociograms was used to communicate and make meaning of findings with district personnel. Findings: The majority of teachers’ informal instructional support ties were concomitant with shared membership on an administrator created formal team. The majority of teachers who reported that at least one colleague had a strong, positive influence on their practice, also participated in at least one formal team, and believed their team’s collaboration positively affected their instructional practice. Implications: School leaders affect quality of instructional support networks through organizational design. The extent to which teachers are able to access social capital and instructional support is influenced by the choices administrators make about how to structure teacher collaboration. 

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5. Integrating computational thinking into middle school science through co-designed storylines

   Biddy, Q.; Gendreau Chakarov, A.; Jacobs, J.; Recker, M.; Sumner, T.; Penuel, W. (January 2020, Association for Science Teacher Education)

   We describe a professional development model that supports teachers to integrate computational thinking (CT) and computer science principles into middle school science and STEM classes. The model includes the collaborative design (co-design) (Voogt et al., 2015) of storylines or curricular units aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) that utilize programmable sensors such as those contained on the micro:bit. Teachers spend several workshops co-designing CT-integrated storylines and preparing to implement them with their own students. As part of this process, teachers develop or modify curricular materials to ensure a focus on coherent, student driven instruction through the investigation of scientific phenomena that are relevant to the students and utilize sensor technology. Teachers implement the storylines and meet to collaboratively reflect on their instructional practices as well as their students’ learning. Throughout this cyclical, multi-year process, teachers develop expertise in CT-integrated science instruction as they plan for and use instructional practices that align with three dimension science teaching and foreground computational thinking. Throughout the professional learning process, teachers alternate between wearing their “student hats” and their “teacher hats”, in order to maintain both a student and teacher perspective as they co-design and reflect on their implementation of CT-integrated units. This paper illustrates two teachers’ experiences of the professional development process over a two-year period, including their learning, planning, implementation, and reflection on two co-designed units. 

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