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1. Physics teachers integrating social justice with science content

   https://doi.org/10.1119/perc.2022.pr.Huynh  

   Huynh, Tra; Gray, Kara E.; Bauman, Lauren C.; Hernandez, Jessica; Seeley, Lane; Scherr, Rachel E. (September 2022, Physics Education Research Conference Proceedings 2022)

   Frank, B.; Jones, D.; Ryan, Q. (Ed.)

   In this study, we showcase the various ways high school physics teachers make connections between science content and social justice, pushing the boundary of what is counted as science content by bringing social justice engagement to the center of science learning. We analyze lessons submitted by eighteen high school physics teachers who participated in a professional development program that supported the integration of equity into their science teaching. Three themes represent teachers' approach toward integrating social justice in their science lessons: (1) investigating the nature of science in specific science concepts and re-evaluating/redefining science concepts, (2) connecting students' everyday activities with science and global social justice issues, and (3) using science knowledge to engage with and advocate for social justice issues in students' local communities. 

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2. EYE: A Middle School STEM Unit on Energy Flow

   Zangori, L; Otto, S (October 2023, Missouri Association for Rural Educators (MARE))

   This middle school STEM unit called Energy in Your Environment (EYE) was co-created by middle school science teachers, architectural studies, and science education faculty with the goal of improving students’ energy literacy and energy conservation knowledge. The unit fosters place-based education by using the school building to enhance systems thinking about energy consumption and flow between the building and surrounding environment. Within the unit, students explore the role of electrical, thermal, and light energy in their school building and consider how building features (such as windows, lighting, and insulation) impact energy flow and conservation. Students use their energy systems knowledge to design and build a desk-top one-room energy efficient building using simple materials to explain how and why their design impacts energy flow. Five teachers implemented the unit with over 200 students. The growth from pre- to post-measurements was statistically significant for students energy flow knowledge and tracing the path of energy (F(1, 209) = 3118.3, p = 0.001). In our presentation, we will provide an overview of the unit, our student learning data, and result summary. 

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3. Teachers as curriculum co-designers: Supporting professional learning and curriculum implementation in a CSforAll RPP project

   Ni, Lijun; Bausch, Gillian; Feliciano, Bernardo; Hsu, Hsien-Yuan; Martin, Fred (May 2022, 2022 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT))

   This paper examines the use of collaborative curriculum design (co-design) as a strategy for supporting teacher professional learning and the implementation of an inclusive middle school computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum in three urban school districts. The curriculum is focused on students developing mobile apps that provide social and community good. The second year of the project has been dedicated to developing and piloting curriculum resources that support remote learning and culturally relevant pedagogy while the partner districts switched to remote and hybrid instructions. This study explores teachers’ professional learning experiences in the collaborative design of curriculum materials and piloting the curriculum at their own classrooms. The paper includes analysis of three data sets: (1) co-design meeting notes and teacher reflections; (2) semi-structured interviews with teachers who co-designed and piloted the curriculum; (3) student pre- and post-survey responses on their attitude and interest in learning CSDL. Preliminary results indicate that the co-design approach supplemented with one-on-one coaching has not only facilitated the curriculum development process but also fostered professional learning and collective capacity building for implementing the project curriculum in the partner districts. Findings from student surveys show that students perceived their understanding of, and interest in computer science and creating apps were slightly improved, regardless of gender. 

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4. Transforming Science Teaching for Equity and Justice by Teachers and Researchers Working Together

   Kang, H.; Orduna Picón, R. (April 2021, 2021 AERA conference)

   With the urgent call for supporting science teachers to promote equity and justice through their daily work of teaching, there is a growing need for better understanding how science teachers come to engage in transformative teaching and learning that is equitably consequential. In this participatory design research project (Bang & Vossoughi, 2016), we created a professional learning context in which high school chemistry teachers engaged in a pedagogical imagining (Gutiérrez & Calabese Barton, 2015) by leveraging their teaching experiences, knowledge about students and communities, values, and concerns to create powerful learning contexts for Latinx and multilingual students from immigrant, low-income families. Drawing upon the perspective of learning as making and sharing of the world interwoven with making and sharing of selves (Warren et al, 2020), we analyzed teachers’ participations and discourses to examine teachers’ making and sharing that were equitably consequential. The findings illustrated three critical moments of teachers’ making and sharing where: (a) the teachers collectively developed shared pedagogical goals toward transformative learning while formulating agency, (b) the teachers and the researchers came to design a creative stoichiometry unit where students use chemistry to make their community better, and (c) the teachers came to be committed to being ‘intentional’ in their relational work to create a welcoming and safe learning environment using concrete pedagogical strategies. The analyses point out three design features of the professional learning context that were associated with the teachers’ consequential makings: (a) the use of a conceptual tool (i.e., ‘design principles’), (b) the power of “what if” discourses, and (c) creating a space for collective learning. Recommendations for designing professional learning context toward transformative teaching and learning are discussed. 

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5. A Professional Development Model to Integrate Computational Thinking Into Middle School Science Through Codesigned Storylines

   Biddy, Q.; Gendreau Chakarov, A.; Bush, J.; Hennessy Elliott, C.; Jacobs, J.; Recker, M.; Sumner, T.; Penuel, W. (March 2021, Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education)

   This article describes a professional development (PD) model, the CT-Integration Cycle, that supports teachers in learning to integrate computational thinking (CT) and computer science principles into their middle school science and STEM instruction. The PD model outlined here includes collaborative design (codesign; Voogt et al., 2015) of curricular units aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that use programmable sensors. Specifically, teachers can develop or modify curricular materials to ensure a focus on coherent, student-driven instruction through the investigation of scientific phenomena that are relevant to students and integrate CT and sensor technology. Teachers can implement these storylines and collaboratively reflect on their instructional practices and student learning. Throughout this process, teachers may develop expertise in CT-integrated science instruction as they plan and use instructional practices aligned with the NGSS and foreground CT. This paper describes an examination of a group of five middle school teachers’ experiences during one iteration of the CT-Integration Cycle, including their learning, planning, implementation, and reflection on a unit they codesigned. Throughout their participation in the PD, the teachers expanded their capacity to engage deeply with CT practices and thoughtfully facilitated a CT-integrated unit with their students. 

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