skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Attention:

The NSF Public Access Repository (PAR) system and access will be unavailable from 10:00 PM ET on Friday, February 6 until 10:00 AM ET on Saturday, February 7 due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Board 313: Implementing Computational Thinking Strategies across the Middle/High Science Curriculum
This NSF Research Experience for Teachers (RET)“Research Experience for Teachers in Big Data and Data Science”(award number: 1801513) engaged four middle/high school science teachers in summer 2022 with research related to big data and data science, with follow-up school year implementation of related curriculum. These teachers developed curriculum related to their summer research experience in big data and data science that spanned a range of student ages and topics: middle school science, 9th grade biology, 9th grade health, and 11th grade chemistry. Despite the wide range of student ages, curricular content, and instructional goals, all teachers found rich and varied curriculum applications that fit within their existing curriculum constraints.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1801513
PAR ID:
10489398
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Publisher / Repository:
ASEE
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Baltimore, MD
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the ASEE Midwest Section Conference 2021)
    null (Ed.)
    This paper introduces the background and establishment of the first Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Arkansas, supported by the National Science Foundation. The Arkansas Data Analytics Teacher Alliance (AR-DATA) program partners with school districts in the Northwest Arkansas region to promote research-driven high school analytics curriculum and education to reach underserved students, such as those from rural areas. At least thirty 9th-12th grade mathematics, computer science, and pre-engineering teachers will participate in AR-DATA and work with faculty mentors, graduate students, curriculum coaches, and industry experts in a six-week RET Summer Program and academic-year follow up to develop and disseminate learning modules to enhance current curriculum, attain new knowledge of data analytics and engineering applications, and benefit professionally through the RET program activities. The learning modules developed will reflect current cutting-edge analytics research, as well as the development needs of next-generation analytics workforce. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the ASEE Midwest Section Conference 2021)
    null (Ed.)
    This paper introduces the background and establishment of the first Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Arkansas, supported by the National Science Foundation. The Arkansas Data Analytics Teacher Alliance (AR-DATA) program partners with school districts in the Northwest Arkansas region to promote research-driven high school analytics curriculum and education to reach underserved students, such as those from rural areas. At least thirty 9th-12th grade mathematics, computer science, and pre-engineering teachers will participate in AR-DATA and work with faculty mentors, graduate students, curriculum coaches, and industry experts in a six-week RET Summer Program and academic-year follow up to develop and disseminate learning modules to enhance current curriculum, attain new knowledge of data analytics and engineering applications, and benefit professionally through the RET program activities. The learning modules developed will reflect current cutting-edge analytics research, as well as the development needs of next-generation analytics workforce. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; (, 11th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference)
    To both broaden and increase participation in any STEM field such as cybersecurity, we need to attract more students. Research shows that to do this, students need to be engaged with cybersecurity during middle school. There is a lack of age-appropriate and classroom-ready cybersecurity curriculum, however, and many teachers feel unprepared to teach the subject. To address this gap, the CyberMiSTS project team created a summer professional development workshop for middle school teachers that integrated a recent research-based understanding of cybersecurity into a curriculum that is accessible to both middle school students and their teachers. The project sought to encourage participation of a broad and diverse set of students in the field of cybersecurity by showing them how human relations play an important role in cybersecurity. We discuss our prior related work using branching web comics to introduce middle school students to cybersecurity concepts and careers, and the state of evidence-based research into effective approaches and methods for cybersecurity education. We identify challenges to broadening the pipeline for a truly diverse cybersecurity workforce that can meet industry’s need for cybersecurity professionals with a wide range of experience and skills. The paper introduces our approach for the teacher professional development workshop, maps how we designed the project to meet our research goals, and documents initial findings regarding what is needed to increase teacher self-efficacy about cybersecurity concepts and careers in a middle school classroom. 
    more » « less
  4. (, Proceedings ASEE annual conference)
    Funded by the NSF Division of Computer and Network Systems, this grant establishes a new Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Site at the University of South Alabama (USA). In the summer of 2021, eight middle school and high school teachers from two local public-school districts spent six weeks engaged with research activities on biologically-inspired computing systems. They worked on discovery-based research projects and obtained transdisciplinary research experience on biologically-inspired computing systems spanning application (cancer detection), algorithm (Spiking Neural Networks), architecture and circuit (synaptic memory design), and device (memristor). The USA faculty mentors, curriculum development specialist from school districts, Instructional Coach from Science/Mathematics faculty at USA coached participants as they designed standards-compliant curriculum modules and conducted professional development activities. The implementation details of the summer program and the evaluation results are presented in this paper. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education)
    Teacher self-efficacy (SE) has been observed to be an 'important construct for Computer Science (CS) teachers' professional development because it can predict both teaching behaviors as well as student outcomes" [1]. The purpose of the present study was to investigate teacher CS SE during a two-year federally funded professional development (PD) and curriculum development project for middle school teachers incorporating game-design and the Unity development platform. The research question investigated is: How does teacher self-efficacy for teaching computer science via game design with the Unity game development platform change during a year-long PD program? Investigations of teacher SE for teaching CS have resulted in some surprising results. For example, it has been reported that - There were no differences in self-efficacy based on teachers' overall level of experience, despite previous findings that teacher self-efficacy is related to amount of experience" and "no differences in self-efficacy related to the teachers' own level of experience with CS" [2], thus further study of CS teacher SE is warranted. Participants in this study were six middle school teachers from four middle schools in the southeastern United States. They participated in a year-long PD program learning the Unity game development platform, elements of game design, and foundations of learner motivation. Guided reflective journaling was used to track the teachers' SE during the first year of the project. Teachers completed journal prompts at four intervals. Prompts consisted of questions like "How do you currently feel about your ability to facilitate student learning with Unity?" and "Are you confident that you can implement the materials the way the project team has planned for them to be implemented?" Prior to beginning the project participants expressed confidence in being able to facilitate student learning after participating in the planned professional development, but there was some uneasiness about learning and using Unity. From a SE perspective their responses make sense, as all of the participants are experienced teachers and should have confidence in their general ability to teach. However, since Unity is a new programming environment for all of the teachers, they did not have the prior experience necessary to have a high degree of confidence that they could successfully use it with their students. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Text Encoded Conversion
  • XML
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email