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1. Engagement in the professional learning InSTEP platform: Developing expertise to teach data and statistics

   Mojica, GF ; Thrasher, E ; Kuhlman, A ; Graham, B ; Lee, HS ( October 2023 , University of Nevada, Reno)

   Lamberg, T ; Moss, D (Ed.)

   In this study, 82 middle and high school teachers engaged with the InSTEP online professional learning platform to develop their expertise in teaching data science and statistics. We investigated teachers’ engagement within the platform, aspects of the platform that were most and least effective in building teachers’ expertise, and the extent to which teachers’ self-efficacy changed. Using mixed methods, we collected, analyzed and integrated multiple data sources. 

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2. Creating an authoring tool for K-12 teachers to design ML-supported scientific inquiry learning

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3613905.3650762  

   Zhou, Xiaofei ; Tang, Jingwan ; Lyu, Hanjia ; Liu, Xinyi ; Zhang, Zhenhao ; Qin, Lichen ; Au, Fiona ; Sarkar, Advait ; Bai, Zhen ( May 2024 , ACM)

   Despite significant advances in machine learning (ML) applications within science, there is a notable gap in its integration into K-12 education to enhance data literacy and scientific inquiry (SI) skills. To address this gap, we enable K-12 teachers with limited technical expertise to apply ML for pattern discovery and explore how ML can empower educators in teaching SI. We design a web-based tool, ML4SI, for teachers to create ML-supported SI learning activities. This tool can also facilitate collecting data about the interaction between ML techniques and SI learning. A pilot study with three K-12 teachers provides insights to prepare the next generation for the era of big data through ML-supported SI learning. 

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3. Exam Implementation of Scientific Epistemic Practices Curricula Through an Adaptive Expertise Lens: A Case Study

   Yang, Zhitong ; Yoon, Susan A ; Chinn, Clark A ; Cottone, Amanda M ; Richman, Thomas ; Noushad, Noora F ; Hussain-Abidi, Huma ; Hunkar, Kyle ( June 2024 , International Society of the Learning Sciences)

   Scholars have suggested that one way to promote informed decision making about pressing socioscientific issues is to incorporate epistemic practices in science curricula. However, a key factor in teaching with such curricula is whether and how teachers can adapt instruction from their routine teaching approaches. Through an adaptive expertise lens, in this study, we examine how two teachers, teaching with agent-based computational complex systems models, varied in their implementations of epistemic practices and how consequently students' performance on epistemic practices was impacted. Through qualitative analyses of two teachers’ implementation recordings, this study examines teachers’ adaptive expertise in curricular implementations that aim at promoting student epistemic practices and provides examples of high and low levels of adaptive expertise that result in distinct student classroom experiences. This study carries implications for future teacher professional development geared towards improving students' epistemic practices. 

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4. “Wait, Wait, Go Back”: Investigating Social Supports for Homework During Do-design Sessions with Teachers

   Hatch, Paul ; Michaelis, Joseph ( June 2023 , Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS))

   Teachers use interpersonal classroom skills to support their students’ learning in the classroom, but homework is done in isolation without the affordances of classroom interactions. Here we investigate how a homework tool could empower teachers to utilize their interpersonal classroom skills and provide new ways to support students outside of the classroom. Through three phases of interviews and co-design, we co-designed software for teachers to create their own robot-assisted homework activities. We found that teachers' existing expertise initially led to wrong assumptions about the tool but after viewing an exemplifying stimulus they shifted their mental model of the tool and of homework in general. These findings can help understand (1) how pedagogical expertise may hinder utilization of new tools, and (2) how a catalyst may shift existing perceptions and facilitate the use of new paradigms to support student learning. 

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5. Changes in practicing secondary teachers’ professional noticing over a long-term professional development program

   https://doi.org/10.51272/pmena.42.2020-297  

   LaRochelle, Raymond ; Hill-Lindsay, Sloan ; Nickerson, Susan ; Lamb, Lisa ( December 2020 , Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Sacristán, A.I. ; Cortés-Zavala, J.C. ; & Ruiz-Arias, P.M. (Ed.)

   Much of the research on the development of professional noticing expertise has focused on prospective teachers. We contend that we must investigate practicing teachers as well, and in particular practicing secondary teachers, because they bring with them years of teaching experience and are situated in unique contexts. Hence we studied the longitudinal growth of the professional- noticing expertise of a group of practicing secondary teachers (N=10) as they progressed through a 5-year professional development (PD) about being responsive to students’ mathematical thinking. Results indicated that the first half of the PD supported their interpreting and deciding-how-to- respond skills, and the second half of the PD supported their attending skills, which were already strong even before the PD. We compare these results with the activities that occurred in the PD and discuss implications for future research and PD programs. 

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