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1. Learning from Lesson Study in the College Geometry Classroom

   Boyce, Steve; An, Tuyin; Pyzdrowski, Laura J; Oppong-Wadie, Kwadwo; Ion, Michael; St_Goar, Julia (February 2023, The Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America (SIGMAA) for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education)

   Cook, Samuel; Katz, Brian; Moore-Russo, Deborah (Ed.)

   Authors of this proposal are members of an inter-institutional working group focused on the teaching and learning of transformations in college geometry courses taken by prospective secondary teachers. After exploring axioms and definitions for transformational geometry in our courses, we decided to shift to identifying not just what, but how students were learning about transformations in our courses. To explore this, we began a lesson study (Boyce et al., 2021). In this report, we discuss our engagement in the lesson study, its outcomes, and new directions. 

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2. Using multimodal learning analytics to validate digital traces of self-regulated learning in a laboratory study and predict performance in undergraduate courses.

   https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000890  

   Bernacki, Matthew L; Yu, Linyu; Kuhlmann, Shelbi L; Plumley, Robert D; Greene, Jeffrey A; Duke, Rebekah F; Freed, Rebekah; Hollander-Blackmon, Christina; Hogan, Kelly A (February 2025, Journal of Educational Psychology)

   Undergraduates enrolled in large, active learning courses must self-regulate their learning (self-regulated learning [SRL]) by appraising tasks, making plans, setting goals, and enacting and monitoring strategies. SRL researchers have relied on self-report and learner-mediated methods during academic tasks studied in laboratories and now collect digital event data when learners engage with technology-based tools in classrooms. Inferring SRL processes from digital events and testing their validity is challenging. We aligned digital and verbal SRL event data to validate digital events as traces of SRL and used them to predict achievement in lab and course settings. In Study 1, we sampled a learning task from a biology course into a laboratory setting. Enrolled students (N = 48) completed the lesson using digital resources (e.g., online textbook, course site) while thinking aloud weeks before it was taught in class. Analyses confirmed that 10 digital events reliably co-occurred ≥70% of the time with verbalized task definition and strategy use macroprocesses. Some digital events co-occurred with multiple verbalized SRL macroprocesses. Variance in occurrence of validated digital events was limited in lab sessions, and they explained statistically nonsignificant variance in learners’ performance on lesson quizzes. In Study 2, lesson-specific digital event data from learners (N = 307) enrolled in the course (but not in Study 1) predicted performance on lesson-specific exam items, final exams, and course grades. Validated digital events also predicted final exam and course grades in the next semester (N = 432). Digital events can be validated to reflect SRL processes and scaled to explain achievement in naturalistic undergraduate education settings. Educational Impact and Implications Statement Instructors often have difficulty identifying and helping struggling students in courses with hundreds of students. Digital trace data can be used to efficiently and effectively identify struggling students in these large courses, but such data are often difficult to interpret with confidence. In our study, we found that using verbal trace data to augment and validate our inferences about the meaning of digital trace data resulted in a powerful set of predictors of students’ achievement. These validated digital trace data can be used to not only identify students in need of support in large classes, but also to understand how to target interventions to the aspects of learning that are causing students the most difficulty. 

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3. Teaching Computing in Indigenous Schools: An Early Experience Report

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3653666.3656104  

   Yan, Wei; Hovermill, Jeffrey Allen; Prescott, Paige; Amresh, Ashish (May 2024, Proceedings of the 2024 on RESPECT Annual Conference)

   To broaden indigenous students' participation in Computer Science (CS) education, we conducted a research practitioner partnership (RPP) project, where teachers were taught the CS principles lessons offered by Code.org and asked to integrate mobile application development within their current courses. Additionally, modules and guidance were provided on culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP), and an in-classroom implementation of a five-day lesson plan was co-created via a participatory approach. In this experience report, we describe the RPP organization and early findings from our collected teachers' pre/post survey, lesson plans, projects, and students' pre/post survey. The positive outcomes from our RPP project provided valuable teacher learning experiences and actionable, culturally responsive computing lesson plans for the indigenous community. 

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4. Virtual Tools and Protocols to Support Collaborative Reflection During Lesson Study

   Groth, R. E.; Bergner, J. A.; Weaver, S. D.; & Follmer, D. J. (January 2021, Innovations)

   Lesson study provides opportunities for teachers to collaboratively design, implement, and analyze instruction. Research illustrates its efficacy as a site for teacher learning. The setting for this article is a lesson study project involving preservice teachers, inservice teachers, and university faculty members. We supported collaborative reflection on practice among these individuals by using asynchronous and synchronous online tools and meeting protocols. Asynchronous online lesson-video review and tagging helped participants prepare to debrief about lessons they had implemented. Midway through one of our lesson study cycles, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, eliminating opportunities to meet face-to-face for lesson debriefing sessions. In response, we developed and field-tested two protocols for online synchronous lesson study debriefing meetings. The protocols prompted conversations related to pedagogy, content, and content-specific pedagogy. After the debriefing sessions, lesson study group members reported improvements in their knowledge growth, self-efficacy, and expectations for student learning. We describe our use of online virtual tools and protocols to contribute to the literature on ways to support collaborative reflection on practice. 

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5. Providing Context for Identifying Effective Introductory Mechanics Courses

   https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0023763  

   Nissen, Jayson M.; Many Horses, Ian Her; Dusen, Ben Van; Jariwala, Manher; Close, Eleanor (March 2022, The Physics Teacher)

   Research-based assessments (RBAs) measure how well a course achieves discipline-specific outcomes. Educators can use outcomes from RBAs to guide instructional choices and to request resources to implement and sustain instructional transformations. One challenge for using RBAs, however, is a lack of comparative data, particularly given the skew in the research literature toward calculus-based courses at highly selective institutions. In this article, we provide a large-scale dataset and several tools educators in introductory physics courses can use to inform how well their courses foster student conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics. The supplemental materials include this dataset and these tools. Educators and administrators will often target courses with high drop, withdrawal, and failure rates for transformations to student-centered instructional strategies. RBAs and the comparative tools presented herein allow educators to address critiques that the course transformations made the courses “easier” by showing that the transformed course supported physics learning compared to similar courses at other institutions. Educators can also use the tools to track course efficacy over time. 

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