More Like this

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. 

   more » « less
2. 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. 

   more » « less
3. 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. 

   more » « less
4. 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. 

   more » « less
5. Bringing exploratory learning online: Problem-solving before instruction improves remote undergraduate physics learning

   https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1215975  

   DeCaro, Marci S; Isaacs, Raina A; Bego, Campbell R; Chastain, Raymond J (August 2023, Frontiers in Education)

   STEM undergraduate instructors teaching remote courses often use traditional lecture-based instruction, despite evidence that active learning methods improve student engagement and learning outcomes. One simple way to use active learning online is to incorporate exploratory learning. In exploratory learning, students explore a novel activity (e.g., problem solving) before a lecture on the underlying concepts and procedures. This method has been shown to improve learning outcomes during in-person courses, without requiring the entire course to be restructured. The current study examined whether the benefits of exploratory learning extend to a remote undergraduate physics lesson, taught synchronously online. Undergraduate physics students (N = 78) completed a physics problem-solving activity either before instruction (explore-first condition) or after (instruct-first condition). Students then completed a learning assessment of the problem-solving procedures and underlying concepts. Despite lower accuracy on the learning activity, students in the explore-first condition demonstrated better understanding on the assessment, compared to students in the instruct-first condition. This finding suggests that exploratory learning can serve as productive failure in online courses, challenging students but improving learning, compared to the more widely-used lecture-then-practice method. 

   more » « less