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Effective researcher-coach relationships need reciprocal learning, which allows practitioners to share valuable contextual knowledge while researchers share evidence-based ideas. Nevertheless, these collaborations encounter obstacles due to power imbalances, which frequently establish researchers as authorities and reduce the role of practitioners as co-creators. Therefore, this study examines power dynamics in researcher-coach partnerships within educational contexts, emphasizing equitable collaboration strategies. Using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as a framework, this study analyzes video data from a writing intensive to explore interactions between two participants, Ashley and Russell. Findings reveal that initial tensions foster deeper understanding through negotiated power exchanges. The study underscores that openness, mutual trust, and reflective dialogue are essential for sustainable partnerships, advancing the understanding of power dynamics in researcher-coach collaborations. 

Predicting students' performance early in programming courses is crucial because it allows instructors to intervene early, improving learning outcomes. Currently, no existing platforms can effectively forecast student performance in programming activities based on students' developed code. Forecasting student scores based on their programming activities is challenging because the accuracy of different predictive models often varies throughout these activities. To address this challenge, we introduce a novel framework utilizing Mixture of Experts (MoE). The MoE method combines insights from various neural networks and dynamically picks the most accurate predictions. This system significantly enhances the reliability of forecasting each student's performance within the first 15 minutes of a 30-minute programming session. By enabling early predictions, the MoE provides instructors with a powerful mechanism to understand and support the student learning process in real-time. 

Informal learning environments play a critical role in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning across the lifespan and are consequential in informing public understanding and engagement. This can be difficult to accomplish in life science where expertise thresholds and logistics involved with handling biological materials can restrict access. Community laboratories are informal learning environments that provide access to the resources necessary to carry out pursuits using enabling biotechnologies. We investigate a group of these spaces in order to ascertain how this occurs—with specific attention to how material and intellectual resources are structured and shape learning. Using surveys and focus group interviews, we explore a group of these spaces located in the United States. We found that the spaces examined offer learning activities that are sufficiently scaffolded and flexible as to promote personalized and community-driven practice. We discuss these findings in relation to informal learning environment design and learning. 

While many digital or physical tools and construction kits have been developed for young makers, far fewer developments have focused on making with living materials, at DNA and cellular scales. In this paper, we review the affordances of various hands-on simulation tools and wet labs for K-12-aged biomakers to be used in school, home and science centers. We discuss how making with biology requires broadened conceptualizations of perceptibility, tinkerability, expressivity, and usability---features commonly considered in the research and design of digital and physical maker media. We conclude with a discussion of affordances and challenges we see in the current generation of tools and labs for supporting making with biology and in which ways these can be expanded to support learning, collaboration, and creativity that are valued in maker education. 

While much research focused on making emphasizes digital and tangible media, few studies have explored making with biology, or biomaking, where people use cells as fabrication units to grow or “make” desired materials for designing real world applications. This lack is especially glaring considering how biomaking and related industries are often aligned with a growing push toward sustainable production as a way of addressing the pressing environmental issues of the day. In order address how maker frameworks could be used as a productive way of bringing biomaking into K-12 contexts, we report on the design and implementation of a biomaking workshop where teams of high school students both assembled a physical biosensor and imagined applications for this technology to address real world issues. Using classroom observations, analysis of classroom projects, and focus group interviews, we examined student experiences and perceptions of these activities in order to ask: What the affordances and challenges of biomaking in supporting maker learning, especially with regard to the less common practices of assembly and imagining? In the discussion, we review what we learned about facilitating biomaking in K-12 setting, as well how our analysis led us to a revaluation of the often crucial but neglected role assembly plays in more ‘typical’ maker activities, and the possibilities for enriching maker activities by including design prototyping and imagination.