Elizabeth Davis - US grants

This PECASE award is a longitudinal study of how elementary teachers learn to teach science. Of particular interest is supporting new elementary teachers--preservice teachers and teachers in their first four years ofteaching--in learning to teach inquiry-based science, and investigating how these teachers learn from a supportive, integrated, technology-mediated instructional resource and learning environment.

The research will characterize teacher learning and propose a mechanism explaining that learning; investigate ways that specific supports provided using technology and contextual features of their larger environment are related to that learning; and identify links among teachers' learning, their practice, and their students' learning. Research objectives will be met through interrelated series of longitudinal learning studies, design studies, community studies, and context studies.

As a context in which teacher learning and ways of supporting that learning can be investigated, an integrated instructional resource and technology-mediated learning environment for teachers called CASES will be developed. CASES will provide teachers with curricular materials they need in their first years of teaching, and will help them make sense of the complex ideas about science teaching in the context of their practice. The development of CASES will be based on a theoretical foundation grounded in current sociocognitive approaches to teaching, learning, and technology design.

The teaching plan involves integrating the CASES learning environment in the researcher's elementary science methods courses for undergraduate and masters students preparing to be elementary teachers. The work will also be discussed in a doctoral course, and doctoral students will serve as mentors for new teachers.

The project is a 42-month research and development effort to develop a learning progression for scientific modeling and investigate its implementation in two grade bands. The project focuses on the scientific practice of modeling because of its centrality in both the practice of science and as a vehicle for science learning. A learning progression characterizes variations of the practice that are appropriate for learners, and a sequence of successively more complex versions of that practice possible for learners. A learning progression for a scientific practice contains; (a) a model of the target practice appropriate for learners, (b) the starting points of learners' intuitive understandings and practices, (c) a sequence of successively more sophisticated understandings and practices, and (d) instructional supports to help learners develop the practice.

The theoretical contribution of the proposed work is to develop an empirically-tested learning progression for scientific modeling. The project identifies two related learning goals for modeling that serve as the two major constructs it will track: modeling practices and metamodeling knowledge. Each construct is broken into several progress variables that are tracked across time. The project will provide an empirically-supported learning progression for a key scientific practice, scientific modeling. Although the field has produced snapshots demonstrating the promise of engaging learners in scientific practices, systematic empirical research demonstrating how the practice can develop across years is lacking.

The specific instructional materials created as part of the project can serve as a model other developers can use to design materials supporting scientific modeling and other practices. The model for educative curriculum materials as a form of teacher support can be adapted to support teacher learning about modeling or other scientific practices in other curriculum materials.

This is a proposal to test whether mentoring middle school science and math teachers by University Ph.D. STEM faculty has a positive effect on the teachers' understanding of science, their teaching ability and the learning outcomes of their students. This proposal will investigate the impact of content mentoring by University professionals on middle school science and mathematics teachers' knowledge, skills, dispositions and overall ability to effectively facilitate student learning and achievement. The goal of this research study is to strengthen the theoretical underpinning of best practices in middle grades math and science teaching and to enhance the knowledge base for teacher recruitment, preparation, induction and retention

The goal of this project is to use educative curricula materials to help transform teacher learning and practices and improve student outcomes in science. The PI investigates adding overlays to the Science, Technology, and Children (STC) curricula materials, developed by the Smithsonian Institution, as one way to increase the use of inquiry-based methods by elementary teachers. The educative overlays provide teachers with additional supports to address specific science content. These supports include subject matter content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, sample lessons, and other instructional supplements. Fifty teachers and 1000 elementary students will benefit directly from this effort. The project targets units on ecosystems and electric circuits.

The study will focus on the following: How does teacher use of educative curricula relate to (a) how a teacher learns; (b) how a teacher practice what is learned (and thus how a teacher increases opportunities for students to learn); and (c) how a student learns science content and about scientific practices across scientific disciplines?

The PI will use a quasi-experimental design and an observational study to compare the learning and practice of the teachers to the learning of students when teachers are supported with educative curricula materials and when they are not. The PI intends to draw on a range of data sources (e.g., classroom observations, interviews, and teacher and student assessments and artifacts) to capture the impact of the educative overlays. Content analysis will also be used to generate thematic content maps in the analysis of qualitative data while hierarchical linear modeling and repeated measures (ANOVA) will be used to compute quantitative analyses.

The intended outcomes of this project includes better ways to teach inquiry at the elementary level; educative overlays in both expository and narrative forms; improved theoretical knowledge of teacher learning; an empirical trace of connections among opportunities for teachers to learn, their knowledge, their practice, and the outcomes of their students.

This award is funded under NSF's Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) activities, which aim to address challenges of creating a sustainable world.

Attention is increasingly focused on global climate change and its impact on vulnerable populations of women and children in the form of food insecurity, the uncertainty of drought and other catastrophic international environmental events. This RCN-SEES project will broaden participation of underrepresented groups by building a global network of women scholars from different ethnic and racial groups engaged in climate change research. Through international workshops and the Global Women Scholars peer to peer mentoring program, we will develop scholarly collaborations on population vulnerability, food security, and sustainability strategies. These research teams will act as both peer support for women scientists around the world and as a mentoring network to encourage more women and girls into the science, technology, engineering and mathematical (STEM) disciplines. The effectiveness of these methods in educating and engaging women as climate change scientists at a global scale will be assessed enabling the project to make significant advances in our understanding of how to promote the inclusion of women in climate change and sustainability research.

We cannot solve global problems using half of the global capacity. Broadening the participation of women and members of underrepresented minorities is central to increasing U.S. competitiveness and addressing global climate change issues that have significant implications for our society. Mentoring, social networks, and peer support are important in any field but more critically needed to encourage women into the sciences. Women are under-represented in the STEM disciplines and research suggests that by providing social networks and peer support, we can increase the number of women participating as professionals in the science fields. This project focuses on creating a new generation of women scholars and promoting multidisciplinary and multi-cultural research that combines ecological, agricultural, social, and behavioral sciences related to women and sustainability.

Women are underrepresented in science and technology within research and academic institutions.
Women of the STEM diaspora within the U.S. represent an important element in bringing more women into STEM fields as role models, mentors and peers. This proposed workshop builds on two previous general sessions on the diaspora and focuses the outcome on research collaborations and targeted proposals. The synthesis model is designed to quickly form teams among participants and is outcome focused throughout the workshop session. In addition, the workshop builds on the International Gender Summit (hosted by NSF in 2013) and the Global Diaspora Forum (hosted by U.S. State Department in 2013). Both venues have provided collaborative opportunities for women of the STEM diaspora and it is anticipated that most of the participants will be identified from these two summits. Graduate students and early career women from the diaspora and women of color will be invited to attend the workshop and meet with academic and researchers from the STEM diaspora. Organizers will also use networking survey tools and assessments to explore network characteristics of women in the workshop and use social media tools to follow participants post-workshop and to maintain network connections.

The Mobilizing Women of the STEM Diaspora (MW-STEM) workshop has two goals: (1) build global network on women of the STEM diaspora, and (2) provide peer-to-peer and institution-to-institutional mentoring in the development of scientific collaborations. MW-STEM will be hosted in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, February 2014 and will be co-hosted by the U.S. State Department and AAAS Fellows. The proposed workshop will provide a space where the participants work to a common outcome using facilitated breakout sessions. The MW-STEM agenda is designed around creating teams that first organize around general topic themes: (1) research collaborations; (2) peer mentoring networks; (3) theme and proposal development towards 2014 and 2015 Gender Summits; and (4) white paper/review authorship. Workshop products will be disseminated through (1) proposal development and submission; (2) published review paper on identified issues for women of the STEM diaspora; (3) peer mentoring networks established through LinkedIn and other social media.

With 2.2 million Americans in prisons and jails, the United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. In light of emerging public concerns about the cost, efficacy, and dignity of mass incarceration, counties and states have developed innovative policies designed to reduce the number of individuals behind bars. In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (Brown v. Plata) that California's practices of mass incarceration were unconstitutional, and that the "cruel and unusual" punishment of being subject to California's overcrowded prisons was particularly difficult for inmates with mental illnesses. Following this court decision, California has experimented with alternatives in criminal justice infrastructure. One such experiment has been the development of mental health courts, which are criminal courtrooms that aspire to take convicted individuals with mental illnesses out of jails and place them in community psychiatric care. Mental health courts structurally differ from other criminal courtrooms in that prosecution and defense attorneys collaborate with psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and the judges to monitor offender' progress towards mental health. In this context,offenders become "clients" of the courtroom. They are required to follow a court-developed treatment plan, and if they deviate from that plan, the judge may return them to jail. The research supported by this award asks what these alternative legal programs might be accomplishing in addition to the promotion of decarceration? Are there side effects or unintended consequences? Better understanding of the practices and effects of mental health courts is critical for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of programs designed to redress mass incarceration.

Princeton University doctoral candidate Jessica Cooper, with the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Davis, will conduct the research in the mental health courts of Santa Clara and San Francisco counties in California. She will carry out ethnographic observations in the two courtrooms and in the court-sponsored clinics through which offender-clients receive care. She will supplement these observational data with interviews of courtroom and clinical professionals, as well as clients, and with analyses of court records and transcripts. These data will allow her to identify and analyze the relationships that develop between clients and state representatives to investigate exactly how these relationships work to combine care and control in order to provide public health services through a system designed for criminal justice. Findings from Cooper's research also will illuminate the degree to which structural change in the criminal justice system at the local level may affect more general extra-local relationships, as well, such as the relationships between mental health court professionals, their clients, and multiple levels of government.

The primary objective of this study is to document how people learn the science of the COVID-19 pandemic in real time, how they activate this scientific knowledge towards informed decision making, and how these processes change over time. This study is intended to produce additional insights on how such learning is shaped by equity concerns and contextual factors. For example, researchers will document how the ways in which people learn the science of COVID-19 are mediated by the sources of information they have access to and leverage, as well as what supports them in doing so. The research will further document how people leverage their understandings of COVID-19, alongside other forms of knowledge and concerns in their decision-making. This study may serve a crucial role in aiding the public understanding of where structural points of informational failure might occur. It may also reveal where and how the public engages or resists community action strategies to mitigate spread and suffering through when, how and why they gather, share, and make sense of scientific data. This RAPID was submitted in response to the NSF Dear Colleague letter related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This award is made by the AISL and ECR programs in the Division of Research on Learning, using funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

This research will draw upon a conceptual framework of consequential learning and a methodological framework of narrative inquiry. Sixty participants in Lansing, Michigan and Seattle, Washington will participate over the course of one year in cyclical interviews, focus group conversations and experience sampling approaches. Documents and resources named and used by the participants in their learning will be collected and analyzed. Attention will be paid to science learning in the following areas as the primary focus: a) the science of SARS-CoV-2 and the relationship between virus and disease, b) viral transmission, and c) origination, replication and spread. A key focus will also be how people use scientific data and evidence-based explanations when developing understandings and making decisions with respect to the pandemic. This research is urgent and timely because the COVID-19 pandemic is projected to occur in multiple waves over approximately 18 months. Insights may produce basic understanding about rapid science learning, policy strategies, school-based practices and resources for use within current and future waves. Socioscientific crises differentially impact people, with effects felt more significantly by vulnerable people. Thus, this study will address the urgent call for investigation into factors and experiences of low-income individuals and families who are trying to educate themselves on continually changing data during an international health crisis.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.