About
81
Publications
23,743
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Introduction
Burrows Borowczak is a Professor of Secondary Science Education and the Director of the School of Teacher Education at the University of Central Florida. Previously she was a Professor and the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the University of Wyoming. She explores the intersection of science education, engineering education, computer science education, and partnerships. Her research allows for greater insight into integrated STEM education. She has led many grant projects and PDs.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
July 2022 - present
Position
- Professor (Full)
Description
- Director, School of Teacher Education; Professor - Secondary Science Education
July 2007 - July 2011
Position
- Grant Coordinator
Description
- Liason for the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science and Cincinnati public schools.
July 2011 - July 2022
Position
- Professor
Description
- Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs, Professor - Secondary Science Education
Publications
Publications (81)
The purpose of this study was to describe how US secondary science preservice teachers, or those preparing to teach middle and high school science, at one university, perceive engineering and teaching engineering within an epistemological framework of required domain components pre- and post-instruction (intervention) as well as over three cohort y...
Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from astronomy to zoology. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught.
Purpose: The overarching motivation of this work is to understand authentic science learning of STEM dataset skill...
Research on innovative, integrated outreach programs guided three separate week-long outreach camps held across two summers (2018 and 2019). These camps introduced computer science through real-world applications and hands-on activities, each dealing with cybersecurity principles. The camps utilized low-cost hardware and free software to provide a...
This article showcases STEM as an interdisciplinary field in which the disciplines strengthen and support each other (not as separate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines). The authors focus on an open-ended, complex problem—water quality—as the primary teaching and learning task. The participants, middle school female stud...
A study funded by the National Science Foundation through the Robert Noyce Scholarship program targeted degree-holding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates to support licensure in secondary science or math. The grant, entitled Sustaining Wyoming’s Advancing Reach in Mathematics and Science (SWARMS), provided the study’...
Partnerships among professionals within collegiate teacher preparation programs and school districts are needed to address current teacher shortages, especially critical in urban, high-needs schools. This research study showcases a collaborative model of teacher recruitment, preparation, and support that envisions and co-constructs reconceptualized...
A computer science camp for pre-collegiate students was operated during the summers of 2022 and 2023. The effect the camp had on attitudes was quantitatively assessed using a survey instrument. However, enrollment at the summer camp was small, which meant the well-known Pearson's Chi-Squared to measure the significance of results was not applied. T...
This paper investigated the effect of using LEGO EV3 robots to teach Newton’s second law with conceptual understanding to a group of 14 to 18-year-olds in an after-school STEM education program. 74 teenagers participated in this research study. A quantitative methods approach involving descriptive analyses, paired-sample t-test, and repeated measur...
The ability to use technology within the context of science is important for science students; however, the integration of technology within science is not implemented consistently across the curriculum, nor across grade and age levels. More insight is needed as to how science and technology are integrated in the classroom. Technology usage takes m...
New curriculum reform across the United States requires teacher educators to rapidly develop and implement professional development (PD) for K-12 teachers, newly assigned to teach computer science (CS). One of the many inherent challenges in providing valuable PD is knowing what it is that novice CS teachers most need. This quantitative research st...
This research investigated the effectiveness of the conceptual change model (CCM) in addressing pre-service elementary teachers’ misconceptions and promoting their conceptual understanding of electrostatics. The participants were 55 pre-service elementary teachers enrolled in an elementary physical science course, 44 females and 11 males. An embedd...
Teaching science concepts for conceptual understanding has its challenges. Bringing about conceptual change in the science classroom can be difficult because most concepts are complicated and often counter-intuitive in the teaching and learning of science concepts. A review of the literature indicates that the conceptual change model, CCM can be an...
In recent years, Wyoming has developed Computer Science (CS) standards for adoption and use within K-12 classrooms. These standards, adopted in January of 2022, go into effect for the 2022-2023 school year. The University of Wyoming has offered
two different computer science week-long professional developments for teachers. Many K-12 teachers do no...
For 2 weeks in the summer of 2018, K-12 STEM teachers ( n = 40) attended a professional development (PD) that included four sessions focused on computer science modeling with follow-up academic year sessions; however, overall, the teachers did not meet expectations about what modeling means or how to utilize it. To examine why, the authors looked a...
Like much of the world, the United States is rapidly implementing the teaching of computer science into both primary and secondary school curricula. Uncovering what challenges U.S. schools in general—and rural U.S. schools in the unique environment of more mountainous regions of the U.S. in particular—face in implementing new curricula is not well...
The “leaky pipeline” in STEM remains an open issue. The integration of multiple STEM subjects, especially technology, is a promising approach, and pre-collegiate STEM teachers are particularly underprepared in this content area. In this case study, the authors explore and characterize the discussions of pre-collegiate STEM teachers among themselves...
The purpose of this study was to explore how undergraduate college students formed partnerships in informal educational teams to design and build an interdisciplinary, ill-defined, integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project and translate it to lessons taught to a pre-collegiate student (e.g., K-12 in the US) audienc...
Computer science, cybersecurity education, and microcredentials are becoming more pervasive in all levels of the educational system. The purpose of this study was partnering with precollegiate teachers: (1) to investigate the self-efficacy of 30 precollegiate teacher participants towards computer science before, during, and after three iterations o...
This article explores technology’s integration, assessment, and reflection within a single secondary education program at a Mountain West university. In light of the publication of the Teacher Education Technology Competencies (TETCs), faculty members of a secondary education program focused on existing practices and pathways for expansion to bette...
The purpose of this study was to describe what and how secondary science preservice teachers (SSPST) implemented technology, in student teaching residency, that they had planned in previous science methods courses. A collective case study approach with purposeful sampling was used to gain understanding of multiple perspectives across prior experien...
Secondary and post-secondary science and engineering educators share common class arrangements with both a laboratory and lecture component, coordinating both components so they build upon each other to create meaningful learning experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic forced educators to convert lectures and exams to online delivery. Doing so came with...
An authentic, interdisciplinary, research and problem-based integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project may be ideal for encouraging scientific inquiry and developing teamwork among undergraduate students, but it also presents challenges. The authors describe how two interdisciplinary teams (n=6) of undergraduate col...
This study compares three pre-collegiate teacher professional learning and development (PLD) integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) experiences framed in astronomy. The study is set in the western United States (USA) and involves 60 pre-collegiate teachers (in the USA these are K-12 teachers) over the course of three ye...
Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from healthcare work to astronomy research. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught. Purpose: The overarching motivation is to understand learning of dataset skills within an astrono...
The purpose of this systematic study review was to describe how researchers integrated mobile devices into outdoor science learning, assessment of those activities, and alignment of purpose, integration, and assessment. From initial 980 search results, the authors selected 45 articles based on the eligibility criteria of: (a) empirical study; (b) l...
Automation and mechanization require students to master the utilization and creation of new technology. Vital for potential careers, tomorrow's professionals require technological understanding to remain competitive in a job market driven by engineering advances. Regardless, most K-12 schools in the US and other countries do not currently other Com...
There is a clear call for pre-collegiate students in the United States to become literate in computer science (CS) concepts and practices through integrated, authentic experiences and instruction. Yet, a majority of in-service and pre-service pre-collegiate teachers (instructing children aged five to 18) lack the fundamental skills and self-efficac...
In the United States (US), PK‐12 education refers to elementary and secondary education for students aged 4‐18. Designed to engage youth in social change processes, as they are often not sought as change agents, youth participatory action research (YPAR) connects practice and reflection. Community‐based educational AR requires immersion into the AR...
This article explores one group’s use of action research (AR) and lesson study in three US university-level computer science courses affecting 85 undergraduate computer science and engineering students. It offers an overview of three areas including AR, lesson study, and engineering soft skills. The research group identified a problem: undergraduat...
This study bridges discipline silos between science courses and computer science by indicating how they fit into and complement each other. A study of eight K12 teachers and 26 K12 secondary students participated in a GenCyber (cybersecurity) camp for a week during July 2018. External evaluations of the camp show its success and how cybersecurity f...
Este artigo examina se uma aula de sala de aula cinestésica de engajamento ativo ou uma lição de planetário verbal-participativa e visual-imersiva levou ao aumento do conhecimento sobre o eclipse para os alunos (com idade entre 10 e 15 anos) nos Estados Unidos. Utilizando um desenho de pesquisa de múltiplas medidas, um teste pré/pós eclipse e um te...
There is a current national emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Additionally, many states are transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), which encourage teachers to incorporate engineering in science classrooms as well as have their students learn science by doing science. Methods courses are al...
This chapter explores the action research (AR) leaders' roles through two studies. The frame is K-20 science, technology, engineering, andmathematics (STEM) education and integration and how participant engagement leads to AR project insight. Specifically, we set the stage wih the evolution of science education and then use an informal Girl Scout w...
The adoption of " new" and "untested " pedagogical approaches within collegiate classrooms discounts that these approaches are anything but new, and that a trove of data and lessons learned is already available. The work in K12 classrooms and professional development is often ignored rather than leveraged as a force multiplier as a starting point i...
This paper, based on pre/post test scores of engineering student responses to ABET soft skill knowledge, explores the possibilities for freshman engineering students to engage meaningfully in six of the 11 outcomes for engineering graduates. With a focus on multi-disciplinary teamwork, professional ethical responsibility, effective communication, e...
Research on teaching through discipline integration is currently emphasized as a gap in educational
literature, and this study bridges discipline silos between the arts and sciences by indicating how science
and art compliment content learning. A study of secondary education pre-service teachers (3 years, n =
52) participating in a science/art inte...
Cloud-based implementations of interactive code notebooks and multi-agent simulators enable K12 and collegiate level instructors to incorporate computer science (CS) into their existing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses and professional developments (PDs). Three different K16+instructor-learner interactions are highlig...
This paper provides a view of 22 K12 teachers' expectations versus the actuality of immersion into an engineering education computer science (CS) project during a Math/Science Partnership (MSP) grant called RAMPED, which was a 16-day, yearlong MSP grant. The CS session using NetLogo was selected for focused examination. NetLogo is a multi-agent sim...
Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from healthcare work to astronomy research. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught. The authors studied a matched set of participants (n=87) working with Google Sheets to analyze a 200-entry da...
Increases in student-centered pedagogy have been more prevalent in K–12 education than in collegiate undergraduate science education. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of using student-centered pedagogy advocated in K–12 education on introductory astronomy students’ content knowledge, interest, and recall of content taught in t...
Currently, computer science (CS) is emphasized in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) standards and curricula in K-12 settings. The authors of this paper argue that K-12 teachers can learn basic CS fundamentals through exploration with a free, online programming technology tool called NetLogo and without structured, lecture-ori...
Computer science (CS) and engineering concepts are often absent from education-led initiatives. This study examined the views of 23 pre-service teachers (PST) regarding CS/engineering concepts. Findings show pre-service teachers (PSTs) have below average content knowledge in part recognition and skill
sets, as well in use of crosscutting construct...
Physics of the 20th century has contributed significantly to modern technology, and yet many physics students are never availed the opportunity to study it as part of the curriculum. One of the possible reasons why it is not taught in high school and introductory physics courses could be because curriculum designers believe that students need a sol...
The authors use an action research (AR) approach in a collegiate studio physics class to investigate the power of partnerships via conferences as they relate to issues of establishing a student/mentor rapport, empowering students to reduce inequity, and the successes and barriers to hearing students' voices. The graduate teaching assistant (TA, Aut...
The authors use an action research (AR) approach in a collegiate studio physics class to investigate the power of partnerships via conferences as they relate to issues of establishing a student/mentor rapport, empowering students to reduce inequity, and the successes and barriers to hearing students’ voices. The graduate teaching assistant (TA, Aut...
Can you explain the basics of computing or computer science (CS)? Most computing experts have no problem talking to their peers about CS, but can they teach novices? Teaching and interacting with students without any prior scaffolding or exposure to CS concepts is outside the expertise area of most CS content experts and STEM faculty. This work hig...
A total group of 41 K-12 science, mathematics, and technology (STEM) in-service teachers chose to participate in a Math and Science Partnership grant for professional development (PD), named Launching Astronomy: Standards and STEM Integration or LASSI (resources found at UWpd.org/LASSI) for 25-days during the summer and academic year that involved...
Twenty-three pre-collegiate educators of elementary students (ages 5-10 years) and secondary students (ages 11-18 years) attended a two-week science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) astronomy focused professional development in the summer of 2015 with activities focused on authentic science experiences, inquiry, and partnership buil...
This article details a new, free resource for continuous video assessment named YouDemo. The tool enables real time rating of uploaded YouTube videos for use in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and beyond. The authors discuss trends of preservice science teachers’ assessments of self- and peer-created videos using...
Two individuals, one high school teacher and one engineering graduate student, created a lesson in an attempt to expand traditional lessons and instruct the graduate student on effective pedagogy. This article outlines the integrated high school lesson showcasing all the aspects of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as well as...
In this article, the authors describe experiences in and offer suggestions from a course entitled ‘Educational Innovation for Excellence Through Action Research, Conflict Resolution, and Organizational Learning’ – an action evaluation (AE). The class was taught using the principles of action research and AE. The authors explore the impact that the...
This theoretical position paper proposes a novel and actionable framework for analyzing and enhancing future teachers level of complexity in integrating knowledge, skills, and attitudes across science, technology, engineering and mathematics--STEM--disciplines. Using a lens of pedagogical content knowledge, conventional STEM teacher preparation eff...
While it can take different forms, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) K-12 teacher professional development (PD) is important around the world. Though all stakeholders play critical roles in PDs, the author focuses on the larger system that supports the PDs. As such, this research study focuses on the PD results, but also on t...
Providing meaningful telescope observing experiences for students who are deeply urban or distantly rural place-bound—or even daylight time-bound—has consistently presented a formidable challenge for astronomy educators. For nearly 2 decades, the Internet has promised unfettered access for large numbers of students to conduct remote telescope obser...
Providing meaningful telescope observing experiences for students who are deeply urban or distantly rural place-boundor even daylight time-boundhas consistently presented a formidable challenge for astronomy educators. For nearly 2 decades, the Internet has promised unfettered access for large numbers of students to conduct remote telescope observi...
This article explores the vertical alignment of two high school classes, biology and chemistry, around the core concept of biodiesel fuel production. High school teachers and university faculty members investigated biodiesel as it relates to societal impact through a National Science Foundation Research Experience for Teachers. Using an action rese...
Projects highlighting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in high schools have promoted student interest in engineering-related fields and enhanced student understanding of mathematics and science concepts. The Science and Technology Enhancement Program (Project STEP), funded by a NSF GK-12 grant at the University of...
In sharing this case study experience, the researchers encourage K-20 teachers to consider incorporating engineering design into any STEM lesson. This article describes just one lesson, created by a then graduate engineering student, influenced by a secondary teacher, and gently shaped by mentors. The lessons learned from this case study in a secon...
Few high school science teachers have had opportunities to engage in
authentic scientific research. As a result, many may find it difficult
to communicate to their students how science is done. Moreover, without
relevant experience, teachers have few pathways to be able to
successfully implement scientific research and inquiry into the
classroom. I...
Two activities, one on heat/work and one on dynamic equilibrium, are described for three high school classes (n=55) in the USA. The curriculum addressed showcases strategies to use with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. The two lessons described follow the context ACS method (Application, Career opportunities, and S...
Is the field of computer science and engineering a strict discipline or an art form? The answer is both. Computer science and engineering concepts are typically found almost exclusively in collegiate engineering and technology programs. Given its importance across the 21st Century workforce, arguably these concepts should be taught at all pre-colle...
The focus of this article is the exploration of and an explanation of student researchers’ affect and activity in an action research project. Using a hermeneutical theoretical framework we argue that the researcher group as a whole constructs a wave process and at the same time each individual researcher in the group creates a wave process that may...
The purpose of this research was to understand how individuals,
specifically secondary teachers and graduate engineering students,
developed a working relationship in a grant funded project. I
investigated three interrelated research questions about partnerships
including: 1) What is the meaning of partnership to each individual? 2)
How do the indi...
Most blobs are emulsions. From a chemistry perspective, emulsions turn two liquid phases into what appears to be one continuous phase through the use of surfactants. This lesson, created by a chemical engineering graduate student, allows the secondary students to observe this phenomenon in the transformation of vinegar, oil, and egg yolks into mayo...
Projects highlighting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education in secondary schools have promoted student interest in engineering-related fields and better student understanding of math and science concepts. Project STEP (Science Technology Enhancement Program), funded by a NSF GK-12 grant at the University of Cincinnati,...
The science and technology enhancement program (STEP) at the University of Cincinnati (UC) links university faculty, graduate students, secondary teachers, and secondary students in an effort to enhance student competence and promote awareness in STEM disciplines. Graduate-student Fellows gain valuable experience assisting and teaching in urban hig...
