Gillian Roehrig

• University of Minnesota

This study aims to investigate the effects of an integrated Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) unit designed around the issue of sulfide mining on middle school students’ socioscientific reasoning competencies (i.e., complexity, perspective taking, inquiry, skepticism, affordances of science). More specifically, students’ leve...

This research investigated how middle school science teachers integrated engineering into their planned science instruction and the extent to which they conceptually linked science to engineering following participation in a professional development program. Video recordings of six teachers’ classroom implementation of teacher-designed units were t...

Integrated STEM education (iSTEM) is recognized for its potential to improve students’ scientific and mathematical knowledge, as well as to nurture positive attitudes toward STEM, which are essential for motivating students to consider STEM-related careers. While prior studies have examined the relationship between specific iSTEM activities or curr...

Background and Purpose: As a response to the need for effective engineering integration in K-12 science classrooms, teachers should be supported with rich professional development (PD) with diverse components (e.g. curriculum material support). Grounded in the framework for quality K-12 engineering education, this study explores how elementary scie...

With an increasing focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education around the world, affective STEM learning is widely acknowledged as a key factor in influencing students’ thinking, learning, and behavior. This article presents a systematic review of existing instruments that measure various elements of affective learni...

Review of the recent literature on integrated STEM curriculum development and implementation. Included are frameworks for integrated STEM curriculum development and research assessments to evaluate curriculum quality. Details and examples from a large integrated STEM research project in the United States are included. The paper concludes with a cal...

To address the lack of a classroom observation protocol aligned with integrated STEM , the author team developed one to measure the degree of integrated STEM instruction implemented in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This study demonstrates how our instrument can be used to uncover the dimensions of integrated STEM instruction practiced in...

In this exploratory case study, the assessment methods planned and used in Egyptian STEM schools were explored. The purpose of the study was to explore the relationship between the ideals provided in STEM education both from research and policy documents and the actual assessment strategies used both at the classroom and state level in order to und...

Background Based on the literature review, shared characteristics of integrated STEM (I-STEM) curriculum includes an engaging and motivating context, student participation in engineering design activities, opportunity to redesign, engaging in mathematics or science content, having student-centred pedagogies, and teamwork and communication. These pr...

Early-career science teachers work to negotiate between the reform-based theories presented in their preservice licensure program and the realities of the classroom. When they do so, their beliefs about science teaching and their classroom practices don’t necessarily evolve in tandem.

Undergraduate programs in sustainability and food systems studies increasingly recognize the importance of building equity competencies for students within these programs. Experiential learning opportunities in these programs often place students in internships or service learning in racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse communities....

Induction programs are an important component of teacher education aimed at developing teachers as lifelong learners who can make use of reflective and self-regulatory learning practices. The online induction program in this study uses reflective learning cycles to promote the development of reflective practice. A multiple case study of three begin...

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools and districts continue to emerge, and while some research highlights critical components to be included in STEM schools, there is a need to learn more about the process of becoming a STEM school or district. In this study, we investigated a rural United States school district’s develo...

Following professional development (PD), implementation of contemporary topics into high school biology requires teachers to make critical decisions regarding integration of novel content into existing course scope and sequence. Often exciting topics, such as neuroscience, do not perfectly align with standards. Despite commitment to enacting what w...

Given the large variation in conceptualizations and enactment of K − 12 integrated STEM, this paper puts forth a detailed conceptual framework for K − 12 integrated STEM education that can be used by researchers, educators, and curriculum developers as a common vision. Our framework builds upon the extant integrated STEM literature to describe seve...

Women are underrepresented at multiple levels of physics education. One avenue for understanding the classroom experiences that perpetuate underrepresentation is physics identity, defined using the three dimensions of recognition, performance, and competence. Existing literature suggests that women tend to have a much weaker physics identity than m...

Integrated approaches to teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are increasingly being implemented in elementary and middle school classrooms, and despite a variety of conceptions of integrated STEM, researchers agree that small group activities and teamwork play a central role in STEM learning. However, little is known a...

Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is becoming increasingly common in K-12 classrooms, and small group activities are ubiquitous to STEM instruction. This article includes both theoretical and practical descriptions of a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis that we used to e...

Background Few tools or rubrics exist to assess the quality of integrated STEM curricula, and existing tools focus on checklists of characteristics of integrated STEM. While such instruments provide important information about the presence and quality of certain curricular components, they do not assess the level and nature of integration of the cu...

Current policy documents across the world call for changes in K-12 science teaching to use integrated STEM strategies to provide a more authentic learning environment for students. Though the importance of integrated STEM education is established through national and international policy documents, there remains disagreement on focus, models, and e...

The sentiment that creativity is the most important skill needed to solve the problems that we face is repeated by different business and industry leaders around the world). Since January 2020, the call for creativity has been amplified in response to the problems and obstacles caused by COVID19. Yet, creativity remains the most neglected 21st cent...

This research employed a single-case design to examine an urban agricultural internship program called Grounding Roots, which brings together youth interns, and undergraduate and community elder mentors, in intergenerational garden groups. This research question guided the study: How, if at all, can community-based education through internships sup...

There is currently a severe shortage of teachers in the U.S. workforce. The problem is especially acute among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers and exacerbated by high turnover among new teachers—those with less than 5 years of teaching experience. In this article, the authors investigate one piece of the puzzle. The...

The role of technology in STEM education remains unclear and needs stronger operational definition. In this paper, we explore the theoretical connection between STEM and emergent technologies, with a focus on learner behaviors and the potential of technology‐mediated experiences with computational participation (CP) in shaping STEM learning. In par...

Background: The study was initiated as a response to the growing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) experience in Egypt in terms of the growing number of schools, number of students admitted, and the effect of this experience on the overall education system in the country. Viewing teachers as the backbone of the STEM experienc...

Background Recent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effec...

With ongoing underrepresentation of women in STEM fields, it is necessary to explore ways to maintain girls' STEM interest throughout elementary and middle school. This study is situated within the context of Designs in STEM (pseudonym), an out‐of‐school program that engages urban youth in authentic STEM experiences. Participants were 30 girls atte...

We presented one new coach’s development during a K-12 STEM integration initiative in order to explore how coaches develop professional identities for coaching. Madison, a former mathematics educator, partnered with science teachers for 1 year in order to co-develop and implement STEM curriculum. Transcripts of coaching conversations, written refle...

Gender equity issues remain a challenge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, where women are highly underrepresented. As integrated STEM instruction becomes increasingly popular in elementary and middle school classrooms, it is important to consider whether the small group activities that are commonplace in STEM instr...

As more and more science teachers in the United States are now expected to implement STEM education in their classrooms, it is important to understand how teachers conceptualise STEM education. This information can then be used to provide teachers with meaningful support as they move towards implementation of STEM education. Understanding that not...

In theory, STEM (interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is cross‐disciplinary and situated in real‐world problem‐solving contexts. In practice, STEM disciplines are often implemented separately using contrived contexts. This paper examines theoretical and empirical aspects of Montessori middle school science in the Unit...

Background Cooperative and inquiry-based pedagogies provide a context for classroom discourse in which students develop joint understanding of subject matter knowledge. Using the symbolic interactionist perspective that meaning is constructed as individuals interact with one another, we examined how student groups enrolled in an undergraduate gener...

Induction training is a leading model for supporting teachers in today's challenging profession. We describe an online induction support scaffold designed around teacher leadership, and investigate how novice US teachers use leadership roles to address real-world teaching obstacles. We use symbolic interactionism as a lens to understand how teacher...

Background With the expansion of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) schools all over the United States and the world, new roles for teachers are being created, and with these roles, identities are evolving. However, these roles and identities remain an ill-defined area in STEM. The purpose of this paper was to explore the deve...

The problems that we face in our ever-changing, increasingly global society are multidisciplinary, and many require the integration of multiple Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) concepts to solve them. These problems are the driving force behind national calls for more and stronger students in the pipeline to enter into STEM...

Culturally responsive science teaching has been associated with several positive academic outcomes for students of color, including improved science achievement, attitudes, and identities. Given the chronic science performance gap between students of color and white peers, culturally responsive teaching seems ideal for mitigating this disparity. Tr...

In recent decades, schools in most Western countries, including the United States, have become increasingly culturally diverse. As global migration rises, cultural diversity in schools will continue to grow. Though an expansive research base has shown that teacher attitudes play an important role in student performance, comparatively little is know...

Opportunities for American Indian youth to meaningfully engage in school-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) experiences have historically been inadequate. As a consequence, American Indian students perform lower on standardized assessments of science education than their peers. In this article we describe the emergence o...

Background Current reforms in K-12 STEM education call for integration between science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Such integration of STEM disciplines at the K-12 level offers students an opportunity to experience learning in real-world, multidisciplinary contexts; however, there is little reported research about teachers’ ex...

Purpose: Science education literature has indicated that teachers do not always feel comfortable teaching socioscientific issues (SSI) that are infused with several social domains. In order to address this problem in teaching SSI, this study is designed to understand and describe the experiences of a science teacher and a social studies teacher, wh...

Research in socioscientific issue (SSI)-based interventions is relatively new (Sadler in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 41:513–536, 2004; Zeidler et al. in Journal of Research in Science Teaching 46:74–101, 2009), and there is a need for understanding more about the effects of SSI-based learning environments (Sadler in Journal of Research...

National reform documents are calling for an upsurge in the development of integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula to simultaneously increase the number of kindergarten through Grade 12 (K–12) students involved in STEM-related coursework and increase the competitiveness of the United States in the STEM-related...

Induction programs have become a leading model of providing coherent, targeted support for beginning teachers who are most at risk for leaving the profession. This comparison study assessed the impact of a designed teacher leadership intervention to support beginning teachers’ reflective practices and their use of network social capital in an onlin...

This multiple-case study explores the technology integration beliefs and practices of three elementary science teachers across an urban school district with a 1:1 iPad policy. By interviewing these teachers and observing them during the implementation of their co-developed STEM unit, we found that their beliefs about technology integration in STEM...

An explanatory embedded multiple case study design (Yin, 2013) was used to assess how six science teachers understood and enacted reform-based strategies within their K-12 classrooms. Results reveal a surprising degree of variation in how new science teachers’ beliefs about and enactment of reform- based teaching practices change during their first...

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Gender in Physics.] This study examined the perceptions of 6th grade middle school students regarding physics and physics-related careers. The overarching goal of this work was to understand similarities and differences between girls’ and boys’ perceptions surrounding physics and physics-related care...

This study introduces a critical response pedagogy (CRP), an arts-based critical technique to facilitate meaningful dialogue in focus group settings, to secondary school science education students to engage them in discussion about sediment and chemical load in their local river basin community. Using a holistic single case design, twenty-two 11th...

This study introduces a critical response pedagogy (CRP), an arts-based critical technique to facilitate meaningful dialogue in focus group settings, to secondary school science education students to engage them in discussion about sediment and chemical load in their local river basin community. Using a holistic single case design, twenty-two 11th...

This study investigated how a socioscientific issues (SSI) based environmental science class can be structured for promoting the agency of the students. This study utilizes the definition of agency that is purposeful actions taken by a student in their own interest or the power of the individual to choose what happens next. Using a qualitative appr...

Pinnegar (1998) defined self-study as “a methodology for studying professional practice settings” (p. 33). This set of chapters demonstrates the range of practice settings that self-study can illuminate, from a focus on inquiry activities within a science methods course (Bowen, Bartley, MacDonald, & Sherman) to a programmatic analysis of a clinical...

In this study, we explore how the Teacher Induction Network (TIN)- an online mentoring program addresses the challenges of developing online communities, provides subject-specific professional development and promotes reflection on classroom practices for beginning science and mathematics teachers. In particular the use of various web 2.0 tools lik...

This study utilizes an explanatory embedded case study methodology (Yin, 2014) to observe the effect of an Adventure Learning (AL) experience on pre-service K-12 science teachers’ TPACK and technology integration in the context of a graduate-level teacher licensure course. Participating teachers co-created lesson plans, instructional strategies, an...

This study utilizes an explanatory embedded case study methodology (Yin, 2014) to observe the effect of an Adventure Learning experience on pre-service science teachers’ TPACK. Results indicate an increase in teachers’ ability to identify and create pedagogically-grounded TPACK strategies for their future science instruction.

This study examines the use of a digital video annotation tool used by beginning in-service secondary science and mathematics teachers in the Teacher Induction Network (TIN). TIN is an online induction program in its ninth year of existence and has served over 180 teachers. The need to provide spaces for beginning teachers to reflect on their pract...

A nationwide survey of the undergraduate physical chemistry course was conducted to investigate the depth and breadth of content that is covered, how content is delivered, how student understanding is assessed, and the experiences and beliefs of instructors. The survey was administered to instructors of physical chemistry (N = 331) at American Chem...

The purpose of this study was to develop, scale, and validate assessments in engineering, science, and mathematics with grade appropriate items that were sensitive to the curriculum developed by teachers. The use of item response theory to assess item functioning was a focus of the study. The work is part of a larger project focused on increasing s...

Engineering design is a central feature of the scientific and engineering practices in the Next Generation Science Standards, allowing students to engage in solving problems using science and mathematics content in an engaging and meaningful context. Here, Dare et al provide a toy rocket testing unit that engages fifth-grade students in an engineer...

It is difficult to ignore the increased use of technological innovations in today’s world, which has led to various calls for the integration of engineering into K-12 science standards. The need to understand how engineering is currently being brought to science classrooms is apparent and necessary in order to address these calls for integration. T...

A significant body of the literature in science education examines students’ conceptions of the dissolution of ionic solids in water, often showing that students lack proper understanding of the particulate nature of dissolving materials as well as holding numerous misconceptions about the dissolution process. Consequently, chemical educators have...

As teachers prepare to bring engineering into K-12 science classrooms, guided by the calls of national reform documents (National Research Council, 2013), there is an importance to not only understand how teachers are accomplishing this, but to also understand their experiences and perceptions of the nature of engineering integration. By examining...