Tamar Ronen Fuhrmann

• Stanford University

Computational modeling tools present unique opportunities and challenges for student learning. Each tool has a representational system that impacts the kinds of explorations students engage in. Inquiry aligned with a tool’s representational system can support more productive engagement toward target learning goals. However, little research has exam...

When learning about scientific phenomena, students are expected to mechanistically explain how underlying interactions produce the observable phenomenon and conceptually connect the observed phenomenon to canonical scientific knowledge. This paper investigates how the integration of the complementary processes of designing and refining computationa...

Automation has played a key role in improving the safety, accuracy, and efficiency of manufacturing and industrial processes and has the potential to greatly increase throughput in the life sciences. However, the lack of accessible entry-point automation hardware in life science research and STEM education hinders its widespread adoption and develo...

Research established that most learners perceive STEM learning environments as settings that exclude diverse ways of thinking. We investigate factors behind this trend in two sites that recently implemented fully-equipped makerspaces, but have deeply different socioeconomic contexts. We identify factors associated with increased self-efficacy and a...

Maker education stands out as an approach to STEM learning that has several benefits. However, despite the recent rise in its popularity, making in education may be excluding some groups of learners. In this poster, we report partial findings of a mixed-methods research project carried out in two high schools serving blue-collar, working-class fami...

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) define "using and developing models" as an essential science and engineering practice. In a week-long science unit using the Bifocal Modeling approach, students perform hands-on experiments, design models and finally interact and compare real data with computational models. In this paper, we describe the...

While research on makerspaces has grown rapidly over the last decade, studies about Maker assessment practices in schools remains an underdeveloped area. The goal of this paper is to explore how to assess student learning in Maker education in K-12 schools. Utilizing a case study approach, we conducted in-depth class observation and interviews in o...

The Bifocal Modelling Framework (BMF) is an approach for science learning which links students’ physical experimentation with computer modelling in real time, focusing on the comparison of the two media. In this paper, we explore how a Bifocal Modelling implementation supported learning outcomes related to both content and metamodeling knowledge, f...

In this paper we demonstrate an approach to supporting students' engagement in combined physical experimentation and virtual modeling. We present a study that utilizes a scientific inquiry framework which links students' physical experimentation with their use of computer modeling in real time, which we call "Bifocal Modeling." In the case of the B...

Research in the learning sciences has shown that many opportunities to learn arise in the course of designing an artefact in general, and in designing an artefact intended for others to learn with, in particular. Papert (1991), in his description of constructionism claimed that a productive way to support learning is to engage learners in construct...

In this paper we will examine students' meta-modeling knowledge in the context of their participation in a Bifocal Modeling activity. Bifocal Modeling is an inquiry-based approach for science learning, which incorporates both physical experimentation and virtual modeling. The current study combines three separate case studies of students participat...

In this paper, we describe a set of user studies within the Bifocal Modeling (BM) framework. BM juxtaposes physical and computer models using sensor-based and computer modeling technologies, highlighting the discrepancies between ideal and real systems. When creating bifocal models, students build both a physical model with sensors of a given scien...

In this paper we describe a pilot study of an approach to STEM inquiry learning called Bifocal Modeling (Blikstein, 2010) with a group of high school students studying bacterial growth. Students grew real bacteria, and then collaboratively designed a conceptual agent-based model of bacteria to mimic the observed growth. Observations and student not...

Finding ways to support novice educational technology designers is of high importance in many design fields. In this research we examined three courses in which graduate students learned to design technology-based curriculum modules. The courses were based on a teaching model developed in a design-based research methodology with four iterations. Th...

This research explored the nature of design knowledge by examining the processes in which graduate students in education learned to design educational technologies. We developed two rubrics to assess: (a) the degree to which students were able to translate their design ideas into concrete design artifacts (concretization rubric), and (b) the degree...

The potential of design to support learning has been documented for a wide range of ages. In this research we explore the added value of engaging learners in a design process, with a target audience that received little attention in the learning-by-design literature, namely, graduate students in education. Our exploration of student learning is con...

This article describes a course in which graduate students in education learn practical and theoretical aspects of educational design by creating technologies for learning. The course was built around three themes: Analyzing technologies, in which students study state-of-the-art technologies and interview their designers; design studio, in which st...

This paper describes a course in which graduate students learn practical and theoretical aspects of educational-design. The course was enacted with 14 students in education. Outcomes illustrate tensions between students' professed beliefs about learning and their actual design practices in four dimensions that characterize the technologies they des...

The steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) is a vital mitochondrial protein that is indispensable for the synthesis of steroid hormones in the steroidogenic cells of the adrenal cortex and the gonads. Recent studies have shown that StAR enhances the conversion of the substrate for all steroid hormones, cholesterol, into pregnenolone, probabl...

The steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) is a vital mitochondrial protein that is indispensable for the synthesis of steroid hormones in the steroidogenic cells of the adrenal cortex and the gonads. Recent studies have shown that StAR enhances the conversion of the substrate for all steroid hormones, cholesterol, into pregnenolone, probabl...

We have previously demonstrated that steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) is essential for the rate-limiting step in the acute regulation of steroidogenesis, which is the transport of cholesterol from the outer to the inner mitochondrial membrane. We have hypothesized that this transport, occurs as the 37-kilodalton (kDa) precursor form of...

We have previously demonstrated that steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR) is essential for the rate-limiting step in the acute regulation of steroidogenesis, which is the transport of cholesterol from the outer to the inner mitochondrial membrane. We have hypothesized that this transport occurs as the 37-kilodalton (kDa) precursor form of...

Understanding the characteristics of design knowledge, and finding ways to support novices in gaining it is of high importance in many design fields. This research examined the nature of design knowledge in three semester- long courses in which graduate students learned to design technology-based curriculum modules. All courses were based on an ins...