Research Experiences for Teachers as Professional Development

Abstract

This poster session will provide an overview of a two-summer research experience for teachers at Rice University and its results for AP Physics classroom instruction.

Full text

Research Experiences for
Teachers as Professional
Development
James Newland - Bellaire HS & University of Houston College of Education

What is a research experience for teachers (RET)?
●University STEM labs embed teachers
in research for 6 weeks to 1 year
●RET program created by NSF1
●There are many other research
internships for teachers
●Some focus on manipulating unique
lab equipment
●Some focus on computational
thinking and computer science
●Teachers usually create a poster and
a lesson from their research

Computational Thinking (CT)
Systems Thinking
Practices
System as Whole
Relationships in
Systems
Computational
Problem Solving
Practices
Prep Problems
Programming
Assess Solutions
Modeling &
Simulation Practices
Grasp Concepts
Find/Test
Solutions
Data Practices
Collecting
Creating
Manipulating
The RETs described
here involved CT
beyond the
programming skills
that teachers develop
although programming
was a big part of the
research experience.
Weintrop, et al. 20162
Analyzing
Visualizing
Assessing
Designing
Constructing
Modular Solns
Abstractions
Debugging
Thinking in Levels
Defining System
Complexity

Research Experiences 2018 - 2020
Scalable Health Labs 2018
Comparison of waveform
parameters from open-source vs
commercial photoplethysmography

Research Experiences 2018 - 2020
Scalable Health Labs
2019
Real-time remote
photoplethysmography using a
webcam and graphical user
interface

Research Experiences 2018 - 2020
McDonald Observatory
2019-2020
Lanthanide abundances of
low-metallicity halo stars using
spectroscopy

Guided Inquiry: Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and Worked Examples
Guided Inquiry - CLT3
as framework and
worked examples4 as
pedagogy
●Fast Fourier
Transform
●OpenCV Face
Tracking
●Echelle Spectrum
Viewer
●Aperture
Photometry

Taking the research back to the classroom
●Visualize your Heartbeat
○Full Engineering Lesson
with CircuitPlayground
Express Boards
○50 min Lesson with
Arduino UNO Boards
○CircuitPlayground &
Micropython Demo
○MS MakeCode with
micro:bit
●Measure the Milky Way
with Stars (TE)
●Stellar Absorption Line
Detection (WIP)

Apply for an RET
●Greenbank Observatory
●MIT Haystack
Observatory
●Ohio State Univ
STEMCoding
●Rice University
○In Person RET
○SWITCH
●Purdue University
●UH College of Tech

Acknowledgments and Citations
1National Science Foundation (2017). Research Experiences for
Teachers (RET). Retrieved March 30, 2020, from
https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=50517
2Weintrop, D., Beheshti, E., Horn, M., Orton, K., Jona, K., Trouille, L., &
Wilensky, U. (2016). Defining Computational Thinking for Mathematics
and Science Classrooms. Journal of Science Education and
Technology, 25(1), 127–147.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-015-9581-5
3Morrison, B. B., Dorn, B., & Guzdial, M. (2014). Measuring cognitive
load in introductory CS. 131–138.
https://doi.org/10.1145/2632320.2632348
4Skudder, B., & Luxton-Reilly, A. (2014). Worked examples in computer
science. Conferences in Research and Practice in Information
Technology Series, 148, 59–64.
Thanks to Dr. Ashutosh
Sabharwal from the Rice
Scalable Health Labs, R-STEM
team Dr. Carolyn Nichol, Allen
Antoine, and Christina Crawford,
(Grant NSF-IIS-1730574) and
also thanks to Dr. Chris Sneden
and Dr. Keely Finkelstein from
UT Austin Department of
Astronomy (Grant No.
AST-1616040), as well as the
NSF. Code and more
information available at
https://jimmynewland.com
jimmynewland.com