Milo Koretsky’s research while affiliated with Tufts University and other places

In this editorial, we review 400 articles and reviews published in the International Journal of STEM Education during its first decade (2014–2023). Using bibliometric analysis, we examine these publications to assess the journal’s major contributions to STEM education research and identify emerging trends over the years. The results present a dynamic picture of the growth of STEM education, highlighting key topics, such as STEM integration, equity, and emerging technologies. These findings also reveal evolving “hot topics” that reflect the shifting interests of researchers in the field. This review suggests that many areas of STEM education research are still in the growth phase. We encourage readers to use these insights as a foundation for developing future research agendas and advancing STEM education globally.

In education, initiatives aimed at improving diversity, equity, inclusivity, and justice (DEIJ) are often conceptualized and implemented separately from those addressing students’ and faculty’s learning — and the reverse is also true. In this theoretical paper with an empirical illustration, we present a holistic framework based on our experience with a comprehensive change initiative. The I2 Framework posits that DEIJ and learning goals need to be addressed simultaneously and at multiple, intersecting organizational levels. Through a systems approach, I2 integrates change activity across two dimensions: one representing goals of reform (DEIJ and improved learning) and another representing levels of organizational change (classroom and department/organization). I2 integrates the work of creating equitable, consequential learning opportunities in the classroom and the work of creating an inclusive climate at the departmental/organizational level, emphasizing their inherent relatedness. We provide an empirical example based on design-based implementation research and related mixed methods analyses of a multi-year change project in an engineering department at a large, public university in the United States. The example highlights a need to shift the nature of this work, how we do this work, and the environment and culture within which we do this work at both the classroom level and the department level. The example also illustrates ways that elements of the change initiative intersected with existing institutional practices, leading some innovations to succeed and others to be resisted. The I2 Framework provides guidance to practitioners, policymakers, and leaders working towards equitable, consequential learning at the classroom level and an inclusive climate at departmental and institutional levels.

Background Learning assistants (LAs) are undergraduate students who serve as instructional assistants in STEM classrooms. In addition to engaging in active practice, they take a pedagogy seminar and regularly meet with a content instructor. While aspects of LAs’ pedagogical beliefs and actions have been investigated, there remains a gap in understanding how LAs make sense of their new instructional roles and how they negotiate between their experiences as students and their responsibilities as instructors. This study uses a sequential, exploratory mixed-methods approach, which includes constant comparative open-coding, thematic analysis, and epistemic network analysis, to analyze 178 reflections written by 89 LAs across five terms at two institutions. Here, we identify each LA’s expressed goals and intended actions at the start and the end of their first term as an LA. Using a community of practice framework, we seek to explicate the shifts in these LAs’ values as they become more central members of the LA community. Results LAs’ expressed roles shift from being cognitive coaches, where they focus on student thinking, sense-making, and understanding of disciplinary concepts, to being social architects, where their focus shifts to attending to the aspects of the environment that can support productive interactions for learning. A social architect prioritizes goals related to mutual trust, respect, & approachability, understanding and learning about students, and creating a sense of belonging. Similarly, their intended actions emphasize compassion, understanding, and facilitating group discussion. While all LAs studied exhibited this shift, it manifested in different ways and to different extents, as illustrated in detail by four selected cases. These cases illustrate how the shifts coupled to a change in language around teaching, becoming more specific and contextual. Conclusions LAs express a shift in their valued practices over their first term as LAs related to their instructional role. The goal of student-centered instructional practice is often framed as becoming a better cognitive coach; however, this orientation does not foreground ideas around teaching practice that aim to foster engagement, belonging, and student agency. Implications for both the LA model and, more generally, for postsecondary STEM instructors are discussed.

As the use of computers in education increases, adaptive learning platforms are becoming more common. However, these adaptive systems are typically designed to support acquisition of declarative knowledge and/or procedural fluency but rarely address conceptual learning. In this work, we developed the Crystallography Adaptive Learning Module (CALM) for materials science to provide students a tool for individualized conceptual learning. We used a randomized quasi‐experimental design comparing two instructional designs with different levels of computer‐provided direction and student agency. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of two different instructional designs; one design had students complete an individualized, adaptive path using the CALM ( N = 80), and the other gave students the freedom to explore CALM's learning resources but with limited guidance ( N = 85). Within these two designs, we also investigated students among different cumulative grade point average (GPA) groups. While there was no statistically significant difference in the measure of conceptual understanding between instructional designs or among the groups with the same GPA, there is evidence to suggest the CALM improves conceptual understanding of students in the middle GPA group. Students using CALM also showed increased participation with the interactive learning videos compared to the other design. The number of videos watched in each instructional condition aligns with overall academic performance as the low GPA group received the most assigned supplements but watched the least videos by choice. This study provides insight for technology developers on how to develop educational adaptive technology systems that provide a proper level of student agency to promote conceptual understanding in challenging STEM topics.

It is widely expected that the use of electrochemical processes will grow rapidly in the coming decade. This growing industry requires a commensurate workforce. However, currently there is little educational infrastructure nationally to provide the number of well-educated incoming engineers and scientists that are needed. Using a design-based research approach, we have developed a framework for curricular development in undergraduate electrochemical engineering, and report here on the first author’s first course offering as the beginning of an iterative refinement process. Our education and research framework is outlined in Figure 1, which illustrates the four main aspects of the project – learning goals, tools, courses, and research – and shows how they are connected. There are two learning goals for students. First, the development of conceptual understanding of electrochemical topics enables them to develop the knowledge structures needed to access and operationalize the content in new contexts, such as in industrial practice. Second, engaging students in disciplinary practices provides an authentic experience of the sociotechnical work faced by engineers in industry. These goals will be realized using tools housed in the Concept Warehouse , an online instructional tool constructed by members of our research team. Tools include concept questions provided to students in class to develop their conceptual understanding, which will then be assessed using a concept inventory in development. An industrially-situated virtual laboratory will allow students to experience a realistic task that engages them in both knowledge practices and social practices of professional engineers. Instructors at a range of institutions, beginning with Tufts University, will teach electrochemical engineering courses. They will design the courses according to how they best fit their individual context, but all courses will incorporate the two learning goals and will be supported by the three tools. The project will be supported by a comprehensive research plan that contains two studies – an interview study and a design-based research (DBR) study . First, we plan to interview practicing engineers in the electrochemistry industry to understand both the conceptual knowledge they rely on (for development of the concept inventory) and disciplinary practices they use in their work (to inform the industrially-situated virtual laboratory). Second, using a DBR approach, we will utilize multiple data sources to both improve the instructional design of these courses and develop transferable knowledge about the development of conceptual understanding and disciplinary practices using these instructional tools. In this work, we report on the development of the framework and on the electrochemical engineering course developed and delivered in Fall 2024 by the first author, a post-doctoral fellow at Tufts University, as a pilot. This was also the first author’s first solo course delivery, and general insights on this process will also be shared. The course was offered to 13 students, of whom 8 were undergraduate chemical engineering students, one was a master’s student, and 4 were PhD students. The first half of the course centered electrochemistry fundamentals, using Electrochemical Engineering by Thomas Fuller and John Harb as a reference text, and emphasized conceptual understanding using concept questions and culminating in an entirely conceptual mid-term exam. In the second half of the course, students explored practical applications of electrochemistry, supported by conversations with industry professionals, culminating in a final project on an application of interest for each student. Finally, we discuss next steps in this project, in particular ongoing development of a virtual laboratory and concept inventory, as well as inter-institutional collaboration. Figure 1

Laboratory activities are central to undergraduate student learning in science and engineering. With advancements in computer technology, many laboratory activities have shifted from providing students experiments in a physical mode to providing them in a virtual mode. Further, physical and virtual modes can be combined to address a single topic, as the modes have complementary affordances. In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of a physical and virtual laboratory on the topic of jar testing, a common process for drinking water treatment. The assignment for each laboratory mode was designed to leverage the mode’s affordances. Correspondingly, we hypothesized each would elicit a different subset of engineering epistemic practices. In a naturalistic, qualitative study design based on laboratory mode (physical or virtual) and laboratory order (virtual first or physical first), we collected process, product, and reflection data of students’ laboratory activity. Taking an orientation that learning is participation in valued disciplinary practice, data were coded and used to characterize how students engaged with each laboratory mode. Results showed that the virtual laboratory elicited more conceptual epistemic practices and the physical laboratory more material epistemic practices, aligning with the affordances of each mode. When students completed the laboratory in the virtual mode first, students demonstrated greater engagement in epistemic practices and more positive perceptions of their learning experience in the virtual mode than when they completed the physical mode first. In contrast, engagement in the physical mode was mostly unaffected by the laboratory order.