Center for Research on Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology

New knowledge for better teaching and learning of science, mathematics and engineering

CRESMET Hosts National Science Board Commission

Miceal Crow and Steve Beering

Dr. Steven C. Beering, chairman, National Science Board, center, Dr. Michael Crosby, director, NSB office, left, and ASU President Michael Crow at a reception in January for members of the NSB's Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. CRESMET Director Marilyn Carlson hosted the reception at the Biodesign Institute at ASU with Biodesign Director George Poste and Daniel Sarewitz, director of ASU's Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes. Commission members were in Phoenix to meet with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano regarding the commission's draft report recommending an action plan for improving U.S. math and science education. http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/edu_com/

CRESMET Policy Director: National Science Board Takes Aim at Math & Science in U.S. Schools
By Jo Anne Vasquez

"Five years ago I received a phone call from the White House saying I was going to be appointed to the National Science Board, the governing board of the National Science Foundation. After being confirmed by the U.S. Senate, I became the first K-12 classroom teacher to serve on this 24-member board that governs the National Science Foundation"...More

Jo Anne Vasquez


Jo Anne Vasquez, CRESMET director of policy & outreach, is a member of the National Science Board and vice chair of its Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

Learning Communities for Teachers-CRESMET Research Finding What Works

Professional Learning Community"If you're promoting professional learning communities, I can tell you that they don't work. We had to do them in our building all last year, and I know they're the hot new thing, but they don't work. We got rid of that principal, thank goodness." Teacher quoted by TLN Teacher Voices

Marilyn Carlson and her team of researchers are finding that indeed, when professional learning communities lack just the right attributes, they don’t work to help teachers improve their practice. Pinpointing which traits of focus, training and norms do make these communities a powerful tool for transforming instruction is proving to be an important part of the research going on in CRESMET’s Project Pathways Math & Science Partnership.More

 

ASU Science Research Labs Team with CRESMET, Hope to Bring Teachers to Campus

More than a dozen distinguished ASU research scientists volunteered to open their labs to Arizona math and science teachers in a project that CRESMET recently proposed to Science Foundation Arizona. Leading the proposal team was Robert Culbertson, ASU associate professor, physics, and associate director, CRESMET, and Janet Bond-Robinson, associate professor, chemistry education...More

 

Science Is Fun Lights Student Curiosity

Sparky says 'Science is Fun'Science Is Fun began as a way to get high school students intrigued about science...More

 

Bernstein Colloquium on Women in S & E Programs: Shall I Stay or Shall I Go?

BernsteinAs difficult as it has proved to attract the number of women into science and engineering degree programs that the nation needs to replenish its aging and rapidly retiring workforce, it is proving to be just as difficult to keep them in those programs through the completion of a doctorate...More

 

Battey Colloquium: Is Professional Development Helping Teachers Give Girls an Equal Shot in Science?

In a searching examination of 170 projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the American Association of University Women, professional development for teachers that aimed to help them promote gender equity in STEM classrooms lacked essential ingredients, according to a winter 2007 colloquium offered at CRESMET by ASU Assistant Professor Daniel Battey...More

 

Learning Researchers Find Tool in CRESMET Lab

Among the services CRESMET offers to investigators who operate their research grants through the center is use of a state-of-the-art laboratory for doing clinical research in a classroom setting...More

 

Technology and ELL Science Learners: CRESMET Researchers Look for Ways to Build on Students' Strengths

CRESMET associate directors Robert Atkinson and Douglas Clark are investigating online learning environments that can build on what English language learners know to help them more rapidly understand science concepts and gain mastery in using English in academic settings...More

NSF Math and Science Partnerships Show Encouraging Results

The Project Pathways Math and Science Partnership being conducted over five years by CRESMET is one of 52 such projects the National Science Foundation has funded around the country. In the first impact report on the program that NSF submitted to Congress recently, the agency documents that students in a sample of MSP projects are improving their math and science proficiency...More

 

CRESMET Training Next-Generation STEM Researchers

Kevin MooreCRESMET research would not produce the results that it does without the dedication and intellectual energy of its 35 graduate and doctoral research assistants. The center
provides valuable research opportunities for graduate and doctoral students in a variety of education, science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education disciplines at ASU. Recently, for example, 21 CRESMET graduate students offered presentations at the tenth Conference on Research in Undergraduate Education, organized by ASU Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education Michael Oehrtman, a senior CRESMET collaborator...More

 

Thompson Presents at 2007 Conference in Israel

A February conference on constructivist theories of knowledge at Hebrew University in Jerusalem featured invited comments by Pat Thompson, ASU professor of mathematics education and research director of CRESMET.

Titled, "Epistemology, Ontology, and Method," Thompson's paper commented on papers offered earlier in the session by Andree Tiberghien, of the Universite de Lyon, and Tommy Dreyfus, of Tel Aviv University.

Read the Tiberghien paper, the Dreyfus paper, and Thompson's commentary online. A Powerpoint presentation of Thompson's main points is also available for download.

Conference website: "Guided Construction of Knowledge in Classrooms"

 

Life Sciences Outreach Funded by CRESMET

Having ASU graduate students mentoring middle school science students in hands-on science is an obvious win for the middle school. What is less obvious is that working with students and teachers yields real rewards for the graduate students, too...More

 

Research Artifact

A major project supported by CRESMET is the Teacher Professional Continuum NSF grant led by PI Pat Thompson. Like CRESMET's Math and Science Partnership Project Pathways, the project, titled Teachers Promoting Change Collaboratively, is developing a professional development model that includes professional learning communities for teachers, in this case, teachers of precalculus mathematics.

Link here to view the guidelines Thompson provided to teachers participating in the TPC learning communities in spring 2007.

 

Readings & Links