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The aim of the Adolescent Literacy Support Project (ALSP) is to create classroom learning environments that support increased science achievement through better and more purposeful reading. We are building and employing three literacy support tools for students’ and teachers’ use in the classroom. The use of these tools is coupled to disciplinary text and science assessment. Teachers couple their use of the tools with disciplinary text and science assessment as they implement the curriculum “Investigations in Environment Science.” We want to examine if increased opportunities in reading allows high school learners to better engage in science inquiry and increase their reading achievement and if these more structured reading opportunities in science influence learners’ science achievement.
PI: Gomez, Louis
Gomez, Kimberley
Herman, Phillip
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The Biology Guided Inquiry Learning Environments is a collaboration of learning scientists, teachers and biologists, working to bring biological inquiry into middle school and high school biology classrooms. The BGuILE project develops technology-infused curricula designed to help students learn about the process of scientific investigation and argumentation by doing science, working on puzzling and authentic problems. Current BGuILE activities include curriculum and technology development and studies of student learning and teaching practice. This is a LeTUS-affiliated project. BGuILE papers
PI: Reiser, Brian
Spillane, James
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This is a National Science Foundation-funded study that seeks to develop innovative curricula to reverse science illiteracy.
PI: Gomez, Louis
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CCMS is a collaboration among faculty in Learning Sciences at Northwestern, the University of Michigian, Michigan State University and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The center aims to create a knowledge base to enable development of science curricula, teaching strategies and technologies that reflect research on student learning. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the center provides fellowships for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows committed to science education reform.
PI: Reiser, Brian
Edelson, Daniel
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CogSketch is a project in the new NSF Sciences of Learning Center, the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC). We are extending our sketch understanding architecture into a system that can be used to support cognitive science research and education more broadly. Our vision is that, in ten years, sketch-based educational software will be widely available to learners.
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The goal of this project is to create a visual representation system with computer support that helps students learn how to articulate and reason with models of complex phenomena and systems. Sponsor: Research on Learning and Education Program, National Science Foundation
PI: Forbus, Kenneth
Sherin, Bruce
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The goal of the Conceptual Dynamics Project is the development of new frameworks for capturing student learning in science. Through the development of these frameworks, we hope to inform the design and assessment of learning environments, as well as to contribute, more broadly, to research that seeks to understand thinking and learning in rich subject-matter domains. This is a LeTUS -affiliated project.
PI: Sherin, Bruce
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Supported by the National Science Foundation, this project designs, implements and evaluates the graduate-level course, "Making the Body Go," for Chicago and Evanston middle school teachers in science and science pedagogy focused on energy transformation in the human body.
PI: Kanter, David
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The GEODE Initiative is dedicated to the improvement of earth and environmental science education through the use of data visualization and analysis tools to support inquiry-based pedagogy. Through an integrated program of research and development, the GEODE Initiative is advancing our understanding of learning in the earth and environmental sciences, design of curriculum and educational software and teacher professional development. This is a LeTUS-affiliated project.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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This project is developing technology and materials to provide students with the opportunity to conduct investigations using real-time and archival data from the large-scale scientific observatory being constructed by the Consortium of Universities for Advancement of Hydrologic Science (CUAHSI)
Jona, Kemi
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This Quaker Oats Foundation-supported project allows for the science of exercise curriculum to be implemented, including the technology kits that support it.
PI: Kanter, David
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Investigations in Environmental Science is a yearlong high school environmental science curriculum developed by researchers in Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy. It is the product of a 7-year iterative research and development process led by Daniel Edelson. Investigations in Environmental Science uses a case-based approach to environmental science and places an emphasis on environmental decision-making. It incorporates the use of Geographic Information Systems to support inquiry with scientific data.
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The IOPD project is comparing the effectiveness of professional development conducted primarily face-to-face with professional development conducted primarily on line. The participants in this study will be teachers implementing the "Investigations in Environmental Science" curriculum developed by the GEODE Initiative at Northwestern University. This project is joint with the University of Michigan.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
Konstantopoulos, Spyros
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IQWST is investigating how to design middle school science curriculum materials that support students in learning ambitious science content and scientific practices through meaningful investigations.
PI: Reiser, Brian
Edelson, Daniel
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This project explores the relationship between curriculum design and teacher learning. Our work takes place in the context of the development and implementation of the new reform-based curriculum, Children's Math Worlds. We investigate the process through which teachers use new curriculum materials, how professional development can support this process and how curriculum materials themselves can be a source for teacher learning of pedagogy and of mathematics.
PI: Fuson, Karen
Spillane, James
Sherin, Miriam
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Literacy in Science and Technology is a two-year project funded by the Joyce Foundation to study the literacy demands of the LeTUS inquiry-based science middle school curricula.
PI: Gomez, Louis
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MoDeLS project, funded by the National Science Foundation's Instructional Materials Development program, is working to develop a theoretically-grounded and empirically-supported learning progression for late elementary and early middle school students with regard to their modeling practices and metamodeling knowledge.
PI: Reiser, Brian
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This project monitors how the Chicago high schools implement "The Chicago Public Schools Design for High Schools," adopted in March 1997 by the Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees. The project also evaluates the effectiveness of the high school restructuring initiative.
PI: Hess, Jr., G. Alfred
Cytrynbaum, Solomon
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My World GIS is being developed at Northwestern University as part of a research program in the adaptation of expert data visualization and analysis tools to support inquiry-based learning. My World is a Geographic Information System (GIS) designed specifically for use in middle school through college classrooms.
My World provides a carefully selected subset of the features of a professional GIS environment. They have been selected to provide the greatest value to students without overwhelming them with complexity The features are accessed through a supportive interface designed with the needs of students and teachers in mind.
Research on My World GIS is designed to understand the challenges and benefits of incorporating GIS tools into inquiry-based geoscience, environmental, and geography education.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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Our two-semester online high school Earth Science course demonstrates how a "lab" science course can be delivered at a distance. The course, developed for the Illinois Virtual High School, contains a set of “hands on” investigations using My World GIS, a geographic information system (GIS) developed specifically to meet the needs of students.
This project is investigating design techniques for fostering a coherent, effective online inquiry-based learning experience for students.
PI: Jona, Kemi
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This National Science Foundation-supported grant funds teachers to engage in curriculum design research on the "I, Bio" project-based inquiry life science curriculum.
PI: Kanter, David
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Through the Research Training Grant Program, at the invitation of the Foundation, grants are made to schools of education to support the doctoral training of education researchers. The program's goals are: (1) to enhance the research training of graduate students in education by providing financial aid to students so that they can study full time; (2) to develop a larger and stronger national community of inquiry; and (3) to stimulate conversation about research training within and across institutions. SESP has been awarded a major Spencer Research Training Grant to study "Improving the Life Chances of Children and Families in Poverty."
PI: Lee, Carol
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SSciVEE was an NSF-sponsored project that investigated the use of scientific visualization to support inquiry-based science learning. This project led to the development of WorldWatcher, a visualization and data analysis tool for geographic data that has been used in a wide range of Earth science, geography, and environmental science curricula.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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Supported by the National Science Foundation, this project examines the practice of school leadership and the improvement of mathematics and science instruction in urban elementary schools.
PI: Spillane, James
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With support from the Joyce Foundation, this study is designed to gain a better understanding of the role of the student teaching placement in teacher preparation and subsequent entry of individuals into the teacher labor market. Michelle Reininger is working with Chicago Public Schools to investigate a new selection process for identifying pre-service teachers who show promise for becoming effective teachers in the future.
PI: Reininger, Michelle
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This National-Science-Foundation supported project examines the role of video in teacher learning, specifically how video can support the development of a particular kind of teaching expertise, "professional vision." Professional vision involves the ways in which teachers notice and interpret classroom interactions and is particularly important today as teachers are asked to make many teaching decisions in the midst of instruction. A central goal of this project is to develop a theoretical framework for examining teacher learning via video, and to apply this framework to several diverse video-based professional development programs. The framework will be used to study the micro-dynamics of teacher learning within each of these programs, as well as what teachers learn in each program over a longer time scale. The results of the research will be integrated into courses for pre-service and in-service teachers as well as for learning science graduate students.
PI: Sherin, Miriam
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The KDI/ASSESS project seeks to both theoretically articulate and empirically assess the role and effectiveness of scaffolds, embedded in learning environments comprised by software and curricula.
PI: Reiser, Brian
Edelson, Daniel
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Sponsor: Computer-Aided Education and Training Initiative, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
PI: Forbus, Kenneth
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Sponsor: Applications of Advanced Technology Program, National Science Foundation
PI: Forbus, Kenneth
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Center for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools, a joint project involving SESP, University of Michigan, and the Chicago, Evanston, and Detroit public schools. LeTUS is working to bring more ambitious teaching and learning into middle grades science classrooms, through a systemic program of inquiry-based curriculum design, pervasive use of learning technologies, and professional development opportunities for science teachers.
PI: Gomez, Louis
Edelson, Daniel
Reiser, Brian
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The Chicago Public Schools Urban Systemic Program is a five-year professional development reform effort funded by the National Science Foundation. The goals of CUSP are to significantly increase the mathematics, science and technology content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge of the CPS instructional workforce. This is a LeTUS-affiliated project.
PI: Reiser, Brian
Gomez, Louis
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The Collaboratory Notebook Project is investigating the role technology can play in supporting collaborative learning. The Collaboratory Notebook is a shared hypermedia database that provides a structure to assist learners engaged in open-ended projects or discussions. This Internet-based environment allows participants to collaborate from different locations at different times. The development of the Collaboratory Notebook was supported by Northwestern University and by the National Science Foundation through the CoVis Project.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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The Designing to Learn Project is exploring the use of design tasks to provide a context for learning fundamental principles. As part of that research, we are developing an architecture for self-contained, simulation-based learning environments that allow students to learn fundamental science principles by designing everyday devices that rely on those principles. Goin' Up? is the first example of a Designing To Learn simulation that teaches force and motion concepts for introductory college physics through a scenario in which students design an elevator.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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A multi-university collaboration developing an integrated suite of tools for conducting inquiry in science classrooms. It incorporates investigation tools as well as inquiry support tools for planning, reflection, collaboration, argumentation, and presentation.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
Reiser, Brian
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The Northwestern Physics Project is a collaborative research and software design effort by the departments of physics and computer science.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
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A partnership between the School of Education and Social Policy and Evanston-Skokie District 65 involving math and science curricula, leadership and bilingual education. G. Alfred Hess Jr. is coordinator of the project.
PI: Hess, Jr., G. Alfred
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Northwestern University Projects of Extended Activities at Kelly High School
PI: Gomez, Louis
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The SIBLE Project is looking at how to foster reflective inquiry. The SIBLE project has developed the Progress Portfolio, an inquiry support environment, that allows students to record and organize the intermediate products of a scientific investigation. This is a LeTUS -affiliated project.
PI: Edelson, Daniel
Gomez, Louis
Reiser, Brian
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This project represents a collaboration among Chicago-area middle and high school teachers, researchers from Northwestern University's Learning Sciences researchers and its department of biomedical engineersing and informal educators from Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.
PI: Reiser, Brian
Kanter, David
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