Science education is shifting from a vision of students memorizing facts towards engaging in figuring out the natural world as students build ideas from their own experiences and backgrounds. This shift is hard for teachers. One way to support teachers is curriculum-based professional development, which pairs high-quality instructional materials…

The continuous underrepresentation of the Latinx population in STEM fields and careers requires urgent attention. This study addresses this issue by designing and implementing a science curriculum based on culturally relevant and translanguaging pedagogies. Focusing on chemical and physical reactions, the curriculum was implemented in two…

This dissertation provides a start-to-finish description of development, administration, and validation for an online middle-school physics test using a DCM framework with response-time. The first paper illustrated the process of implementing DCM with a careful selection of the content domain and a simulation approach for a Q-matrix construction.…

The local problem explored in this study was the barriers and challenges facing middle school teachers in integrating and assessing writing in a science classroom. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of college instructors and middle school science teachers regarding how teacher education programs provide…

The purpose of this study was to investigate how school districts dealt with the challenges of implementing new science learning standards in their middle schools. Six Long Island school districts of varying size and levels of need, with different curricula models, and distinct building grade-level configurations were purposefully selected as case…

Inclusive learning opportunities lead to better outcomes for students with extensive support needs (ESN). In the absence of targeted intervention, however, students with ESN are unlikely to interact meaningfully with their peers or the general education curriculum. The literature describes evidence-based strategies in support of the meaningful…

The purpose of this non-experimental quantitative research study was to compare the mathematics and science achievement of eighth-grade students in STEM vs. nonSTEM middle schools in Middle Georgia. There was minimal research in regard to the benefits STEM education has on middle schools in Middle Georgia as the initial push and adoption of STEM…

Science Olympiad (SO) is a team-oriented STEM competition that offers students the opportunity to participate in a wide range of STEM topics attracting students with varying STEM interests. This hermeneutic phenomenological cross-case study explored the experiences of 12 SO coaches with experience coaching middle school and/or high school teams.…

This convergent mixed methods study sought to explore the effects of engineering design challenges (EDCs) on middle school students' achievement. Data was collected from four middle schools from an urban school district in Maryland. Two of these, Group A, included teachers with experience with EDC design and implementation; the other two schools,…

This study is a qualitative case study of middle schools located in a rural public school district in a southern state in the United States that has implemented the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) which explored the roles of education leaders in the implementation of NGSS. Participants included teachers, instructional coaches, and…

Title I middle schools face challenges delivering effective inquiry-based science instruction within the framework of Title I requirements. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore Title I middle school teacher and principal perspectives on and experiences with the challenges of delivering inquiry-based science instruction within…

School districts choose programs based on limited data, word of mouth, or cost-effectiveness. STEM-based schools often choose project-based learning (PBL) programs to deliver curricula through limited research and word of mouth effectiveness. This study evaluated one PBL program implementation in the context of a suburban Texas middle school by…

This is a descriptive, exploratory, qualitative, collective case study that explores the pedagogical practices of science teachers who do not hold natural science degrees. The intent of this study is to support the creation of alternative pathways for recruiting and retaining high-quality secondary science teachers in K-12 education. The…

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released proposed Science and Technology/Engineering standards in 2013 outlining the concepts that should be taught at each grade level. Previously, standards were in grade spans and each district determined the method of implementation. There are two different methods used…

In this dissertation, I explore what it means to different people, in different places throughout life's spectrum, to create a space to learn. This dissertation is a collection of work that I have written throughout my time at the CUNY Graduate Center. The chapters herein represent an arch of my learning over the past five years. The title,…