More than a decade ago, the K-12 Framework for Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) shifted states' notions of what constitutes the core of science skills and knowledge that students need to thrive in school and beyond. The majority of states adopted standards based on the framework as well as the NGSS. Yet because of the…

We present a new highly interdisciplinary project-based course in computer aided drug discovery (CADD). This course was developed in response to a call for alternative pedagogical approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused the cancellation of a face-to-face summer research program sponsored by the Louisiana Biomedical Research Network…

Biology and art have been linked throughout history. Early scientists, such as Leonardo de Vinci and John James Audubon, used sketches and painting to document their findings. Even early hominids left evidence of their world through cave art. Histology, the microscopic study of tissues and cells, relies on defining shape and spatial relationships…

Micro-credentials are increasingly being adopted across a variety of industries and countries, including the kindergarten through grade 12 education system in the United States, as a way to identify workers with specific skills, knowledge, and competencies. This report presents the results of a study conducted by RAND researchers who investigated…

Activities and strategies will be discussed that have helped students at the Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black and Catholic university, effectively engage in the course and learn organic chemistry in an online synchronous remote mode during the five-week summer session courses (summer 2020 and summer 2021) using video-creations,…

Cruise planning may seem like an ordinary task for oceanographers, but it actually involves logical and strategic thinking, collaboration, and multidisciplinary work. The "Challenger" expedition, led by Charles Wyville Thomson from 1872 to 1876, was the first to be fully dedicated to understanding oceans (Rice et al. 1999) and was…

 Today's elementary teachers are expected to teach the engineering practices included in the National Research Council's Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards. Recent studies have indicated that teachers are less self-efficacious in teaching engineering than in other subject areas. Project Lead the…

This paper is an examination of a teacher professional development program in northeast Louisiana, that provided 30 teachers and their students with the technology, skills, and content knowledge to collect data and explore weather trends. Data were collected from both continuous monitoring weather stations and simple school-based weather stations…

This paper examines the educational impact of a prepilot study on the "Learning Logs" literacy strategy as it was used in Louisiana. The study examined how students' conceptual understanding of kinematics and Newton's laws were impacted in a ninth-grade physical science course. The findings address a gap within the current research…

This paper provides mentor teacher experiences involved with the planning, preparation, implementation, and reflection of a virtual mathematics and science summer camp in the summer of 2020. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the annual the summer camp was forced to pivot to a completely online format. Primary concerns discussed by mentor…

The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) was created to support teachers in implementing college and career readiness standards. Teachers work collaboratively with coaches to further develop their expertise and design standards-driven, literacy-rich writing assignments within their existing curriculum across all content areas. Findings from…

Self-efficacy, gender, and motivation are subjective predictors of students' academic achievement. Self-assessment prompted by knowledge surveys involves metacognition, i.e., students' awareness of how they learn. Knowledge surveys can be used to measure changes in students' achievement level and to assist students in content review and inspire…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

We offered four annual professional development workshops called STAR (for Scientific Teaching, Assessment, and Resources) modeled after the National Academies Summer Institute (SI) on Undergraduate Education in Biology. In contrast to the SI focus on training faculty from research universities, STAR's target was faculty from community colleges,…