Urban Science Education Center Department of Mathematics, Science, and Technology Teachers College Columbia University

Mission To build and sustain culturally relevant, socially just, and academically challenging science education experiences for students in high poverty New York City public middle schools. To research and redesign urban science teacher education in order to better prepare teacher leaders in urban school systems, improve science teacher retention, and promote quality science teaching. To foster empowering relationships between Teachers College Programs in Science Education, schools, community organizations and urban communities

Enacting our Mission To establish rich understandings of urban youth and the multiple intersections between their lives and science –Science Toolkits access to and activation of human, social and material resources –Funds of knowledge as strategic resources –Science practices as strategic activation of resources relationship between resources activation and the location and design of the learning environment –The relationships between the scope and function of science toolkits and student engagement in science (meaning making, identity/voice, agency/participation) To build a library of research-based resources about urban youth –Rich array of research-based materials that describe urban youth’s “science toolkits” –Offered in formats that teachers and curriculum developers can draw upon in building relevant, sustainable curricula and pedagogy: Written and digital cases, archived and cataloged digital assets (interview, classroom interactions, student work, etc.), working papers, publications

Enacting our Mission To creating testable, scalable models for curricular adaptation and sustainability grounded a framework for social justice –Social Justice Framework Anti-deficit perspective Youth centered Inquiry and standards-based Urban centered scope and sequence –Curricular Adaptations and Sustainability The design of Responsive Pedagogies that draw upon youth’s science toolkits Locally grounded science problems and practice Balancing academic science with science that is with and in the community –Creating an urban centered scope and sequence that is coordinated with city and state standards Project/topic selection Grounding in local resources accessible to urban schools

Enacting our Mission To design innovative approaches and tools to preparing preservice teachers to teach in urban settings (i.e., pedagogical toolkits). –Design of a new course sequence with an urban focus –Design on digital learning tools for use in preservice science education PARENTS (Parents and researchers talking about science) Science CUTS (Science cases about urban teachers and students) –Field work experiences –Summer internships involved in USEC activities

Major Research and Development Projects Girls Science Practices (NSF) To describe and analyze high-poverty urban girls’ science practices in both form and function in the context of two specific middle school content areas; To describe and analyze reform-based pedagogical strategies enacted by teachers that help girls to successfully leverage their science practices in their efforts to engage meaningfully in science; To explore the relationship between girls’ science practices and science learning. Out of school science practices in urban communities (Spencer) To compare the science practices of high poverty urban middle school populations in both form and function in three contrasting high-poverty communities Science Learning in High Poverty Urban Communities (NSF) To describe and analyze how youth enact scientific literacies in out of school context, including the resources they draw upon and the strategies they use to activate those resources, and how/why they build the kinds of connections between school and home that they do; To describe and analyze the beliefs that urban science teachers have about teaching students in high poverty communities, and to describe the kinds of urban resources that teachers successfully draw upon in their teaching of science in high poverty communities

Major Research and Development Projects Science Ed. in High Poverty Communities: Science CUTS (NSF) To design and implement a digital learning environment for preservice teachers that is grounded in research-based cases about student engagement in science and their science toolkits in high poverty urban schools Urban Science Education Fellows Program (BMS) To provide preservice teachers and graduate students studying to be teacher educators and staff developers opportunities to engage in action research with teachers in schools To document the impact that action research opportunities have on TC students and the school participations: knowledge of science teaching, beliefs about teaching in urban schools and school reform. To create innovative teacher education materials grounded in the realities of urban schooling that can be used with preservice and inservice teachers. Linking Food and the Environment (NIH) To describe and analyze what high-poverty urban children understand and believe about food and the food system; and how children transform and use that knowledge in their everyday lives To develop a 5th and 6th grade inquiry-based curriculum that focuses on the food system and that links science and nutritional literacies

Partner Middle Schools Science and Community Partners Teachers College Urban Science Education Center Professional Development Workshop series: Summer institute, school year retreats, Mini grants Mentors and Study Teams Urban Science Education Fellows Transformative Action Research Designing curricular adaptations/innovations Designing responsive pedagogies embedded in curricular innovations Understanding instructional and curricular advances on: student achievement, attitudes in science, and science trajectories Understanding the role of professional development in: enhancing teacher’s science understandings and capacities to create empowering science instruction Research and development of multimedia teacher learning tools focused on: student learning in science, parental engagement in science education Student Programs After school programs and summer programs In school science initiatives Science role models and mentors STAR Teams Leadership Team Interns

Transformative Research for Social Justice in Urban Settings Four tenets that frame transformative research: –Immediate and direct impact on classrooms –Cyclic and shared process of informed data collection, analysis, reflection, and application –Can take many different forms –Grounded in both the literature of best practices AND the needs of the classroom/community Primary methods we use at USEC –Design experiments –Mixed methods case study –Large scale survey –City- and state-based achievement data

Partners Schools Student Population Race and EthnicityFree Lunch Statistics# Staff. PS % African Am; 35% Hispanic93% free lunch59 PS % African Am; 55% Hispanic90% free lunch75 HMSMS15070% African Am; 30% Hispanic95% free lunch12 MS % African Am; 55% Hispanic90% free lunch50 Crossroads MS20746% African Am; 46% Hispanic; 3% Asian, 5% White 74% free lunch12 Westside Collaborative 21043% African Am; 44% Hispanic; 9% White; 4% Asian 76% free lunch20 IS % African Am; 45% Hispanic; 6% White95% free lunch68 Region level PartnersCommunity and Science Organizations Region 1 Science and Technology Center Region 1 Science Staff Development Region 10 Science Staff Development  WEACT  South Street Seaport Museum  Inwood Park Nature Center  Playing 2 Win  American Museum of Natural History  Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences  Central Park Conservancy

Collaborative possibilities -- Questions What research interests do we have in common? How might our research agendas merge into a meaningful project located in NYC and/or Boston? How does our approach to research and development inform development work at TERC (in a non summative evaluative manner) What active projects currently in place at USEC or at TERC can be advanced with the research and development approaches taken by the two organizations? –Locations for development: »NYC/Boston »In school/out of school »Content areas/curricular initiatives