The 21 st Century Center for Research and Development in Cognition and Science Instruction Funded by: through Grant R305C to The 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the U.S. Department of Education University of Pennsylvania The 21 st Century Partnership for STEM Education

Purpose of this Center: To develop specific theoretically driven modifications to existing middle school science curricula To conduct a systematic series of studies to test and refine such strategies for improving the design of curricula Objective: To improve current curricula and identify general principles for the design of curriculum that could be easily applied to other science curricula to improve student learning. Overview 2

Chris Schunn, Co-PI Assoc. Professor of Psychology, Intelligent Sys Program, Learning Sciences and Policy Research Scientist, LRDC Kalyani Raghavan LRDC Research Associate, and Director of Model Assisted Reasoning in Science project Tim Nokes Asst. Professor, Department of Psychology Director, Cognitive Science Learning Laboratory Nora Newcombe, Co-PI Professor of Psychology and PI of the NSF Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center Jennifer Cromley, Co-PI Asst Professor of Educational Psychology, 2010 recipient Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Chris Massey, Co-PI Director for Research and Education, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science Cognitive Science Senior Team Members Overview 3

TextbookKit based The Design Challenge Curriculum Holt Full Option Science System (FOSS) Biological Sciences Cells, Heredity, & Classification Diversity of Life Earth Sciences Inside the Restless Earth Earth History Weather and Water Physical Sciences Introduction to Matter NA Overview 4

Overview 5

1. Recruit schools for study, Design Prof Development for Cognitive Science Treatment Arm 3. Create 6 Cognitive Science Modified Units, Randomize schools into 3 groups, T1, T2 and Control 6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs 5. Design Prof Development for Content Treatment Arm 7. Develop six end-of-unit assessments 8. Print, deliver and collect student end-of-unit assessments 9. Develop teacher content tests, SEC surveys 10. Administer teacher content tests, SEC surveys 12. Analyze data Process to Test Cognitive Scientist’s Modificatons 11. Collect 8 th grade student level state test data + previous years Revise and repeat for 2 nd cohort

6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs “Cog Sci Arm”

6. Deliver Prof Development to teachers + facilitate PLCs “Content Arm”

8. Print, deliver and collect student end-of-unit assessments

Role: The 21 st Century Partnership for STEM Education PI F. Joseph Merlino Lead project by practicing “Servant Leadership” : Keeping focus on the big purpose of the study and maintain integrity of original proposal intent. Keeping roles of partners within the lines, setting decision boundaries, helping to define issues and facilitate consensus, maintaining communication bridges between partners Interact with IES, oversee budget Project Director: Gary Cooper and 5 staff (Donna, Bates, Nancy, John, Deanna, Lisa) Manage/facilitate all 12 elements of process as it related to school sites. Business team as Fiscal agent (Elysa, Giselle, Neil) Manpower = 7.O FTE