TERC Staff at the 2025 NARST Annual International Conference, March 23–26, 2025
In Praise of Science Teachers: Essential Partners in Researching, Reframing, and Reforming Science Learning
The focus of the 2025 NARST (National Association for Research in Science Teaching) conference is centralize, emphasize, and praise the work science teachers do that enables and inspires the efforts of science education researchers. “There is no science teaching without science teachers.”
TERC staff are participating in the following presentations and workshops.
Middle-School STEM Teachers’ Collaborative Sensemaking During a Curriculum Planning Workshop
Debra Bernstein, Michael Cassidy, TERC; Kristen Wendell, Geling Xu, Ethan Danahy, Tufts University; William Church, CRCS
Monday, 24 March, 2025 at 8:15-9:45am
Detailed descriptions of teachers’ successful curricular sensemaking can help professional development (PD) facilitators support and sustain it. In this study, we use discourse analysis to unpack a successful episode of STEM teacher sense-making during a curriculum planning conversation about structure/function analysis.
A Participatory Professional Development Workshop: Exploring Middle School Students and Teachers Reflections
Michael Cassidy, Debra Bernstein, Gillian Puttick, Santiago Gasca, TERC
Monday, March 24, 2025 at 8:15-9:45am
Through a theoretical framework emphasizing participatory practices as creating compelling learning spaces for schools, we explore ways to create participatory culture environments in professional development (PD) workshops.
Principles for Designing Culturally Sustaining Hip Hop STEM-rich Learning Spaces
Brian E Gravel, Tufts University; Dionne Champion, TERC; Eli Tucker-Raymond, Amon Millner, Boston University; Christopher G Wright, Ayana Allen-Handy, Drexel University; Clara Mabour, Tufts University
Monday, March 24, 2025 at 8:15-9:45am
The research focuses on developing culturally sustaining STEM learning spaces for youth of color through hip hop education practices and interdisciplinary computational making practices. The paper outlines the design principles created by the research collective through a design retreat and analysis of design enactments with youth in various research sites.
Why Do They Do What They Do? The drivers of learning assistant facilitation practices
Nicolette M Maggiore, Tufts University, Medford; Jessica M Karch, TERC; Vesal Dini, Ira Caspari-Gnann, Tufts University
Monday, March 24, 2025 at 3:15-4:45pm
This study explores the different factors that drive LA facilitation from two levels: the interaction level and the course design level. Using an embedded case study and two sociocultural frameworks, we developed a model that describes and connects these drivers, showing how they lead to differences in dialogic versus authoritative LA facilitation.