Validating a Claim-Evidence-Science Idea-Reasoning (CESR) Framework for Use in NGSS Assessment Tasks

We developed assessment tasks aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that require students to use argumentation and explanation practices along with disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts to make sense of energy-related phenomena. Scoring rubrics were created to evaluate students' ability to make accurate claims, cite evidence, use relevant science ideas, and combine those elements to formulate well-reasoned arguments and explanations. We present an analysis of data to investigate the validity and reliability of our rubrics. Due to school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, data were collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). The MTurk data were scored by two researchers to evaluate the inter-rater reliability. Data were then analyzed using Rasch modeling. Results show that rubric categories associated with stating claims, citing evidence, applying science ideas, and formulating coherent, well-reasoned arguments and explanations fit well to the Rasch model, and that rubric categories followed a hierarchy of difficulty. In this hierarchy, applying science ideas and formulating well-reasoned statements were more difficult than citing evidence, which were all more difficult than stating a claim. The ability to locate a student along this hierarchy allows for our tasks to be used to better understand a student's ability to write arguments and explanations of energy-related phenomena.

English Language Arts Instructional Systems in the First Full Year of COVID-19. Research Report. RR-A279-2

Since March 2020, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has placed unprecedented stresses on the public education system in the United States. At every level, from the U.S. Department of Education down through local districts and individual schools, the pandemic has presented formidable challenges. Many of these challenges have been operational in nature but there have also been substantial instructional challenges during the pandemic. Early insight into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on public schooling identified the challenges that schools faced in the pivot to online learning in spring 2020. Large proportions of teachers reported through the RAND American Teacher Panel (ATP) that they had not received adequate guidance from their school systems to serve particular populations of students, such as students with disabilities (SWDs), homeless students, and English learners (ELs). These pandemic-era instructional challenges compound existing barriers to quality instruction. This report examines issues of instructional system coherence during the 2020-2021 school year. Specifically, the report investigates teachers' perceptions of: (1) guidance they received about ELA instruction, (2) guidance around addressing the needs of traditionally underserved students, (3) coherence of their ELA instructional system, and (4) presence of contextual conditions identified through literature as supporting coherence.

The Collaborative Model for Teaching o-SEL: Preparing Educators to Design Online Environments for Social-Emotional Learning

In this study, we sought to develop a model to provide educators with training and resources to effectively support and guide social-emotional learning (SEL) in PK-12 online environments, which we refer to as o-SEL. We utilized five national sets of standards and competencies to guide the development of six online modules for educators to gain skills, knowledge, and resources to help students learn SEL-related skills. Qualitative methods and analysis were employed to examine our research question. We utilized design thinking as a strategy for developing o-SEL professional learning. Five SEL experts were identified and invited to participate in a brief survey to determine areas of focus and then we conducted two one-hour focus groups. The focus group discussion was transcribed, coded, and analyzed to determine emergent themes related to areas of SEL needs in online learning environments. Based on our findings, we identified six elements (i.e., Empower, Engage, Motivate, Include, Collaborate, Extend) for educators to foster inclusive o-SEL environments for PK-12 learners that we describe as the Collaborative Model for Teaching o-SEL. We discuss the positive impact that o-SEL instruction can have on student learning outcomes, while also designing inclusive and culturally relevant support structures. This study calls for further investigation regarding teacher application of the o-SEL model and impact of o-SEL on student learning.

Teaching and Learning with Technology during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Highlighting the Need for Micro-Meso-Macro Alignments

All over the world teaching and learning transitioned to forms of online education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this contribution, we recognize challenges that this disruptive change brought about for teachers and learners. We reflect on these challenges, based on discussions at EDUsummIT2019 in Quebec about the theme "Learners and learning contexts: New alignments for the digital age". Informed by theoretical conceptualization and empirical evidence we identify micro-meso-macro alignments that need to be in place to move education into the digital age: alignments for quality learning contexts, alignments in support for teachers, and alignments through partnerships.

Pedagogical Transformation and Teacher Learning for Knowledge Building: Turning COVID-19 Challenges into Opportunities

This paper reports on the continual effort of the Knowledge Building Community (KBC) connecting teachers within and across schools for knowledge creation and community building during the COVID-19 disruptions. During this crisis, schools around the world are challenged with the issues of implementing online learning. Three areas of misalignment were identified: disjoint in learning with home-school separation, piecemeal technologies to mimic physical teaching, and disconnect between teacher professional development and classroom practices and we discussed emerging realignment efforts for transformative learning. Through analyzing the three case examples of how teachers responded to COVID-19 challenges in inter-related areas of curriculum, pedagogy, technology and community, we identified several themes on emerging alignments conducive for transformative pedagogy and technology through community advancement. These themes include: innovating practice around the centrality of ideas;perceiving knowledge building as pervasive;transformative use of technology, and symmetrical advancement of knowledge. These case examples show that in these disruptive times, the teachers were more actively building new practices supported by community dynamics and systemic processes of the KBC. Consequently, the interactions between stakeholders shifted from disjointed relations in different hierarchical levels to a networked community of people, ideas, and resources, and teachers continually advancing their knowledge-building practice in these challenging times.