NSF grant # 2100155 titled “Staying in Science: Investigating STEM Persistence Among High School Youth.” Principal Investigators: Preeti Gupta (AMNH); Karen Hammerness, Rachel Chaffee (AMNH) and Jennifer Adams (University of Calgary). Building on our prior grant (#15167), this grant continues the work of longitudinally investigating the trajectories of students who are academically strong but historically marginalized and underrepresented in STEM (the sample of students we have been longitudinally tracking in “Staying in Science”) and specifically seeks to understand their navigation through college and into the workforce.

NSF RAPID grant: “Supports and Challenges in an Educational Crisis: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Youth STEM Pathways.”  Principal Investigators: Preeti Gupta (AMNH); Karen Hammerness, and Timothy Podkul (SRI). Building on a current grant (#15167), this grant investigates the impact of the pandemic on the trajectories of students who are academically strong but historically marginalized and underrepresented in STEM (the sample of students we have been longitudinally tracking in “Staying in Science”, and specifically seeks to identify resources and supports that can help counter adverse impacts of the pandemic upon youth persistence in STEM and their academic lives.

NSF EHR Core grant, Staying in Science: Examining the pathways of underrepresented youth mentored in research.” This study, the first leg of a 10 year longitudinal study (currently in it’s 7th year supported by NSF funding) took an ecological perspective to documenting and describing variations in the STEM pathways of approximately 900 New York City youth who have participated in mentored science research programs targeting youth from underrepresented groups. For a subset of participants, the study investigated the complex relationships among both out-of-school and in-school variables, combining social network analysis with analysis of New York City Public Schools data in order to understand and identify the academic and social features that help (or impede) underrepresented youths’ persistence in STEM. NSF grant award: #1561637

Moving Next Generation Science Standards into Practice This full research and development project was focused on the DRK-12 program’s Learning strand with the goal to design, pilot, field-test, and study an eight-week middle school ecosystems unit and associated professional development that aligns with a bundle of Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) performance expectations and Common Core State Standards. The project was implemented through a collaborative partnership between three institutions: the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Connecticut.NSF grant award: #1418235

Coherence and Assignment Study in Teacher Education (CATE) 

Project funded by Norwegian Research Council for comparative study of program coherence and course assignments in mathematics and language arts methods courses in teacher education programs in Finland, Norway and the United States. One important goal of the project is to examine the relationship between theory and practice in different teacher education programs, and to look specifically for opportunities to learn to enact teaching practice in the different programs. Three additional countries (Cuba, Chile, Sweden) are participating but have obtained separate funding.

Choosing to Teach (CTT) 

In this longitudinal research project, (together with a number of colleagues including Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Eran Tamir, and Kavita Matsko) we examine what we term “context-specific” teacher preparation programs. This research, examining programs that prepare teachers for particular contexts such as the Chicago Public Schools, urban Catholic schools, and Jewish day schools, has led us to articulate the goals, pedagogies and effects of these targeted programs. In particular, we have developed a conceptual framework for thinking about how one prepares teachers for the particularities and unique features of different contexts. Our book Inspiring Teaching: Preparing Teachers to Succeed in Mission-Driven Schools will be published this Fall, 2014, by Harvard Education Press, shares what we learned about the nature of powerful and “context-specific” teacher preparation.

Preparing Teachers for these Times: Context-Specific Preparation for New York City

Building upon the conception of “context-specific” teacher preparation that emerged out of the Choosing to Teach study, this four-year study examines what new teachers learn in the Bard urban residency program about the contexts of teaching in New York City; and in turn, conceptualizes what might they need to know about the context of New York City in order to be successful. This research has led to a new, experimental course co-taught with BC Craig of the Bard MAT which we offered during the 2013-2014 year called “The Contexts of Teaching in New York City,” which is intended to help new teachers develop the skills and practices of learning about the nested contexts of New York City teaching (from school; to community; to district; to state and federal). Our course blog can be viewed at: http://contextsofteaching.wordpress.com/about/. Publications based upon this work have been presented at AERA in 2012 and 2013; and will appear in an upcoming issue of Urban Education.

Case Study of Finland’s Policy Context for Teaching

This case study is sponsored by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and funded by the National Center on Education and the Economy. The case is intended to explore the policy contexts that support quality and equitable teaching in Finland. The case has been published in a book titled Empowered Educators in Finland which was co-authored with Raisa Ahtiainen (University of Helsinki) and Pasi Sahlberg (Harvard Graduate School of Education). It is one of a set of cases that examines the policies around high quality teaching in ‘high-performing’ countries, by Linda Darling-Hammond as the lead author and Principal Investigator, titled, Empowered Educators: How high performing systems shape teaching quality around the world. As part of this work, I directed a short documentary that depicted a day in the life of a teacher in a practice school (a school developed specifically to support new teachers’ learning to teach).