Browsing by Author "Iwatani, Emi"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 20
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Broadening Participation in STEM College Majors: Effects of Attending a STEM-Focused High School(AERA Open, 2018-11) Means, Barbara; Wang, Haiwen; Wei, Xin; Iwatani, Emi; Peters, VanessaTo increase participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) studies and careers, some states have promoted inclusive STEM high schools. This study addressed the question of whether these high schools improve the odds that their graduates will pursue a STEM major in college. State higher education records were obtained for students surveyed as seniors in 23 inclusive STEM high schools and 19 comparison schools without a STEM focus. Propensity score weighting was used to ensure that students in the comparison school sample were very similar to those in the inclusive STEM school sample in terms of demographic characteristics and Grade 8 achievement. Students overall and from under-represented groups who had attended inclusive STEM high schools were significantly more likely to be in a STEM bachelor’s degree program two years after high school graduation. For students who entered two-year colleges, on the other hand, attending an inclusive STEM high school was not associated with entry into STEM majors.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Algorithmic Thinking 3-8(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 30-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of algorithms) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Algorithmic Thinking in K-2(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 35-minute webinar, designed originally for kindergarten through second-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of algorithms) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Data & Analysis in K-2(Digital Promise, 2020-11) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 20-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of data and analysis) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computational Thinking Boosters: Data and Analysis 3-8(Digital Promise, 2020-11) Tackett, Traci; Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, EmiA 25-minute webinar, designed originally for third through eighth-grade teachers in KY Appalachia, introduces ideas for integrating computational thinking (and specifically the notion of data and analysis) into lessons across different content areas.Item Computing in rural America: Developing K-8 coding pathways for Kentucky Appalachia(Digital Promise, 2020-11) Burke, Quinn; Iwatani, Emi; Owens, Aileen; Tackett, Traci; May, PaytonWhat are the technical (and cultural) challenges of bringing computational thinking to small-town school districts? The overwhelming majority of computing initiatives focus nearly exclusively on urban/suburban districts. This presentation shares the challenges/promises of such efforts in an area economically devastated by the departure of the coal industry.Item Deepening Science Engagement With Challenge Based Learning: Research Report(Digital Promise, 2020-02) Iwatani, Emi; Means, Barbara; Romero, Maria R.; Vang, Mai ChouLearn about the Challenge Based Science Learning Project and its larger implications for the fields of Next Generation Science Learning and Open Educational Resources. The project involved 18 middle school teachers and five administrators from three U.S. school districts partnering with instructional coaches and learning sciences researchers from Digital Promise to address an ambitious educational challenge: How might we deepen engagement and learning of middle school science in our schools and beyond?Item Delivering virtual K-8 computing professional development in rural KY(Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), 2021-05) Ruiz, Pati; Iwatani, Emi; Burke, QuinnTeachers living and working in rural areas in the United States often lack access to high-quality professional development (PD) opportunities. As computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education pathways increasingly develop in rural districts, it is essential to provide quality PD for their teachers so they can identify opportunities for and plan to embed CS and CT learning in their classrooms. A key element in delivering high-quality PD is understanding the specific educational and wider cultural needs of the community where it will be delivered, something we call “mining cultural capital”. In this poster, we report on the delivery of four 30-minute virtual PD sessions within two rural school districts in Eastern Kentucky: Pikeville Independent and Floyd County Schools. The virtual sessions were specifically geared toward elementary and middle school teachers. The sessions were led by a long-time educator in the region who worked to curate relevant examples and delivered the PD via a recorded video conference. The recordings are available for teachers in the region to watch and re-watch as they develop their lessons. Survey results showed that participating teachers found the PD to be valuable. Furthermore, feedback from teachers suggests that access to these short just-in-time PD sessions provided valuable learning opportunities and also sparked new lesson ideas for teachers.Item Finding kinship in a far away land: The relevance of Japanese cultural perspectives to education research in Eastern Kentucky (アメリカ・ケンタッキー州東部の教育研究:日本文化との共通性)(Digital Promise, 2023-01) Iwatani, EmiIn this presentation, Emi Iwatani shares how the "Tough As Nails, Nimble Fingers: Developing a K-8 Coding Pathway for Kentucky Appalachia" was conceptualized to explore the idea of "cultural fit" of computational thinking and computer science education in Eastern Kentucky. It also shares project activities and findings related to that topic, and comments on the potential relevance of Emi's personal cultural (Japanese) background to project conception and execution.Item How Rule Induction Data Mining Can and Cannot Be Useful for Education Research(AERA Online Paper Repository, 2019-04) Iwatani, EmiThis paper shares insights and recommendations on how rule-induction data mining can and cannot be useful to education research, based on re-analyzing two regression studies with rule induction approaches. Processes and findings were compared to identify whether, in what ways, and why rule-induction could add value. I found that rule-based approaches can provide unique descriptions of the sample that shows at-a-glance, how key predictors relate to each other and to the outcome. They can also identify relationships between variables that held for some subgroups but not others. It was important to clearly understand the difference between mining rules and mining rulesets, as well as the unique research questions that these answer, so that they complement rather than replacement regression.Item Leveraging Community Cultural Wealth to Support K-8 CT Education in Kentucky Appalachia(Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), 2021-05) Iwatani, Emi; Tackett, Traci; Tackett, Kelsey; Arnett, Neil; May, PaytonSince the departure of the coal industry, Kentucky Appalachia has been striving to cultivate new ways of living in the region that is consonant with their culture and values. Developing a workforce that is competitive in the digital economy is a central part of the region's plan for revitalization, with local educators and organizations beginning to invest, with intention, in CS/ CT education for K-12 students. The panel consists of local leaders (administrators, teachers, parents, and community leaders) of K-8 CS/CT initiatives in the region. They will discuss how building a K-8 computational thinking pathway both leverages and helps to strengthen their community's cultural wealth.Item The many faces of R: Exploring roles for researchers beyond research(Digital Promise, 2021-07) Iwatani, Emi; Burke, QuinnLiterature on RPP methodology often seems to assume that the main value that researchers provide to education practitioners is their expertise in collecting, interpreting, and communicating data. However, research-side partners can also take on a number of additional roles in RPPs that are of value to practice-side partners, such as supporting internal communication processes, the procurement of external funding for educational materials, and the vetting of educational technology, among others. In this session, Emi Iwatani and Quinn Burke invite you to explore whether and how researchers can and/or should provide value to districts in an RPP beyond being a data expert.Item Overview of Data Mining’s Potential Benefits and Limitations in Education Research(Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 2018-10) Iwatani, EmiEducation researchers are increasingly interested in applying data mining approaches, but to date, there has been no overarching exposition of their methodological advantages and disadvantages to the field. This is partly because the use of data mining in education research is relatively new, so its value and consequences are not yet well understood. Yet statisticians, sociologists and those who study computer-based education have discussed the methodological merits of data mining in education research. This article brings together their perspectives, providing an interdisciplinary overview of potential benefits and drawbacks. The benefits, regardless of scholar background, largely emphasize the speed and ease with which data mining approaches can help explore very large datasets. Perceived drawbacks, however, differ based on disciplinary expertise. For example, statisticians question data mining’s exploratory nature and non-reliance on sampling theory, while sociologists raise concerns about an excessive reliance on data in research designs and in understandings of education.Item Pivoting in a Pandemic: Transitioning from In-person to Virtual K-8 Computing Professional Development(Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), 2021-03) Burke, Quinn; Iwatani, Emi; Ruiz, Pati; Tackett, Traci; Owens, AileenThis poster reports on year one of a three-year NSF-funded Research Practitioner Partnership (RPP) to develop a K-8 pipeline for computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education within two rural school districts in Eastern Kentucky: Pikeville Independent School District and Floyd County Schools. Economically devastated by the departure of the coal industry, these communities are committed to developing high-quality computing curricula for all students, beginning in their earliest years. The poster has two components. First, through a mixture of qualitative measures, the poster reports on the genesis and development of the RPP. It focuses on the RPP's origin in leveraging the districts' existing relationship with Pennsylvania's South Fayette School District, which has developed one of the nation's leading programs for teacher professional development (PD) in K-12 computing. The second component of the poster focuses on the development of a series of summer workshops for Kentucky Appalachia K-8 instructors to learn the basics of CS and CT and how to integrate these skills and concepts into existing K-8 coursework. Of course, the RPP faced new challenges with COVID-19 most notably, the need to offer these summer workshops remotely, and adjusting the objectives and research questions accordingly. Through focus groups with the PD instructional team and survey responses from the KY teacher workshop participants, the poster will report on the pedagogical implications of offering teacher PD exclusively online and what the ramifications have been for Pikeville and Floyd County children with the return to school in the Fall of 2020.Item Resisting Edtech Colonialism through Inclusive Innovation in Kentucky Appalachia(Digital Promise, 2021-09) Iwatani, Emi; Ruiz, Pati; Burke, Quinn; Owens, Aileen; Tackett, TraciColonialism occurs “when one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people” (National Geographic, 2019). With K-12 public school systems increasingly becoming 1-to-1, hundreds of millions of tax dollars being directed towards computer science and computational thinking (CS/CT) education, and educational technology (edtech) companies vying to capture the K-12 market share, it behooves us to wonder: Whose interests are CS/CT edtech are promoting? While “CS/CT edtech” is not a nation, it has potential to act like a colonizer because (1) it has its own language and culture that it aims to promote, (2) has great economic and political clout, and (3) the culture and values currently promoted are fairly monolithic. The NSF-funded researcher-practitioner partnership Tough As Nails project faces this tension head-on because the program objective is to create a K-8 CS/CT curricular pathway in two school districts in Kentucky Appalachia, where the researchers are from Silicon Valley with little familiarity with Appalachian culture and education. Our core project team (from CA, KY, and PA) has so far resisted “edtech colonialism” by upholding shared visions of “student agency is core,” “Kentucky leads the development” and “competencies first (then themes, then tools).”Item Rubrics for Examining Deeper Learning in Middle School Science Classrooms(Digital Promise, 2020-01) Iwatani, Emi; Means, Barbara; Romero, Maria R.This classroom observation tool was developed for the Challenge Based Science Learning project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which brought together Challenge Based Learning and the Next Generation Science Standards (https://digitalpromise.org/initiative/next-generation-science/cbl-ngss/ ). It’s aligned to the activities and student work rubrics used in the project, can be used by researchers, educators and professional learning experts to study deeper learning in middle school science and engineering classrooms.Item Rubrics for Examining Historical Thinking Skills in High School World History Activities and Student Work(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Hardy, Angela; Iwatani, Emi; Means, Barbara; Seylar, JohnThese Historical Thinking Skills rubrics were created and validated for use in the evaluation of Gates Ventures’ World History Project (WHP) curriculum. The set of rubrics for scoring teacher lessons were designed to evaluate the potential of teacher-assigned activities (e.g., an essay prompt) to provide opportunities for students to learn historical thinking skills, while the set of rubrics for scoring student work were designed to assess the extent to which students successfully used historical thinking skills in the work these activities produced (e.g., a written essay). The categories of historical thinking skills identified for measurement are aligned with widely accepted national frameworks and standards, making these rubrics applicable for use by researchers, educators and professional learning experts to study historical thinking skills learning in high school world history classrooms.Item Rubrics for Examining Historical Thinking Skills in High School World History Activities and Student Work: Construct Validity Evidence from the Literature(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Hardy, Angela; Iwatani, EmiDigital Promise sought to create and validate historical thinking skills rubrics for use in its evaluation of Gates Ventures’ World History Project (WHP) curriculum. Adopting a principled assessment development approach called Evidence Centered Design (Mislevy et al., 2003), the Digital Promise team began by conducting an academic literature review. In this paper, we elaborate on how the literature on history education and historical thinking skills informed rubric design, including details of what it says about: how historical thinking skills have been defined in the literature; what dimensions of historical thinking used in national frameworks and standards; convergences of concepts across multiple frameworks and standards, and evidence on the progression of historical thinking skills. The results of this literature review led to the creation of two sets of historical thinking skills rubrics, one for evaluating teacher-assigned activities, and another for evaluating the student work those activities produced (presented in Iwatani, Hardy, Means, & Seylar, 2021 with additional validity evidence described in Iwatani, Means, Seylar, & Hardy, 2021).Item Rubrics on Historical Thinking Skills for Assignments and Student Work: Initial Validity Evidence(Digital Promise, 2021-01) Iwatani, Emi; Means, Barbara; Seylar, John; Hardy, AngelaDigital Promise sought to create and validate two sets of Historical Thinking Skills rubrics for use in its evaluation of Gates Ventures’ World History Project (WHP) curriculum: one for evaluating teacher-assigned activities, and another for evaluating the student work those activities produced. Adopting a principled assessment development approach called Evidence Centered Design (Mislevy et al., 2003), the Digital Promise team began by conducting an academic literature review to inform rubric design, then piloted the draft rubrics to test their validity by having expert world history teachers score a sample of world history assignments and associated student work and provide feedback on the rubrics and scoring process. We found that scores that trained raters assigned to activities and student work were generally consistent across scorers, and scorer feedback indicated that the rubrics did indeed measure valuable historical thinking skills. Based on an analysis of rubric scores and scorer feedback, our team revised the draft rubrics to their final form.Item Teacher Learner Connect Project(Digital Promise, 2023-03) Iwatani, Emi; Simmons, Cortney; Leones, Tiffany; Bustillos, Adrian; Hinds, Fiona; Scheirman, SilviaThe report and slides summarize findings and reflections from the Teacher Learner Connect project, an exploratory research practice partnership supported by the Pahara Institute, UCLA Center for the Developing Adolescent, and Bezos Family Foundation. The project provided opportunities for small teams of teachers and middle/high school students to converse over a meal about assessment, exploration and healthy risk-taking in the classroom. The conversations underscored the importance of assignment relevance (as felt by students), as well as the value of student-teacher conversations and student voice.