- Year 2023
- NSF Noyce Award # 1852690
- First Name Kermin
- Last Name Martinez-Hernandez
- Institution St. John Fisher University
- Role/Position PI
- Workshop Category Track 1: Scholarships and Stipends
- Workshop Disciplines Audience Chemistry, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics
- Target Audience Co-PIs, Noyce Master Teachers, Noyce Teaching Fellows, Other Faculty/Staff, Project PIs, Undergraduate and/or Graduate Noyce Scholars
- Topics Resources for Teachers
- Session Length 30 minutes minutes
- Additional Presenter(s)
Ed Freeman, efreeman@sjf.edu; Makenna King, mlk06831@sjfc.edu; Lauren DeMichele, ld06194@sjfc.edu; Kelsey Sainsbury, kls06605@students.sjfc.edu
Goals
Participants in this session will learn or be able to do the following after attending this session: (1) Understand what data modules are and appreciate their broad applicability to STEM instruction, (2) Interact with specific databases that have curated activities centered on data modules, and (3) Replicate the steps we used to guide our scholars in the use of data modules to supplement their instructional strategies. The goal of this session is to share a strategy we have used with our undergraduate Noyce scholars to encourage their use of data analysis in their future classrooms. Scholars attended sessions with the following themes: An introduction to using pre-existing data modules as a tool for instruction, Learning about modules by playing the part of the student, Instruction on how to navigate and interpret the New York State standards for science and mathematics, Exploration of various websites with curated data-based modules, Completion of a scholar data module presentation centered on a topic of their interest with a consideration of how they would modify the data module to suit their needs and what state standards the lesson would allow them to cover.
Evidence
Multiple of our current scholars will share their experiences in working with the data modules during their junior year – one Math and one Biology major. Short presentations will be given that detail the finished product of the overall series of activities from the scholar’s perspective.
Proposal
The Noyce INSPIRE scholars at St. John Fisher University were given the opportunity to explore the use of data modules (https://qubeshub.org/) for classroom instruction purposes. This multi-session experience began with a general introduction to data modules. In this first session, we considered the idea of using pre-existing data modules (data sets, detailed instructions, prompting questions, and answers to questions) as a tool for classroom instruction, regardless of scientific or mathematical discipline. We continued this series by having the scholars play the part of a classroom student so they could experience some of the challenges and frustrations that students can feel when working with data in a classroom setting. For example, tasks included organizing a dataset and answering questions, all based on prompts and questions provided in the data module. Scholars were then exposed to a session considering the New York state standards for both science and math. After this third session, scholars were given homework; they were asked to consider how a data module of their choosing could be used in a future classroom, what modifications would need to be made and, importantly, what state standards would be accomplished through the use of the data module. During our final session, each scholar provided a short presentation addressing those questions. This experience allowed our scholars to learn about a freely available resource, to consider how that resource might be useful to them as future educators, and to gain practice in connecting their instruction to state standards.
