Led by a team of researchers and practitioners affiliated with the Philadelphia Regional Institute for STEM Educators (PRISE, formerly the Philadelphia Regional Noyce Partnership), the USTRIVE project seeks to foster STEM knowledge and literacy with close to 3,000 students in grades 7 – 12 through the use of a socio-transformative constructivism framework (sTc) using a socio-scientific issues (SSI) approach.
Understanding STEM Teaching Through Integrated Contexts in Everyday Life
USTRIVE means teaching your students lessons grounded in relevant social and scientific problems facing them in their own community. It means helping them master the skills and concepts necessary to become effective social change agents.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2101395.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Project Goals and Activities
We will achieve our goal by providing teachers with integrated professional development and learning community supports that are designed to address the following teacher competencies:
- Develop, implement, and reflect on units of study that combine socio-scientific issues (SSI) and socio-transformative constructivism framework (sTc)
- Cultivate pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in teaching orientation and instructional strategies with regard to SSI/sTc
- Acquire instructional design capabilities to develop and implement lesson plans, assessments, classroom resources, and reflections (i.e., units of study) that emphasize both STEM modeling (i.e., developing, testing and revising models) and the discursive nature of SSI (i.e., self-reflection and scientific skepticism)
- Foster student scientific literacy through a cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness instructional lens
Teachers who attend professional development (PD) will also receive classroom support visits to implement these new instructional approaches with their students. To help embed and expand the use of sTc in secondary education classrooms, a new professional learning community (PLC) will foster content-knowledge sharing and leadership development. Facilitating the transfer of this approach to others will be the creation of an open, digital repository for artifacts; we will also develop new and strengthen existing relationships with local environmental education centers to expand the availability of local community resources for teachers.
Our PD activities will support 75 teachers (25 per cohort) over the four-year project period. Each cohort will participate in two years of program activities. Each year participants will engage in:
- One two-week summer institute
- Monthly PLC/workshop/field trip intensives on Saturdays
- Four classroom support visits (Year 1 only)
- One end-of-year conference with teacher-led workshops (Saturday)
External Evaluators
- Megan Richardson, Senior Project Manager, Division of Teaching & Learning, Research & Evaluation Group
- Kelly Feighan, PHD, Research Scientist & Director of Division of Teaching & Learning, Research & Evaluation Group
- Public Health Management Corp
- “Evaluators will gather participant feedback to inform the project team’s implementation and address questions about the quality, usefulness, and relevance of content. In addition to measuring program satisfaction and challenges that teachers may experience along the way, the evaluators will examine the extent to which teachers were able to integrate USTRIVE learning into their work.”
Research Resources
View all resources, projects, and course content at the links below. If content requires access, through Google or email Becky Mathers.
Professional Development Resources
Forms
In the News
Arcadia University Leads Collaborative $2.8 Million Grant For STEM Curriculum Development (AiThority)
Mercyhurst among universities sharing $2.8 million grant to boost STEM education (Valerie Myers, Erie Times-News)
Partner Universities, Colleges, and Schools:
- Arcadia University
- Dr. Augusto Z. Macalalag, Jr., Principal Investigator, Associate Professor & Director of STEM
- Dr. Priscilla Jeter-Iles, Assistant Professor & Director of Field Experiences and Outreach
- Dr. Becky Mathers, Post-doctoral Researcher, USTRIVE Program
- Alan Kaufmann, Research Assistant
- Quinn Reinert, Research Assistant
- Matthew Clevenger, Research Assistant
- Benjamin Van Meter, Research Assistant
- LaSalle University
- Dr. Greer Richardson, Co-Principal Investigator, Professor of Education
- Dr. Ling Liang, Co-Principal Investigator, Associate Professor
- Nicholas Sinni, Research Assistant
- Mercyhurst University
- Dr. Joseph Johnson, Co-Principal Investigator, Associate Professor & Chair of Physics
- Aden Ricketts, Research Assistant
- Villanova University
- Dr. Lisa Marco-Bujosa, Co-Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor
- Ruth Baines, Research Assistant
- Philadelphia Regional Institute for STEM Educators (PRISE) at St. Joseph’s University
- Dr. Victor Donnay, Executive Director, PRISE, Saint Joseph’s University; Professor of Mathematics, Bryn Mawr College
- Dorianna Estes, Program Manager, Philadelphia Regional Institute of STEM Educators (PRISE) at Saint Joseph’s University, Project Coordinator, Understanding STEM Teaching Through Integrated Contexts in Everyday Life (USTRIVE)
- Abington Friends School
- Abraham Lincoln High School
- Andrew J. Morrison School
- Benjamin Franklin High School
- Cedarbrook Middle School
- Cheltenham High School
- Cristo Rey Philadelphia High School
- Frankford High School
- George Washington High School
- Girard College
- Hamilton High School West
- Hill-Freedman World Academy
- James Rhoads School
- Jenkintown Middle/High School
- John Bartram High school
- John McCloskey
- John B Stetson
- Kensington Health Sciences Academy
- Lincoln High School
- Mariana Bracetti Academy Charter School
- Middle Years Alternative School for the Humanities
- New Foundations Charter School
- Northeast High School
- Overbrook Educational Center
- Palisades High School
- Parkway Northwest
- Philadelphia Military Academy
- Science Leadership Academy Middle School
- School District Philadelphia
- Strawberry Mansion High School
- Universal Institute Charter School
- The U School
- Vare Washington Elementary
- Wagner Middle School
- Widener Memorial School
EXTERNAL ADVISORY BOARD
Interested in joining USTRIVE in the future?
Questions?
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2101395.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
