Robot-Mediated Learning: Exploring School-Deployed Collaborative Robots for Homebound Children

2020 - 2023

Over 2.5 million children in the US are medically homebound. They are socially isolated, physically segregated, and current educational practices largely exclude them from their school communities. Telepresence robots have emerged as a possible means to support these children to return to their local schools, however, it is not yet understood how homebound children can effectively use these robots for optimal learning and social development experiences.

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Youth Engaged in STEM and Service: Locally- and Globally-Relevant Solar Technology Summer Experiences

2020 - 2024

The Youth Engaged in STEM and Service: Locally- and Globally-Relevant Solar Technology Summer Experiences project responds to the pressing need for systems of formal and informal STEM education to support Black, brown, and female-identifying youth with opportunities for youth to build and sustain their interests in STEM beyond required coursework. This project will leverage community-based partnerships to broaden the participation of youth from female-identifying and Black and brown communities through engaging, hands-on solar technology summer camps.

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An Embodied, Augmented Reality Coding Platform for Pair Programming

2020 - 2023

Augmented reality (AR) allows the real world to be enhanced, or augmented, by computer-generated objects that are “added” to the real world. For example, a clothing store may use AR to allow a customer to “see” how clothes would look on them before they are purchased. This project at University of California San Diego will use AR to create an environment in which students can practice pair programming in an AR environment. Pair programming is a software development technique in which two programmers work together at one workstation, on the same piece of code.

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Empowering Informal Educators to Prepare Future Generations in Wireless Radio Communications with Mobile Resources

2020 - 2024

Wireless radio communications, such as Wi-Fi, transmit public and private data from one device to another, including cell phones, computers, medical equipment, satellites, space rockets, and air traffic control. Despite their critical role and prevalence, many people are unfamiliar with radio waves, how they are generated and interact with their surroundings, and why they are the basis of modern communication and navigation.

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Maker Challenges to Promote Math Learning among English Language Learners

2019 - 2024

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and testing four Maker Learning Cycle (MLC) curriculum units for English language learners (ELLs) in each of grades 4 and 5.  Each Maker challenge engages students in hands-on creation of solutions to authentic problems in a social context, and each challenge is followed by one to

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Watershed Awareness using Technology and Environmental Research for Sustainability (WATERS)

2019 - 2024

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing and testing a middle school science curriculum focusing on water and water-related career awareness.

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Exploring Careers and Learning Informally to Prepare for STEM Employment

2017 - 2022

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase student motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by designing, implementing, and testing an afterschool internship program that will engage older youth in work-based learning experiences in in STEM fields.

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Beyond Rubrics: Moving Towards Embedded Assessment in Maker Education

2017 - 2019

This project is supported by the STEM+Computing (STEM+C) program, which advances applied research integrating computational thinking and computing activities within disciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teaching and learning in early childhood education through high school (PreK-12). Because of its fundamental focus on collaborative, iterative, process-based learning--key 21st century skills--maker education's learning outcomes cannot be adequately tracked by tests, the traditional means of assessment in classrooms.

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Coding Science Internships: Authentic Learning Experiences to Support Students' Science and Programming Practices and Broaden Participation in Computer Science

2017 - 2021

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by developing, broadly implementing, and systematically investigating two 10-day computer programming instructional sequences.

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Connecting STEM to Music and the Physics of Sound Waves

2017 - 2023

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) by producing empirical findings and/or research tools that contribute to knowledge about which models and interventions with K-12 students and teachers are most likely to increase capacity in the STEM and STEM-cognate intensive workforce of the future.

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