Embedded Files
Tuesday, 10am - 11am
Tuesday, 10am - 11am
Room: D102, Paper presentations
Room: D102, Paper presentations
Salome Martinez
Universidad de Chile
Defining problems of practice among mathematics teacher educators
Teaching by teacher educators has been described as a second-order practice (Murray and Male, 2005). Teacher educators induct their students into the professional field of teaching: the “subject” and how teacher educators teach that “subject” become inseparable from them (Murray and Male, 2005). Thus, teacher educators must pay careful attention to the teaching practices employed in teaching any subject matter because how they teach is the message that prospective teachers learn (Russell, 1997). Despite the relevance and complexity of their work, teacher educators often go unnoticed (Kelchtermans et al. 2018), and the challenges and tensions they encounter within university classrooms and the problems they face when teaching remain largely unexplored. Knowledge of practice is developed by uncovering the relationship between knowledge and practice through inquiry and supported through a community of practice. At the heart of this process is the recognition of a problem of practice. The sense of difficulty inherent in a problem invites teachers to inquire about and resolve it by experimenting with or testing possible solutions (Loughran, 2018). In this presentation, we will discuss the findings of a project that aims to build a support system for Chilean mathematics teacher educators, fostering the development of professional knowledge through the inquiry of problems of teaching practice. We will discuss the instructional design of a self-instructional online course for teacher educators that aims to encourage participants to reflect on their teaching practices, identify a problem of teaching practice, and propose approaches to address it. To foster teacher reflection, we developed a specific device, "an incremental document," that allows participants to revisit their problem during key instances of the course, allowing them to modify and complement it. We will discuss findings regarding the use of this device and the characteristics of the problems of practice reported during the course.
Han Nee Chong
Hawaii Pacific University
Using Generative AI to Design Differentiated Learning in a General Education Course
A course at a university in Hawaii was redesigned, utilizing generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) tools to facilitate differentiated learning. The course is framed within the context of general education, emphasizing the three general program outcomes: development of skills (Mākau naʻauao), knowledge (‘Ike), and values (Mea Waiwai). The designed artifact includes various instructional strategies that leverage Gen AI for researching current leadership trends, writing learning outcomes, outlining content, and creating assessments tailored to students' diverse mastery levels. By integrating multimodal resources and opportunities for collaborative learning, the redesigned course fosters an inclusive educational environment that not only meets individual student needs but also promotes higher-order thinking and problem-solving skills essential for effective leadership. This course redesign approach serves as an example that highlights the potential and challenges of Gen AI in automating certain design tasks, and supporting differentiated instruction and in course design.
Brian David Guerrero, Gail Rost, Saadeddine S. Shehab
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Professional Development, Human-Centered Design, Design Thinking, Education, Teachers, Professional Learning Community
Human-Centered Design (HCD) is a problem-solving approach that uses design thinking to identify the unmet needs of a population in order to collaboratively and iteratively develop solutions. Integrating HCD into school curriculums provides opportunities for students to develop 21st century mindsets needed in today’s workplaces. We collaborated with a large midwestern school to design a professional learning community (PLC) to provide opportunities for teachers to grow their understanding of HCD and design new curricula for a diverse set of subject material. Our analysis revealed teachers expectations and values around this kind of professional development, their values around HCD implementation and their hurdles centering around designing and implementing larger HCD lessons that require additional support in allowing teachers to connect how their disciplines play a role in solving HCD problems.
Room: D201, Paper presentations
Room: D201, Paper presentations
Thomas "TJ" McKenna
Boston University's Wheelock College of Education and Human Development
From Theory to Practice: Developing Capacity for Sensemaking in K-12 Education, and University Methods Courses
This workshop introduces participants to innovative approaches for developing teacher capacity in sensemaking pedagogy, drawing on both an established university course and a newly released professional resource. Grounded in insights from "Making Sense of Sensemaking: Designing Authentic K–12 STEM Learning Experiences" (Teachers College Press, 2025) and the "Sensemaking in STEM" course at Boston University's Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, participants will explore practical strategies for preparing teachers to implement sensemaking effectively in K-12 STEM education. Through examination of course materials, student artifacts, and assessment frameworks, participants will gain understanding of how theoretical principles of sensemaking can be translated into meaningful learning experiences. The workshop demonstrates how mini-reasoning experiences, rehearsal protocols, and carefully designed assessment tools support teacher development while fostering equitable implementation across diverse educational settings. Participants will analyze video clips of teaching rehearsals, student reflections, and lesson designs that illustrate the development of sensemaking capacity. Discussion will address critical implementation considerations including integration with existing programs, resource requirements, and adaptation strategies for different institutional contexts. By engaging with both course materials and book resources, participants will develop concrete strategies for advancing sensemaking pedagogy in their own teacher preparation settings. The workshop provides a unique opportunity to examine how innovative course design and comprehensive written guidance can work together to transform STEM education through the development of teacher capacity for sensemaking.
Gillian Puttick and Santiago Gasca
TERC
Designing a guide for implementing problem-based learning
Integrating problem-based learning (PBL) in the classroom can be a transformative yet challenging pedagogical shift—especially for educators with limited experience in facilitating open-ended inquiry (e.g., Puttick et al., 2015; Tangney et al., 2020). Teachers must balance student agency, iterative research, and scientific rigor while navigating possibly unfamiliar content areas (National Research Council, 2006; Ford, 2008; Jaber & Hammer, 2016).
Miller et al. (2021) points out the challenges of implementing PBL in constrained learning contexts that drive towards desired and pre-determined content learning goals. These challenges result from the tension between grounding student work in a general question that has multiple possible investigation methods but must lead to this desired learning “end point.” Our Innovate to Mitigate (I2M) project has addressed the critical need for climate change education and engaged students in action-oriented projects as an effective way to combat their climate anxiety. In this project, the articulated learning goals are not about content but about acquiring skill in using science practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013) to create a mitigation prototype. The teacher acts as facilitator or tutor, asking/modeling meta-cognitive questions to guide students (Strobel & Barneveld, 2009).
The I2M project has produced key insights into how teachers guide students in designing solutions to climate change issues using PBL (Puttick et al., 2022, 2023, 2024). However, traditional PBL models require significant experience and training. Therefore, to address this challenge we aim to build on our experience to develop a standalone PBL Guide that will support teachers to address any complex topic at the high school level and reduce the need for extensive professional learning (PL). We must consider essential design decisions to maintain PBL integrity, ensure student engagement, and equip teachers with materials and resources that provide sufficient guidance and structure.
Our approach seeks to embed key supports within a PBL Guide. Design challenges include the need to: -Design an educative teacher guide that requires minimum PL and enhances teacher self-efficacy in transforming their pedagogical approaches. -Maintain PBL integrity to support teachers’ ceding control to students while ensuring integrity of science practices and alignment with instructional goals -Deepen student engagement with self-directed learning and sustained inquiry
The proposed design workshop will address the following overarching question: What are key design features to include in PBL guide that will address these challenges?
Miller et al. (2021) points out the challenges of implementing PBL in constrained learning contexts that drive towards desired and pre-determined content learning goals. These challenges result from the tension between grounding student work in a general question that has multiple possible investigation methods but must lead to this desired learning “end point.” Our Innovate to Mitigate (I2M) project has addressed the critical need for climate change education and engaged students in action-oriented projects as an effective way to combat their climate anxiety. In this project, the articulated learning goals are not about content but about acquiring skill in using science practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013) to create a mitigation prototype. The teacher acts as facilitator or tutor, asking/modeling meta-cognitive questions to guide students (Strobel & Barneveld, 2009).
The I2M project has produced key insights into how teachers guide students in designing solutions to climate change issues using PBL (Puttick et al., 2022, 2023, 2024). However, traditional PBL models require significant experience and training. Therefore, to address this challenge we aim to build on our experience to develop a standalone PBL Guide that will support teachers to address any complex topic at the high school level and reduce the need for extensive professional learning (PL). We must consider essential design decisions to maintain PBL integrity, ensure student engagement, and equip teachers with materials and resources that provide sufficient guidance and structure.
Our approach seeks to embed key supports within a PBL Guide. Design challenges include the need to: -Design an educative teacher guide that requires minimum PL and enhances teacher self-efficacy in transforming their pedagogical approaches. -Maintain PBL integrity to support teachers’ ceding control to students while ensuring integrity of science practices and alignment with instructional goals -Deepen student engagement with self-directed learning and sustained inquiry
The proposed design workshop will address the following overarching question: What are key design features to include in PBL guide that will address these challenges?
Zeta Dooly and Irene McCormick
South East Technological University SETU
SmartAss - agility in design, delivery and assessment in HE
Student Multi-mode Artefacts to Reach Potential in AssessmentThis paper outlines the approach taken by practitioners in SETU towards empowering partnership of educators and students to implement and evaluate media and technology-based assessment for an undergraduate Media and post graduate Education programmeWe advocate that the critical ingredients to Digital Transformation journey in Tertiary education is an alignment with UNESCO’s ESD with its innovative pedagogical approach and trans-disciplinary nature. We believe to empower and include the students in design results in increased student satisfaction and success and a sense of community, this is supported by the literature. (Dzubian et al, 2018, R Ní Bheoláin, R Lowney, F O'Riordan, 2020). Our preliminary results are presented in this paper. We have taken measure to redesign a module/ curriculum in each programme (Media/Education) to demonstrate the integration of Digital skills and digital competences with Edtech available that is accessible (smart phone, ipad, digital apps). We also explore the use of virtual reality hardware and software that is available in University library and maker space areas. The approach adopts a living lab ethos using agile methodology to trial, adapt, assess within a semester and beyond.This research feeds into informing policy on CPD and cross-disciplinary programmes and link with sustainability of educational resources and usability for cross campus cross institution use in Tertiary Education landscape in Ireland. It also aligns to Government of Ireland evidence for policy unit and strategy. We present emerging policies and practice in relation to using GenAI for education and research, designing and redesigning curriculum and assessments with fast pace of technology adoption and use in our society and present the challenges and enablers for students to thrive in this educational ecosystem.Digital transformation encompasses knowledge sharing socio- technical barriers and enablers in-house in HEIs, addresses issues with compatibility and integration, dependencies of systems and people to deliver content and knowledge to all students equally without privilege or exclusion. We also explore perceptions in relation to the use of open educational resources in our HEI. With process improvement and teaching and learning quality standards increasing, we are cognisant of the significant shift in awareness, knowledge, skills and competencies of links with digital literacies within educated cohorts of teachers, lecturers and facilitators so that they can empower students as partners in teaching and learning for critical and higher order thinking and learning. We present our research output which illustrates enhanced media and digital competency, greater Student Engagement and critical thinking skills.
Room: D202, Design workshop
Room: D202, Design workshop
Jonathan Curley, Daniel Alcazar-Roman, Suzanna Loper
Lawrence Hall of Science, UC Berkeley
Making Joyful Learning an Actionable Goal for Learning Resource Developers
The goal of joyful learning builds from research on social emotional learning, motivation, and culturally responsive pedagogy. Joyful learning goes beyond “fun” by aiming for a “positive intellectual and emotional state of learners” (Udvari-Solner & Kluth, 2018) which is likely to increase student learning. Designing for joyful learning helps students become and stay engaged, develop a positive identity as a learner, and persevere through challenges. Successfully designing learning resources that promote joyful learning, however, is a challenge. What tools can help designers create materials and lessons that meet this goal? How can this broad idea (that can be interpreted many ways) be made more concrete and specific? We present a set of seven proposed criteria for creating the conditions to promote joyful learning in K-8 science learning resource design. Our proposed criteria are 1. draws on students’ interests, backgrounds and experiences 2. capitalizes on opportunities for curiosity, excitement, and wonder 3. allows for student self-direction and creativity 4. allows students to have physical experiences 5. provides an appropriate challenge that leads to a feeling of accomplishment 6. includes opportunities for positive peer interactions and building a sense of a science classroom community and 7. highlights ways scientists and engineers find joy in science. The design workshop will include example uses of these criteria during curriculum design processes, discussion of the merits of these and other possible criteria for joyful learning, and discussion of similarities and differences between joyful learning in math, science, and engineering.
Stephanie Castañeda, Michael Lolkus, Lara Jasien
CPM Educational Program
Mobilizing Artwork for Inclusive Secondary Mathematics Curricula
Because mathematics curricula significantly impact instruction and students’ experiences in classrooms (Kloosterman & Walcott, 2010), curriculum designers need to disrupt unjust systems that uphold the status quo in mathematics education. One way to do this is through artwork. Artwork in secondary mathematics curricula provides an opportunity to foreground the diversity of people, cultures, and places. This means more than simply including images and illustrations of racially diverse people; it requires intentionality and specificity to ensure that artwork showcases a balanced variety of diversity instead of falling into archetypes and patterns that might reflect unconscious biases. Illustrators must explicitly consider several kinds of visual diversity. Illustrator considerations include gender nonconformity; various racialized identities; various styles and colors of hair, including natural styles and dyed hair; various physical abilities and visible aids; different physical attributes, including weight, height, etc.; and different styles of clothing, including cultural and religious clothing (e.g., bolo tie, an accessory with a rich history in Southwestern Native American cultures; red ribbon, a symbol of awareness and support for people living with HIV; hijab, a head covering commonly worn by women of Islamic faith). In addition to who is depicted, illustrators must also consider how they might unintentionally reinforce or subvert norms and stereotypes. For example, a doctor could be illustrated with androgynous characteristics and referred to with they/them pronouns to challenge the notion that gender is a binary and the common idea that most doctors are men. In this session, we will engage participants in the question, “In what ways can artwork in secondary mathematics curricula be mobilized and contribute to students’ mathematics identities and sense of belonging in mathematics classrooms?” We will invite participants to co-construct opportunities for foregrounding inclusion principles in curricular artwork and then to work in small groups to explore a lesson from CPM Educational Program’s Inspiring Connections middle school series. These resources are selected from one of the four curriculum developers to publicly commit to foregrounding inclusive education in California schools amidst pushback to diversity, equity, and inclusion (Fensterwald, 2023). We will encourage participants to attend to opportunities for subverting stereotypes, foregrounding community contexts, and holistically attending to representation in artwork. We will close with a whole group conversation about how to build the capacity for mobilizing artwork to support students’ mathematics identities and sense of belonging.
Room: D301, Paper presentations
Room: D301, Paper presentations
Michael Lang
University of Galway
Developing Creativity and Critical Thinking in Cybersecurity Education through Playful Learning
The “Big Heist Challenge” is an innovative assessment method used in an undergraduate course at the University of Galway, the objective of which is to teach business and law students about the human-centred aspects of cybersecurity. Delivered through a gamified, role-play format, the challenge enhances students’ understanding of cyber threats and defenses by immersing them in realistic scenarios. Working in teams, students first act as attackers by devising a hypothetical cyberattack (Phase 1) against a fictitious organisation, then switch roles to become defenders, developing a strategy to counter an assigned attack plan (Phase 2). This active learning approach fosters key skills including problem-solving, analysis, teamwork, planning, critical thinking, and research.
The pedagogical approach draws on principles of active authentic learning and gamification. Whitton (2018) emphasises the importance of creating “safe” playful spaces that support learning from failure, risk-taking, creativity, and innovation. Brown & Leigh (2018) advocate for integrating creative and playful approaches into higher education research to foster deeper engagement and diverse perspectives. Additionally, literature on ethical hacking pedagogy (Hartley, 2015; Pike, 2013; Al-Tawil, 2024) underscores the necessity of teaching offensive cybersecurity skills within an ethical framework to prepare students for real-world challenges.
Quantitative data from a questionnaire covering two academic years (n=168) indicates that the majority of students found the “Big Heist Challenge” to be a valuable, engaging, and innovative learning experience. It helped them develop various skills, including problem-solving (90.5% agreement), analytic skills (86.9% agreement), teamwork (87.8% agreement), planning (88.7% agreement), critical thinking (91.7% agreement), and research skills (93.5% agreement). Students also appreciated the collaborative aspect, noting that working in groups allowed for diverse perspectives and efficient task delegation. The assignment facilitated interaction among classmates (83.3% agreement), promoted mutual support (75.6% agreement), and brought authenticity to their learning (90.8% agreement).
Qualitative feedback further supports these findings, with students highlighting the practical, hands-on nature of the assignment and its relevance to realistic cybersecurity scenarios. They appreciated the creative freedom, clear structure, and effective resources provided. However, some students indicated that while they enjoyed the experience overall, it was not entirely pleasant as they felt uncomfortable contemplating the use of devious social engineering tactics during the attack phase.
Overall, the “Big Heist Challenge” has proven to be a very successful pedagogical approach that combines active learning, gamification, and ethical hacking principles to enhance students’ understanding of cybersecurity. It fosters skill development, collaboration, and critical thinking, preparing students for real-world cybersecurity challenges. Future iterations could benefit from incorporating more detailed guidance and feedback mechanisms to further support student learning and engagement.
The pedagogical approach draws on principles of active authentic learning and gamification. Whitton (2018) emphasises the importance of creating “safe” playful spaces that support learning from failure, risk-taking, creativity, and innovation. Brown & Leigh (2018) advocate for integrating creative and playful approaches into higher education research to foster deeper engagement and diverse perspectives. Additionally, literature on ethical hacking pedagogy (Hartley, 2015; Pike, 2013; Al-Tawil, 2024) underscores the necessity of teaching offensive cybersecurity skills within an ethical framework to prepare students for real-world challenges.
Quantitative data from a questionnaire covering two academic years (n=168) indicates that the majority of students found the “Big Heist Challenge” to be a valuable, engaging, and innovative learning experience. It helped them develop various skills, including problem-solving (90.5% agreement), analytic skills (86.9% agreement), teamwork (87.8% agreement), planning (88.7% agreement), critical thinking (91.7% agreement), and research skills (93.5% agreement). Students also appreciated the collaborative aspect, noting that working in groups allowed for diverse perspectives and efficient task delegation. The assignment facilitated interaction among classmates (83.3% agreement), promoted mutual support (75.6% agreement), and brought authenticity to their learning (90.8% agreement).
Qualitative feedback further supports these findings, with students highlighting the practical, hands-on nature of the assignment and its relevance to realistic cybersecurity scenarios. They appreciated the creative freedom, clear structure, and effective resources provided. However, some students indicated that while they enjoyed the experience overall, it was not entirely pleasant as they felt uncomfortable contemplating the use of devious social engineering tactics during the attack phase.
Overall, the “Big Heist Challenge” has proven to be a very successful pedagogical approach that combines active learning, gamification, and ethical hacking principles to enhance students’ understanding of cybersecurity. It fosters skill development, collaboration, and critical thinking, preparing students for real-world cybersecurity challenges. Future iterations could benefit from incorporating more detailed guidance and feedback mechanisms to further support student learning and engagement.
Minoru Ohtani
Graduate School of Professional Development in Teacher Education
PBL Design, Science, Boudary Crossing
Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a learning method where students engage in authentic scientific activities and problem-solving through hands-on projects that are connected to real-world issues. The PBL approach, particularly the "IQWST" (Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology) framework (Krajcik at ISDDE 2022), allows students to connect scientific concepts to realistic, real-world problems, fostering deeper understanding.The Noto region in Japan has maintained a unique method of salt production using seawater since 16th century. The salt produced is used not only as a food ingredient but also as a key material for tofu production. We designed a PBL course at Teachers’ Professional Development (TDP) at Graduate School which adopts IQWST principles and focuses on linking the science curriculum with practical, real-life topics such as "Salt Production from Seawater." The PBL design contains four aspects. Topic Focus: The project was designed around the junior high school first-year science unit "Properties of Aqueous Solutions" and integrated the real-world context of "Salt Production from Seawater." This approach connects the scientific concepts of dissolution, concentration, and separation of substances to the practical process of extracting salt from seawater. Driving Question: The main driving question for the unit was: "How can we extract useful substances from a solution?" (e.g., "How can salt be made from seawater?"). The lessons were structured around this central inquiry to engage students in understanding both the process of salt extraction and the science behind it. Classroom Activities: Students conducted experiments to extract salt from seawater and learn about the physical properties of solutions, such as solubility and concentration. The lessons were designed to integrate real-world problem-solving with scientific concepts, allowing students to explore questions like "Why does seawater need to be evaporated to produce salt?" and "How can we separate pure salt from other substances in seawater?" Driving Questions Board: As students raised questions during the lessons, these were collected and displayed on a "driving questions board," which was reviewed at the beginning of each class. This helped ensure that students' curiosity was nurtured and addressed throughout the course.Through this PBL approach, students not only learned scientific concepts but also engaged in problem-solving. Their questions and inquiries were integrated into the learning process, motivating them to think critically and deepen their understanding. The PBL model also offers a transformative way to teach science, fostering boundary crossing among school science, local community and real-world issues.
Ellen Jameson, Xinyue Li
University of Cambridge
Can we find Mathland in Minecraft? Designing within constraints for meaningful mathematical actions
Every classroom activity is grounded somehow in time and space. Activities in virtual spaces inherit the constraints and affordances of the physical classroom and layer their own on top of them. In this workshop we will discuss our design journey towards a small set of focused experiences with proportional reasoning in Minecraft Education, challenges which arose when balancing affordances and constraints of that environment, and design principles guiding our responses to these challenges. We welcome feedback on the design process and design solutions we will present, and will facilitate a discussion which can include similar issues you face or have faced in your own projects.
We found that while some of our design goals were not completely mutually exclusive, resulting challenges required us to chart a narrow course. The first challenge we will discuss is virtual embodiment: how should the activity be contextualised such that students are doing mathematics through the core actions which are naturally available to them in the space, with opportunities for feedback and scaffolding? The second challenge is time: how can activities be authentic to students’ expectations from the Minecraft, teachers’ constraints in class sessions, and the principle that core actions in the space should have mathematical meaning? The third challenge is the overall approach to proportional reasoning: does the collection of activities have the potential to contribute to the development of proportional reasoning?
We found that while some of our design goals were not completely mutually exclusive, resulting challenges required us to chart a narrow course. The first challenge we will discuss is virtual embodiment: how should the activity be contextualised such that students are doing mathematics through the core actions which are naturally available to them in the space, with opportunities for feedback and scaffolding? The second challenge is time: how can activities be authentic to students’ expectations from the Minecraft, teachers’ constraints in class sessions, and the principle that core actions in the space should have mathematical meaning? The third challenge is the overall approach to proportional reasoning: does the collection of activities have the potential to contribute to the development of proportional reasoning?
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