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Teachers need to develop a variety of pedagogical strategies that can encourage precise and accurate communication--an extremely important 21st century skill. Precision with STEM oral language is essential. Emphasizing oral communication with precise language in combination with increased spatial skills with modeling can improve the chances of success in STEM courses and later in making STEM career choices. The participants were 14 middle and high school teachers who participated in a week of professional development (PD). The Aural/Spatial Interactions and Invariant Components of Vocabulary for STEM Content Area Specialists (AS-STEM) was administered to teacher groups to examine how STEM discourses influenced AS-STEM success. This study compared language differences among groups that were more versus less successful at representing unseen 3-D objects by drawing 2-D depictions from oral descriptions from peers. The groups that were more successful, able to produce more accurate depictions, used (a) language type merging that was more coherent and less frequent, (b) language precision that appeared to convey meaning effectively, and (c) validated shared meaning regularly and established these shared meanings efficiently. Thus, teachers who were able to merge language types using precision and jointly took ownership of the tasks were more successful. We trust that this work translates into practice through the awareness teachers had from participation in and discussion of the activities.

The integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Project-Based Learning (STEM PBL) into educational curriculum has received much attention because of its strength in improving students' affective engagement. We designed the present study to investigate the effectiveness of STEM PBL lessons on 9th grade students' development of affective mathematics engagement. The affective mathematics engagement of two groups of participants (STEM PBL and non-STEM PBL) were compared (N = 147). The results showed group differences in STEM PBL versus non-STEM PBL lessons were statistically significant (t = 5.587, p < 0.001, d = 0.960). In particular, STEM PBL students had greater positive affective mathematics engagement in terms of mathematical self-acknowledgement and value as compared to the non-STEM PBL students. The results of the study indicate that highly situated and integrated instruction has a positive impact on students' perceptions of their affective mathematics engagement.

The purpose of this study is to compare students' mathematics achievement growth rate in Texas science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (T-STEM) academies to students' mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public high schools. Forty-six schools, 23 of which were T-STEM academies and 23 of which were matched non-STEM schools, were included in this study. A hierarchical linear modeling method was conducted. The result of the present study revealed that there was no difference in students' mathematics achievement growth rate in T-STEM academies compared to students' mathematics achievement growth rate in comparison schools. However, in terms of ethnicity, the results indicated that African American and Hispanic students in T-STEM academies outperformed African American and Hispanic students in comparison schools on their mathematics growth rate.

Gender difference on spatial visualization has been considered an important factor that impacts the gender gap in academic performance in STEM-related disciplines. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the gender difference on spatial visualization between STEM and non-STEM undergraduate majors. Twenty effect sizes representing STEM majors' spatial ability and 14 effect sizes representing non-STEM majors' spatial ability were included in the present meta-analysis. Results indicated that the overall effect size equalled 0.613 (95% CI = [0.444, 0.782]) in STEM and 0.481 (95% CI = [0.359, 0.604]) in non-STEM. These findings showed that the gender differences on spatial visualization were statistically significant in both STEM and non-STEM majors. The gender difference on spatial visualization in STEM was larger than the gender difference on spatial visualization in non-STEM. In addition, male students' spatial visualization ability was higher than female students' spatial visualization in both STEM and non-STEM majors.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in Inclusive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools compared to Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public schools. Twenty-eight schools, 14 of which were Texas STEM (T-STEM) academies and 14 of which were matched non-STEM schools, were included in this study. A hierarchical linear modelling method was conducted. The result of the present study revealed that there was no difference in Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in T-STEM academies compared to Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in comparison schools. However, in terms of gender, the results indicated that female Hispanic students in T-STEM academies outperformed female Hispanic students in comparison schools in their mathematics growth rate.

Previous research identified a strong correlation between mathematics and science performance albeit for small samples of students. Even though there was a high correlation between mathematics and science performance, researchers examining students' STEM achievement investigated mathematics and science achievement separately. The present study brings science and mathematics objectives together to constitute a higher order STEM assessment model. Data (science and mathematics scores) were gathered from 231,966 students (52% female) who were in 11th grade and took the state mandated test in 2013. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis was used to create a STEM assessment model. The fit indices showed indicated it was an adequate model fit for the data. However, the lack of assessments of technology and engineering objectives taught in K-12 make estimating the effectiveness of STEM teaching and learning tenable at best.

The purpose of the study was to explore the development of discourses that emerge as a result of inservice teachers being engaged in a richly situated technological task that incorporated geometric spatial sense development and the engineering design processes. Typically, learning has been approached as a discrete set of tasks to be mastered without regard for how expressed language within context develops. Secondary teachers (N = 26) who attended a week-long residential professional development program at a land grant university learned to use Google Sketch-Up® to design 3-dimensional (3-D) objects that were created using 3-D printers. Data were collected during an aural spatial visualization test that required language be used to describe 3-D objects to others who created 2-D drawings. Digital audio recordings of these interactions were analyzed. Results indicated language emerged through a variety of discourses each characterized by distinct languages: analogous, technical, and clarifying. The discourses were mediated by cognitive negotiation that allowed meaning to ascribe with sense carrying capacity that was occasionally hindered by terminological ambiguity. Implications of this study are that designing and creating 3-D objects using 3-D printers in classrooms may support opportunities for engaging in and practicing engineering design processes while developing disciplinary language, and spatial ability.

The purpose of the study was to explore the development of discourses that emerge as a result of inservice teachers being engaged in a richly situated technological task that incorporated geometric spatial sense development and the engineering design processes. Typically, learning has been approached as a discrete set of tasks to be mastered without regard for how expressed language within context develops. Secondary teachers (N = 26) who attended a week-long residential professional development program at a land grant university learned to use Google Sketch-Up to design 3-dimensional (3-D) objects that were created using 3-D printers. Data were collected during an aural spatial visualization test that required language be used to describe 3-D objects to others who created 2-D drawings. Digital audio recordings of these interactions were analyzed. Results indicated language emerged through a variety of discourses each characterized by distinct languages: analogous, technical, and clarifying. The discourses were mediated by cognitive negotiation that allowed meaning to ascribe with sense carrying capacity that was occasionally hindered by terminological ambiguity. Implications of this study are that designing and creating 3-D objects using 3-D printers in classrooms may support opportunities for engaging in and practicing engineering design processes while developing disciplinary language, and spatial ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to determine how students who attended T-STEM academies performed on the mathematics section of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) compared to their corresponding peers who attended traditional public schools in Texas. The present study included 18 T-STEM academies and 18 matched non-STEM schools. The sample consisted of three years of TAKS mathematics data for 3026 students, of which 1506 attended 18 T-STEM academies and 1520 attended 18 non-STEM schools in Texas. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to construct a three-level model for analysis. Results revealed that at the end of grade 9, students who attended T-STEM academies performed higher in mathematics compared to their counterparts in comparison schools, but no difference was found in their mean mathematics score's growth rate from 2009 to 2011. In terms of gender, the present study found that female students who attended T-STEM academies performed higher on TAKS mathematics than male students in comparison schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Middle school students lack efficient problem solving skills due to several factors. The writing process has been linked to the development of students' problem solving skills. The present study investigated the impact of the writing process on the mathematical problem solving skills for middle grades students. N = 96 students participated in a six weeks, after school STEM program, and they were randomly assigned into two groups: one focused on the writing process with mathematical problem solving and the other on homework/high stakes test preparation with mathematical problem solving. In this quantitative study, the results provide evidence that the students from the writing process group were more likely to generate and apply better problem solving skills as compared to the control group. This study further contributes to the support and importance of integrating different subjects across the generalized learning realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]