Collaborative Around Research Experiences for Teachers

Although many institutions offer research experiences for undergraduate and graduate students who are pursuing K-12 teaching careers, relatively little research has been done on the impact of these experiences. CARET is a Research Action Cluster formed in 2016 via the Network of STEM Education Centers (NSEC). CARET is performing a meta-review of teacher research experience literature, developing common assessment metrics across programs, and pooling evaluation data for national-scale studies that contribute to the body of knowledge around research experiences for teachers and undergraduates. The Center for Sciencea and Mathematics Education (CSME) participates in the core CARET leadership group and has helped organize in-person workshops, online working sessions, and literature review activities. This work is expected to lead to an articulation of the best practices for teachers to translate their summer research experiences into classrooms that consistently engage students in authentic applications of science and engineering practices.

Above, middle school teacher Ashley Russon conducts research at Canyonlands National Park for her project entitled “Ambient Resonance of Musselman Arch”