Overview
Computational thinking is becoming an essential part of what students need to know as computer science and data science are more embedded in STEM careers and daily life. Computational thinking is the process of using tools from computer science to solve and analyze problems. The focus of this project is the design of learning experiences in different high school science courses to help students gain experience in computational thinking. The project uses a partnership between two universities and school district to develop and refine the units as a collaboration between researchers, teachers, and school leaders. The goal is to help all students have opportunities to learn about computational thinking in multiple science courses.
The Research and Practice Partnership between the universities and the school district will address two problems of practice at the high school level. First, students will engage in computational modeling in science classes to provide all students opportunities to learn computational thinking. Second, teachers will have the opportunity to learn more about the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and develop curriculum to support the standards. The project will create units for four science subjects and investigate the design and implementation of those units. Using design-based implementation research, the project has three research questions that focus on the design of the units and what students and teachers learn in the process.. (1) How and under what conditions does engaging in computational modeling practices (CMPs) through the designed units in one course lead to shifts in: learning of disciplinary core ideas and cross-cutting concepts, computational modeling practices (CMPs) , and attitudes towards science and computation? (2) How and under what conditions does repeated exposure to CMPs across science courses impact student learning? (3) How do teachers see the role of professional development in preparing them to use the curricula? (4) How and why do they adapt the curricula to fit their classrooms? (4) What kinds of design supports do students and teachers need to use these units? (5) How can we design a collection of computational modeling units that integrate 3-dimensional NGSS learning with computational thinking practices for multiple subjects? The data collection will include classroom observations and videos, surveys of teachers and students, measures of students’ learning, The project will also gather log data from the StarLogo Nova platform that is being used as a tool for computational modeling and simulation in the units.
Research
Wendel, D., Wagh, A., & Mesiner, J. E. (2025). “Kind of Like a Chemical Reaction”: Leveraging Structural Similarities between Models to Support Teachers’ Growing Expertise with Computational Modeling for Science Teaching. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2025, pp. 1973-1977. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Wagh, A., Mesiner, J. E., & Wendel, D. (2025). “I was debating and now I’m on board”: Supporting Shifts in Teacher Uptake of Computational Modeling in Science Classrooms. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences-ICLS 2025, pp. 2762-2764. International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Murray, E., Wagh, A., & Conlin, L. (March 24, 2025). Insights into Co-designing & Teaching NGSS-aligned Computational Agent-based Modeling Units in High School Science Classrooms. Paper presented at the NARST Annual International Conference in National Harbor, MD.
Wagh, A., Harrison, M., Wendel, D., Conlin, L., Anderson, E., & Schoenfeld, I. (March 24, 2025). Lessons Learned from a Research-Practice Partnership to Integrate Agent-based Modeling into High School Science Classrooms. Paper presented at the NARST Annual International Conference in National Harbor, MD.
Anderson, E., Wendel, D., Conlin, L., Schoenfeld, I., & Wagh, A. (2025). Anchoring Code in Phenomena: Approaches to Integrating Domain-General Agent-Based Modeling for Scientific Sensemaking Into High School Classrooms. In Rajala, A., Cortez, A., Hofmann, R., Jornet, A., Lotz-Sisitka, H., & Markauskaite, L. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 19th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2025 (pp. 3016-3018). International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Conlin, L.D., & Murray, E. (Aug 5, 2025). A Perfectly Inelastic Collision: Teaching Computational Modeling in High School Physics. Invited talk presented at the 2025 American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting in Washington, DC.
Sundberg, K (2024). “Teaching biology through computational modeling.” Teacher workshop at the National Association for Biology Teachers.
Conlin, L.D., Wagh, A., Mesiner, J.E., Dwyer, A., Knight, B., & Pilla, E. (July 2024). Digging in: Attending to students’ epistemic emotions while computationally modeling in physics. Poster presented at the 2024 Physics Education Research Conference, Boston, MA.
Conlin, L.D., Zimmerman, J., Knight, B., Dwyer, A, & Pilla, E. (July 2024). Coding for a cooler planet: Improving students’ understanding of the greenhouse effect through computational modeling. Contributed talk presented at the 2024 American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting in Boston, MA.
Conlin, L.D., Knight, B., Dwyer, A, & Pilla, E. (July 2024). Analyzing students’ interactions while computational modeling in a high school physics classroom. Poster presented at the 2024 American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting in Boston, MA.
Wagh, A., Wendel, D., Anderson, E., Schoenfeld, I., & Conlin, L. D. (2024). A Framework to Integrate Computational Modeling Practices with Three-dimensional NGSS Learning. In Lindgren, R., Asino, T. I., Kyza, E. A., Looi, C. K., Keifert, D. T., & Suárez, E. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference of the Learning Sciences – ICLS 2024 (pp. 2295-2296). International Society of the Learning Sciences.
