Capturing individual student real-time classroom experience and engagement: A laboratory for breakthrough advances in STEM and equity

STEM learning is a function of both student level and classroom level characteristics. Though research efforts often focus on the impacts of classrooms level features, much of the variation in student outcomes is at the student level. Hence it is critical to consider individual students and how their developmental systems (e.g., emotion, cognition; relational, attention, language) interact to influence learning in classroom settings.

This is particularly important in developing effective models for personalized learning. To date, efforts to individualize curricula, differentiate instruction, or leverage formative assessment lack an evidence base to support innovation and impact. Tools are needed to describe individual-level learning processes and contexts that support them.

The proposed network will incubate and pilot a laboratory classroom to produce real-time metrics on behavioral, neurological, physiological, cognitive, and physical data at individual student and teacher levels, reflecting the diverse dynamics of classroom experiences that co-regulate learning for all students.

The Incubator aims to establish and pilot, for eventual expansion, a new laboratory design for research on learning in classrooms that captures and processes information available on multiple systems that influence student learning. Activities include: 1) engaging experts across diverse relevant fields to integrate collective scientific, technical, and applied capacity; 2) incubating a ‘laboratory’ design for real-time sensoring of learning-relevant information at individual student and teacher levels and for teacher, student, and peer interactions; 3) developing and testing prototypes (equipment, software, draft protocols for data collection, human subjects participation, data management, data sharing and IP), and building network website capability; and 4) developing the plans to deploy this laboratory in multiple sites with plans to provide training, collect and distribute data, and develop applications for implementation and evaluation.

The public availability of data produced by this type of research laboratory will advance understanding of how individual students learn and how classroom experiences support their learning. This information will foster breakthroughs in personalized education that harness the learning potential of all students, including those from historically marginalized populations.

This project is supported through a partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and the Walton Family Foundation. Funding is also provided by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) program. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) is an applied research program that seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers.

Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for funded projects.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.