The Students Discover ProjectBroader aim:

To improve science education in middle schools by developing a model for engaging students in doing real science.

Our project partners include teachers, professional development providers, scientists, museum staff, education researchers, school district staff, and outreach professionals.

Our StudySocial Network Survey

● Sent out to all 42 members of the team, received 34 responses.● Measured communication

“Looking at the list of Students Discover project team members, please indicate everyone with whom you communicate regarding the Students Discover project - in other words, in your work on the Students Discover project, with whom do you interact? This can include emails, phone calls, meetings, or other face-to-face conversations.”

● Measured collaboration

How frequently do you collaborate with each Students Discover project member? By ‘collaborate’ we mean mutual work, sharing, and exchanging ideas.”

Our StudyInterviews

● All team members invited to give an interview, 25 volunteered.● The goal of the interviews was to elicit project team members’ perspectives

on the goals and intended outcomes of the project.● Four questions:

○ What would they see an adopter doing?○ What resources do we have because of the grant?○ What resources might an adopter not have? ○ What should we be doing to push the innovation out to new users?

The Four Lessons

1. The importance of attending not just to communication, but collaboration.

2. The importance of ensuring consensus around a single goal or set of goals.

3. The importance of balancing research priorities and teacher realities.

4. The importance of achieving a collective understanding of team member roles.

Communication on our project team...

Frequent collaboration on our project team...

Frequent collaboration on our project team...

Ensuring Consensus around a Single Goal or Set of Goals

Teachers and scientists working together to create lessons

Students doing authentic science in formal classrooms

Students contributing data to real science projects

Changing the way scientists think about their research questions

Creating student interest in the sciences The Citizen Science Lessons we create and our online presence

Balancing Research Priorities and Teacher Realities

Daily and weekly collaboration on our project team...

Daily and weekly collaboration on our project team… (red = teacher)

Achieving a Collective Understanding of Team Member Roles

We found many team members did not understand their role or the roles of their team members.

Less likely to seek advice about the project from this team member...

Likely to seek advice about the project from this team member...

Achieving a Collective Understanding of Team Member Roles

Lack of clarity around roles emerged in the open-ended responses of the network survey as well…

There is still some lack of clarity with roles; communication should be better throughout the group.

It's just so hard to coordinate this many people in this many different places. It's hard for everyone to know what their role is, and it's hard for people to discern who they should go to for what.

Reflecting Back and Applying Our Learning

● What have we learned from our study? ● What preventative activities would have helped us

navigate these challenges?