Author(s):
Need: Current visions for undergraduate STEM education focus on integrating key disciplinary ideas and crosscutting concepts with authentic scientific practices, leading to three-dimensional learning (3DL). This necessitates new assessments with the ability to detect when students engage in three-dimensional learning and reveal this to instructors. In science education, sensemaking is broadly defined as using prior knowledge to understand a new concept, solve problems, or develop mechanistic explanations. Mathematical sensemaking in science (MaSS) focuses on students’ ability to blend core disciplinary science ideas with cross-cutting mathematical concepts, such as patterns or proportions, while engaging in scientific practices such as computational thinking, making predictions, or reasoning from evidence. Although MaSS has been explored within individual disciplines, this project engages in interdisciplinary research to investigate how undergraduates apply MaSS across biology, chemistry, and physics when confronted with mathematical challenges within 3DL assessments.Guiding Questions:Our project team includes discipline based education researchers from biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. We began this project by addressing the research question: How can MaSS be elicited through assessment in STEM? Working on this question revealed different perspectives on the use of mathematics and sensemaking across STEM disciplines. Outcomes:We offer preliminary insights from the early stages of this interdisciplinary effort. Our project team has engaged in discussions of how we view science and mathematical sensemaking within the science disciplines. These differences became evident in how we think about models (e.g. modeling cycle) in the disciplines and how we value or prioritize mechanistic explanation for scientific phenomena. To address this in our project moving forward, we have focused on blended sensemaking, in which students support their sensemaking in science by using mathematics and vice versa. We have identified topics in each discipline that require both conceptual understanding and quantitative reasoning. For these topics, we have devised an initial suite of 3DL prompts within each discipline, with a focus on quantitative thinking as a core practice. These multipart items engage students strategically in quantitative reasoning and explanation construction across different portions of the item.Broader Impacts:The project will develop rich, formative assessment items for undergraduate 3DL that reveal student thinking, which is essential for instruction aimed to foster MaSS. The project will also advance understanding of how experts view MaSS across disciplines, as well as how undergraduates integrate thinking about key STEM concepts and mathematics across disciplines.
Coauthors
Amber Armstrong, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN; Melanie Cooper, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Michael Fleming, California State University Stanislaus, Turlock, CA; Sage Foster, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Rachel Henderson, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Jennifer J. Kaplan, Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Veeda Scammahorn, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI; Anita Schuchardt, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
