This study reports on a comparison of school districts that use STEMscopes and districts that do not use STEMscopes on the science component of the 2018-2019 State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR™). The state of Texas creates benchmarks for proficiency in science, identifying students as not proficient, approaching grade-level proficiency, meeting grade-level proficiency, and mastering grade-level proficiency. The percentage of students in each of these categories is used to determine a district's achievement score in science. The percentage of students who approach grade-level proficiency is used by the state as the district passing rate. The key findings of the study include...
In the Extended Learning Program (ELP) in the middle schools of Bakersfield City School District (BCSD) student attendance is improving and disciplinary situations have decreased. What is sparking students' interest in after-school opportunities? Engineering— with plenty of inquiry-based, hands-on educational experiences that encourage exploration and inspire ingenuity. With STEMscopes™ DIVE-in Engineering, ELP site coordinators now have an age-appropriate curriculum and resources to teach the engineering design process and help students become creative makerspace engineers......
With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, districts and schools are required to use evidence to evaluate the programs, interventions, and curricula that they use. Many ESSA programs require schools or districts to evaluate the evidence of curricula in producing desired outcomes, most notably improving student achievement. Given the ever-changing nature of the classroom and available resources, ESSA has identified four tiers of evidence that districts can use to evaluate the strength of the evidence based on the research that has been conducted. The tiers range from Tier 1 (strong evidence where a randomized control trial has demonstrated effects on student achievement) to Tier 4 (demonstrates a rationale where there is a well-designed logic model but no research evidence).
Since its inception at Rice University, STEMscopes has conducted research to inform product development and to evaluate the effectiveness of STEMscopes on teachers and students. Based on this research conducted over several years, the evidence of STEMscopes effectiveness is solidly in Tier 2 (moderate evidence). In other words, there is moderate evidence of STEMscopes' effectiveness based on several high quality quasi-experimental studies. We have highlighted several studies, including quasi-experimental studies and case-studies...
During the 2017-18 school year, 27 Oregon school districts used the STEMscopes NGSS digital science curriculum in their elementary schools. The 2018 Oregon Science Assessment results show that these districts had a fifth grade proficiency rate 4 percentage points higher than districts that did not use STEMscopes, even after controlling for important demographic variables and previous year achievement. This translates to an additional 371 fifth grade students considered proficient in science. In addition, the districts that used STEMscopes improved their fifth grade proficiency rates by 2 percentage points from 2017 to 2018, while proficiency rates in districts that did not use STEMscopes decreased by 2 points. One of the 27 Oregon districts that used STEMscopes NGSS was Cascade School District...
