Even with significant resources and professional development committed to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, some elementary teachers do not feel prepared to integrate multidisciplinary content or implement project-based learning (PBL). Further research is needed for school leaders to shift traditional education…

We describe a long-standing weeklong K-12 STEM teacher workshop that shifted to a virtual platform in 2020. We re-engaged former participants during this STEM Institute with goals of (1) modeling ways to connect best practices for STEM education gained in previous workshops to a virtual environment, (2) providing space for teacher reflection on…

This collected papers dissertation explores students' academic interactions in an active learning, introductory physics settings as they relate to the development of physics self-efficacy and interest. The motivation for this work extends from the national call to increase participation of students in the pursuit of science, technology,…

Active-learning approaches to teaching introductory physics have been found to improve student learning and affective gains on short-term outcomes [S. Freeman et al., "Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111," 8410 (2014)]; however, whether or not the benefits of active learning impact women to the same degree as men has been a point of…

This article describes the use of project-based instruction in activities and labs intended to develop higher-order thinking skills with high school students and pre-service teachers through the use of soap making.