Students need to be prepared for the 21st century by developing the literacy skills necessary for participating in the age of synthesis-an age that requires a progressive set of skills and knowledge. The authors identified nine educational innovations that are perceived to be effective for preparing students for the 21st century age of synthesis society. They coded a collection of 39 teacher-generated Grade 3-5 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lesson plans to document the extent to which the teachers included these nine educational innovations their STEM lesson planning. The authors found practices such as project-based and student-centered learning (which are common established approaches to teaching STEM) to be strongly represented in the plans, whereas practices such as family involvement and place-based learning (which have not been traditionally used in STEM instruction) were less evident in the plans. In their discussion they explore the implications for STEM teaching, and potential directions for future research.

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The purpose of this multiple case study was to identify the forms of science capital that six groups of adolescents mobilized toward the realization of their self‐selected engineering projects during after‐school meetings. Research participants were high school students who self‐identified as Hispanic, Latina, or Latino; who had received English as a Second Language (ESL) services; and whose parents or guardians had immigrated to the United States and held working class jobs. The research team used categories from Bourdieusian theories of capital to identify the forms of science capital mobilized by the participants. Data sources included transcripts from monthly interviews and from bi‐monthly group meetings during which the group members worked on their engineering projects. Data analysis indicated that the groups activated science capital in the following categories: embodied capital in the form of formal scientific knowledge, literacy practices, and experiences with solving everyday problems; social capital in the form of connections with authorities, experts, and peers; objectified capital in the form of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and measuring tools; and institutional capital in the form of awards and titles. The participants co‐mobilized multiple forms of science capital to advance their engineering projects, and some instances of co‐mobilization enabled the future activation of subsequent forms of science capital. Engineering, as a vehicle for learning science, provided the youth with opportunities to draw from diverse community resources and from multilingual literacy practices, recasting these resources and skills as forms of science capital, which were mobilized toward the attainment of other high‐status forms of science capital. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 55: 246–270, 2018

Xie, T. (2015). A world of information at their fingertips: College students' motivations and practices in their self-determined information seeking. AbstractPeople frequently engage in the process of "heutagogy" (i.e., self-determined learning). Unlike pedagogy and andragogy, heutagogy occurs without a structure or leader setting the context and directing the learning toward a specific goal. The lack of structure and the possible self-determination of topic, value, source, and trust in information led us to wonder about the motivations, goals, and processes considered by college students as they engage in self-determined learning. We conducted a survey with 83 American college students regarding their information-seeking preferences and behaviors. Some students reported accessing different media depending on what information they were seeking, while others sought multiple forms of information from the same media. Family and community influenced their trust in media, yet they also recognized experts and data as important justifications for credibility of media. We exposed some relationships among personal characteristics, perceptions of information, and self-determined learning activities. We conclude with implications and directions for future research.

Louis S. Nadelson is an associate professor and director for the Center for the School of the Future in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education at Utah State University. He has a BS from Colorado State University, a BA from the Evergreen State College, a MEd from Western Washington University, and a PhD in educational psychology from UNLV. His scholarly interests include all areas of STEM teaching and learning, inservice and preservice teacher professional development, program evaluation, multidisciplinary research, and conceptual change. Nadelson uses his over 20 years of high school and college math, science, computer science, and engineering teaching to frame his research on STEM teaching and learning. Nadelson brings a unique perspective of research, bridging experience with practice and theory to explore a range of interests in STEM teaching and learning. Ms. Christina Marie Sias, Utah State UniversityChristina Sias is a PhD. student at Utah State University Mrs. Anne Seifert, Idaho National LaboratoryAnne Seifert is the Idaho National Laboratory STEM Coordinator and founder and executive director of the i-STEM network. She holds a BS degree in elementary education, an MA in Education Administration and an EDS in Educational Leadership. As a 30 year veteran teacher and administrator she has been involved in school reform, assessment, literacy, student achievement, and school improvement. Her current work involves coordinating partnerships with educators, the Idaho Department of Education, business, and industry to raise STEM Education awareness. Anne's research interests include STEM education, inquiry and project-based instruction with the incorporation of 21st Century learning, change practices, and cultural influences on school effectiveness.c American Society for Engineering Education, 2016 Challenges for Integrating Engineering into the K-12 Curriculum: Indicators of K-12 Teachers' Propensity to Adopt Educational Innovations AbstractWith recognition of the potential expansion of the engineering pipeline, engineering was included in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The inclusion of engineering in the NGSS (and other state level STEM learning standards) comes with the expectation that K-12 teachers teach engineering as part of their curriculum. However, teacher adoption of innovations, such as teaching engineering, is a complex process that relies heavily on teacher propensity to adopt novel curricular choices and instructional approaches. Thus, prior to preparing teachers to teach engineering, there is a benefit to knowing something about how open teachers are to educational innovations and how likely they are to take the risks associated with adopting curriculum that effectively integrates unique and novel approaches to teaching and learning.Using our experience with enhancing teacher capacity to teach integrated STEM through professional development (PD), we have recognized that the teachers who are early adopters of innovation tend to have openness to multiple ideas and engage in diff...