Purpose The mechanisms of integration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) remain largely underspecified in the research and policy literatures, despite their purported benefits. Our novel claim is that one key mechanism of STEM integration is producing and maintaining cohesion of central concepts across the range of representations, objects, activities, and social structures in the engineering classroom. Method We analyze multiviewpoint videos of multiday classroom activities from Project Lead the Way (PLTW) classes in digital electronics in two urban high schools. Results To forge cohesion, teachers use coordination of representations, tools, and materials, and they use projection to reference places and events, past and future. Teachers also perform explicit identification to label central invariant relations that are the conceptual focus of their instruction. Teachers typically perform identification, coordination, and projection on the particular STEM representations used in projects in order to improve the cohesion of the conceptual content of a curriculum unit. Teachers can also represent the larger sequence of project activities within the curriculum to construct a cohesive account of how the various activities and representations relate and build upon key ideas. Conclusions This paper found that cohesion‐producing activities promote student understanding by threading conceptual relations through different mathematical representations, scientific laws, technological objects, engineering designs, learning spaces, and social structures. In these ways, cohesion can promote STEM integration in the engineering classroom.

BackgroundEvidence-based medicine (EBM) has been widely integrated into residency curricula, although results of randomized controlled trials and long term outcomes of EBM educational interventions are lacking. We sought to determine if an EBM workshop improved internal medicine residents' EBM knowledge and skills and use of secondary evidence resources.MethodsThis randomized controlled trial included 48 internal medicine residents at an academic medical center. Twenty-three residents were randomized to attend a 4-hour interactive workshop in their PGY-2 year. All residents completed a 25-item EBM knowledge and skills test and a self-reported survey of literature searching and resource usage in their PGY-1, PGY-2, and PGY-3 years.ResultsThere was no difference in mean EBM test scores between the workshop and control groups at PGY-2 or PGY-3. However, mean EBM test scores significantly increased over time for both groups in PGY-2 and PGY-3. Literature searches, and resource usage also increased significantly in both groups after the PGY-1 year.ConclusionsWe were unable to detect a difference in EBM knowledge between residents who did and did not participate in our workshop. Significant improvement over time in EBM scores, however, suggests EBM skills were learned during residency. Future rigorous studies should determine the best methods for improving residents' EBM skills as well as their ability to apply evidence during clinical practice.

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Madison, and a faculty fellow at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research (WCER) and the Center on Education and Work. Dr. Nathan studies the cognitive, embodied, and social processes involved in STEM reasoning, learning and teaching, especially in mathematics and engineering classrooms and in laboratory settings, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Dr. Nathan has secured over $20M in external research funds and has over 80 peer-reviewed publications in education and Learning Sciences research, as well as over 100 scholarly presentations to US and international audiences. He is Principal Investigator or co-Principal Investigator of 5 active grants from NSF and the US Dept. of Education, including the AWAKEN Project (funded by NSF-EEP), which examines learning, instruction, teacher beliefs and engineering practices in order to foster a more diverse and more able pool of engineering students and practitioners, and the Tangibility for the Teaching, Learning, and Communicating of Mathematics Project (NSF-REESE), which explores the role of materiality and action in representing mathematical concepts in engineering and geometry. Dr. Nathan is on the editorial board for several journals, including The Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-Peer).