Our Research

We pursue a range of research projects, some that are externally funded and some that are done internally. Projects often have their own dedicated sites elsewhere. For information about a specific project, email Victor or a member of the lab.

CRAFT: Curricular Resources about AI For Teaching

Project to co-design tools and curricular resources that can be used in high school classrooms across subject areas to explore and learn about the topic of artificial intelligence. Funding is provided by the Stanford Digital Education, McCoy Center for Ethics in Society, Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) initiative, and the Stanford Accelerator for Learning at Stanford University.

Recent sample paper:

Lee, V. R., Sarin, P., Xie, B. & Wolf, J. CRAFT-work: An Integrative Co-Design Approach for Designing High School AI Literacy Resources. Paper presented at the CHI 2023 AI Literacy Workshop, Hamburg, Germany.

Cache Code Math Research-Practice Partnership

Multi-year collaborative research-practice partnership with Utah State University involving researching and supporting a rural-serving school district’s elementary computer science education efforts through co-design of integrated mathematics and computer science lessons and resources for use by both classroom teachers and paraprofessional educators. At Stanford University, our team is focusing largely on studying the dynamics and interactions of the research-practice partnership.

Recent sample publication:
Lee, V. R., Clarke-Midura, J., Shumway, J., & Recker, M. (2022). “Design for Co-Design” in a Computer Science Curriculum Research-Practice Partnership. In C. Chinn, E. Tan, C. Chan, & Y. Kali (Eds.), Proceedings of the 16th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2022 (pp. 1049-1052). ISLS.

Learn more about Cache Code Math

Coding in Kindergarten

Multi-year project to develop learning activities and an assessment for kindergarten-aged youth to explore computation and computational thinking with commercially-produced robot coding toys. The learning activities are oriented toward “grid-agent” toy programming but connected to mathematics content and learning goals. This project operates out of Utah State University.

Recent sample publication:
Clarke-Midura, J., Silvis, D., Shumway, J., Lee, V. R., & Kozlowski, J. (2021). Developing a Kindergarten Computational Thinking Assessment Using Evidence-Centered Design: The Case of Algorithmic Thinking Computer Science Education, 31(2), 117-140. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/08993408.2021.1877988

Learn more about Coding in Kindergarten

Digital Lead Learners Research-Practice Partnership

This year-long project involved collaboration with and study of a new professional learning program and activity that was developed by technology integration specialists at Redwood City School District. The research team reviewed and helped to refine the design of the learning program and participated in research on teacher experiences as they explored new ways to meet district technology integration goals. This integrated the Montage platform developed in an earlier project launched at the start of remote learning when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Recent sample publication:
Lee, V. R., Bywater, C., Wachtel Pronovost, R., Cheng, K., & Guimaraes, D. (2023). Bite-sized Learning for Teachers through the Montage Platform. In J. Oshima, T. Mochizuki, & Y. Hayashi (Eds.), General Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the International Society of the Learning Sciences 2022 (pp. 20-23). ISLS.

Project Montage

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote learning, many teachers were turning to social media as a resource for support in learning new pedagogical practices. This project involved studying what teachers were doing to learn about new technologies and resources and to explore ways to instantiate that in a prototype short image and video quick-view system to support teachers called “Montage”.

Recent sample publication:
Southerton, E., & Lee, V. R. (2021). Current Approaches in Teacher Learning on Digital Social Platforms. In M. Niess & H. Gillow-Wiles (Eds.), Transforming Teachers’ Online Pedagogical Reasoning for Teaching K-12 Students in Virtual Learning Environments (pp. 624-641). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-7222-1.ch030

Recent Past Projects

Secondary School Data Science Curriculum Analysis

This study was a comparative analysis of content and data sets used in current multi-week secondary school data science curricular programs.
Lee, V. R., & Delaney, V. (2022). Identifying the content, lesson structure, and data use within pre-collegiate data science curricula. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 31, 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-021-09932-1

Physical Activity Data Project

This multiyear project funded by the National Science Foundation involved studying and designing learning activities with wearable activity tracking technologie. The primary focus was upper elementary school and lower middle school, although some research was done related to adults and to high school students. Multiple data contexts were also researched to inform classroom design. While the project’s funding ended, papers continue to result from this project.

Tabletop2Screens: Board Games and Computer Science Education Project

This multiyear project based out of Utah State University involved designing “Unplugged-to-plugged” curricular units and support materials (including Scratch programming shells) to allow for computer science-themed board games to scaffold learning of computational rules and ideas. By design, this spanned learning activities taking place both in 5th grade classrooms and in school libraries.
Lee, V. R., & Delaney, V. (2022). Identifying the content, lesson structure, and data use within pre-collegiate data science curricula. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 31, 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-021-09932-1

Engagement in Makerspaces with Wearables

Using wearable electrodermal activity skin conductance sensing devices and cameras that were worn by each participating youth, the learning activities and indicators of high engagement moments were examined for a series of makerspace programs for adolescent youth in two makerspaces.

Sample publication:
Lee, V. R., Fischback, L., & Cain, R. (2019, 2019/10/01/). A wearables-based approach to detect and identify momentary engagement in afterschool Makerspace programs. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 59, 101789. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2019.101789

Situated Librarian Learning Infrastructure Project

With funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, we worked with rural public and school libraries that were developing maker education programs for adolescent youth who visited those spaces. A key question for this project was about what opportunities and resources could best support librarians and other library professionals (youth program directors at libraries) in learning to organize and lead maker education programs. In addition, we were exploring what kinds of low-floor activities could be easily and comfortably introduced in rural libraries.

Sample publication:
Lee, V. R., Rogowski, A., Shehzad, U., & Recker, M. (2021). Unplugged-to-Plugged Computer Science at the Library. Teacher Librarian, 48(3), 34-39.
Lee, V. R., Recker, M., & Phillips, A. L. (2018). Conjecture Mapping the Library: Iterative Refinements Toward Supporting Maker Learning Activities in Small Community Spaces. In J. Kay & R. Luckin (Eds.), Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age: Making the Learning Sciences Count, 13th International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS) 2018 (Vol. 1, pp. 320-327). London, UK: ISLS.