Research Interests
Li Ke (柯立)
Dr. Ke's research centers around promoting meaningful science teaching and learning through disciplinary practices like modeling, particularly in the context of complex societal issues. Issues like pandemics and climate change provide compelling reasons for students to learn science and engage in disciplinary practices. This focus also supports students in exploring how science can be used to inform societal solutions and personal decision-making. Dr. Ke explores meaningful science teaching and learning through three interconnected dimensions: curriculum development, student learning, and teacher professional development. His work recognizes both students and teachers as actitve epistemic agents in building their own knowledge to make sense of the world.
National Science Foundation (PI). This project partners with teachers, teacher educators, and disciplinary experts in data science, fire ecology, public health, and environmental communication to co-design a data-driven, justice-oriented, and issue-based unit on wildfires. In the unit, students engage in various data practices to gain insights into the issue of wildfires and how it affects their lives and communities. They create data stories targeting specific stakeholders as a culminating activity. This project contributes to the field by examining how data science can be meaningfully incorporated into K-12 science education to prepare informed and responsible citizens.
National Science Foundation (PI). This project develops an augmented reality (AR) learning environment integrated with a large language model (LLM)-powered pedagogical agent to guide middle school students' modeling practice. It will bring together computer scientists, human-computer interaction researchers, science education researchers, and K-12 teachers to co-design the learning environment. The AR environment allows students to interact with simulated objects and phenomena as they develop their models. The LLM-powered agent provides timely assessments of student models, offer personalized feedback, and share insights with teachers to inform instruction.
National Science Foundation (Co-PI). The project investigated how high school students learn about viral epidemics while developing competencies for scientific modeling. It studied student learning with different types of models and used these findings to develop and study new curriculum materials that incorporate multiple models for teaching about viral epidemics in high school biology classes.
Jason Geddes Regents' Rising Researcher, University of Nevada, Reno, 2024
Postdoctoral Award for Research Excellence, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2021
Ke, L., Friedrichsen, P., Rawson, R., Sadler, T. (2023). Teacher learning through collaborative curriculum design in the midst of a pandemic: A cultural historical activity theory investigation. Teaching and Teacher Education, 122, 103957.
Schwarz, C. V., Ke, L., Salgado, M., & Man, E. (2022). Beyond assessing modeling knowledge: Moving towards expansive, equitable, and meaningful modeling practice. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 59(6), 1086-1096.
Ke, L., Sadler, T., Zangori, L., & Friedrichsen, P. (2021). Developing and using multiple models to promote scientific literacy in the context of socio-scientific issues. Science & Education, 30(3), 589-607.
Ke, L., & Schwarz, C. V. (2021). Supporting students’ meaningful engagement in scientific modeling through epistemological messages: A case study of contrasting teaching approaches. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(3), 335-365.
Ke, L., Sadler, T., Zangori, L., & Friedrichsen, P. (2020). Students’ perceptions of engagement in socio-scientific issue-based learning and their appropriation of epistemic tools for systems thinking. International Journal of Science Education, 42(8), 1339-1361.