Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education

Challenge

Improving STEM education is a team effort. It requires dedicated teachers, researchers, curriculum developers, and scholars all working together to support innovation and excellence in the classroom.

This idea was the foundation for the Community for Advancing Discovery Research in Education (CADRE), an EDC-led network for STEM education researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) program. CADRE supported and accelerated learning among the DRK-12 community about the practice and outcomes of STEM education research. We helped project teams leading NSF-funded initiatives across the United States to connect with each other, share important discoveries with the public, and develop the innovative products that will shape the future of STEM education.

Key Activities

Through CADRE, EDC and its partners:

• Engaged STEM education and research communities in gaining a better understanding of innovations in STEM education and research
• Provided capacity-building experiences for diverse groups of researchers and early career scholars to support their contributions to STEM education and research
• Widely shared effective new approaches, curricula, and resources with educators and the public

Our Impact

CADRE’s influence on advancing STEM education research and promoting improved teaching and learning includes, among others, the following:

• Supported the capacity building of over 1,300 DRK–12 projects and their principal investigators (PIs) and program staff, including providing tools and guidance to support them in sharing their work with educators and the public.
• Launched and led the CADRE Fellows Program, which fostered the professional growth of 180 early career STEM education researchers and developers. Our effective program is viewed as a model for the field and featured cohort learning, proposal writing workshops, and mentoring by experienced PIs and NSF program officers. Today, many former CADRE fellows hold academic, nonprofit, and governmental roles and lead NSF-funded STEM education research, contributing to a self-sustaining pipeline of researchers.
• Developed hundreds of products including videos such as What Is Scientific Modeling? and The Importance of Early Math Education; research briefs like Generative AI in STEM Teaching (2025); practice briefs, including Considerations for STEM Education from PreK through Grade 3; a Dissemination Toolkit that helps researchers widely share their work; and a hub of spotlight features on themes and trends in STEM education research.
• Led national convenings that connected and educated thousands of researchers and practitioners, R&D leaders, educators, and members of the public through Principal Investigator (PI) Meetings, STEM Smart Initiative conferences, webinars, and online learning series. These gatherings fostered cross-project collaboration, shared methods and findings, and linked research with classroom and district practice.
• Carried out a comprehensive strategic communications plan that used multiple strategies and platforms (including the resource-rich CADRE website and four public social media accounts) to quickly and directly share new STEM education findings and resources with educators and the public.
• Supported prospective awardees in developing successful DRK-12 proposals through the Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum of DRK-12 video series and NSF Proposal Toolkit.