Jennifer Cartier
School of Education
University of Pittsburgh
5523 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
PHONE: 412-648-7248
EMAIL:
jcartier@pitt.eduFull Time Faculty - Assistant Professor
Dr. Cartier grew up in southern Maine and attended college in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Throughout high school and college, Dr. Cartier participated in a number of intensive research projects in the fields of molecular genetics and biochemistry, including summer internships at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her college thesis involved active-site mapping of the HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase protein. Following college, Dr. Cartier earned a Masters degree related to her work in virology at the University of Wisconsin: identifying functional domains of the anti-apoptotic baculovirus P35 protein.
As the child, wife, and sister of teachers it was almost inevitable that her love of science would eventually be channeled into a career in education, and in 1994, she entered graduate studies in Science Education. Since then, she has been working primarily in the areas of curriculum development and teacher professional development in science education.
Dr. Cartier enjoys exploring children's literature with her own elementary-aged children, and relaxing at home in the South Hills with her family and their 2 large dogs and 2 cats. In her next career, Dr. Cartier hopes to own a bed and breakfast on the New England coast!
School Affiliations
- Department: Instruction and Learning
- Program: Elementary Education
- Program: Science Education
Education
- Ph.D., Curriculum & Instruction, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 5/1/1999
- M.S., Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8/1/1994
- B.A., Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Williams College, 6/1/1992
Recent Publications
Journal Articles
- Making classroom skills scientific. Stephen L. Pellathy, John R. Paul, Jennifer L. Cartier, and Jo Wittfeldt. Science and Children.
More...
Recent Course Instruction
Fall 2008 (2091)
Summer 2008 (2087)
Spring 2008 (2084)
Fall 2007 (2081)
More...
Recent Presentations
- Science education in the United States.
Jennifer L. Cartier. Colloquium presentation presented at La Ensenanza de las Ciencias en Mexico en el Marco de la Articulacion de la Educacion Basica at the invitation of the Mexican Ministry of Education. Huatulco, Mexico. (April 2008)
- Pre-service elementary teachers’ appropriation of an instructional planning framework.
Jennifer L. Cartier, Wendy Sink, Priya Kannan, and Jeanetta Kochhar. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. Baltimore, MD. (April, 2008)
- Examining elementary curriculum materials through the lens of instructional frameworks: Supporting pre-service teacher learning.
Jennifer L. Cartier, Kristin L. Gunckel, Christina Schwarz, Edward Smith, Wendy Sink, Pria Kannan, and Ellice Forman. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New York, NY. (March, 2008)
- Supporting elementary teacher learning through use of an instructional planning framework.
Jennifer L. Cartier, Wendy Sink, and Jeanetta Kochhar. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Science Teacher Educators. St. Louis, MO. (January, 2008)
- Building sustainable partnerships between teachers and scientists: Lesons from the Pittsburgh GK-12 project.
Jennifer L. Cartier. Plenary address presented at the invitation of the Center for Liberal Arts & Society, Franklin and Marshall College. Lancaster, PA. (October, 2007)
- Helping Pre-Service Elementary Teachers Use the Supported Curriculum and the BIT3 Framework to Construct the Planned Curriculum
Jennifer L. Cartier. Colloquium presentation at the annual Knowledge Sharing Institute of the Center for Curriculum Materials in Science. Washington, D.C. (July, 2007)
More...
Current Professional Participation
More...
Recent Consulting
- ASSET, Inc.
- Help to design "content deepening" professional development opportunities for elementary teachers (K-8). ASSET, Inc. works with teachers statewide and these workshops are a critical part of their mission. I also oversee the collaboration between ASSET and the GK-12 Fellows from the University of Pittsburgh.
- Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh
- Committee Member: Carnegie Science Center Excellence Awards in Teaching
- Corwin Press
- Pittsburgh Public Schools
- Member of the Science & Technology High School Curriculum Committee.(Spring 2008)
Designed and facilitated a workshop for elementary science specialists related to "learning progressions" for the concept of "matter." (January 2008)
Member of the University Preparatory School partnership committee (Spring 2008, ongoing).
- Science Education
More...
Recent Grants
- Linking Teacher Preparation to Student Learning in Mathematics and Science (NSF Teacher Professional Continuum program).
Marcy Singer-Gabella, PI;
Jennifer Cartier, Ellice Forman, Kay McClain, coPIs [$2,491,474.00]
- The Pittsburgh Partnership for ENERGizing Science in Urban Schools (GK-12 program, NSF);
Joseph Grabowski, PI;
Jennifer Cartier, co-PI [$1,975,337.00]
More...
Recent Projects
- The Pittsburgh Partnership for ENERGizing Science In Urban Schools
This is a three-year collaboration between the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Public School District. It is funded by the NSF Office of Graduate Research and provides opportunities for doctoral students in the natural sciences and mathematics to work with area elementary and middle school science teachers for one year. The goals of the project are:
1. Strengthen coherency in PPSD science curriculum by identifying “big ideas” underlying curriculum units and brainstorming ways to highlight the development of these ideas across investigations. Examples of big ideas are: the particulate nature of matter; the flow of matter and energy in ecosystems, etc.
2. Provide opportunities for Fellows to interact with elementary/middle school students, participate in co-planning of science lessons and activities, and contribute to ongoing science education efforts at their partner schools.
3. Provide a forum for Teachers and Fellows to critically examine science ideas and curriculum materials and share new knowledge and instructional strategies.
4. Create a sustainable model of PPSD—University partnership for the purpose of continuing to strengthen science teacher professional development, graduate student learning, and, ultimately, the learning experiences of PPSD students. (More Information...) [http://chemed.chem.pitt.edu/gk-12/]
More...
