Dr. Tiffany-Rose Sikorski

Associate Professor, Curriculum and Pedagogy

School: Graduate School of Education and Human Development

Department: Curriculum and Pedagogy

Contact:

Dr. Sikorski is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy, with a courtesy appointment in Department of Physics at the George Washington University. Her research explores how learners of all ages think, reason, and talk science. She specializes in analyzing “coherence seeking,” that is, learners’ collaborative efforts to build relationships between ideas and identify and reconcile inconsistencies.

Her current work continues to expand the coherence seeking framework so that it can inform the design of assessments, curriculum, and learning progressions aimed at supporting scientific inquiry and disciplinary practices of science.

Dr. Sikorski has secured over $5 million in funding to support foundational and applied research in science education, tailored curriculum materials for local schools, and comprehensive training for future math and science teachers. Her current projects include STEM Teaching Excellence in High-Need Schools: Teacher Preparation in the Nation's Capital and Service Learning Projects to Improve Engineering Students' Civic Engagement and Capacity for Innovation, both funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Sikorski's science teaching experience includes public and charter high schools, after school programs, and museum settings. Her pedagogy courses aim to empower future teachers to create meaningful science learning experiences for their students, experiences that build on students’ vast capabilities for making sense of the natural world and that sustain student interest and participation over time. Dr. Sikorski is a recipient of the Morton A. Bender Teaching Award and a member of GW's Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

Education

Ph.D., Curriculum and Instruction (Science Education), University of Maryland, College Park

M.A.T., Secondary Education (Physics), Boston University

B.A., Physics and Astronomy, Boston University

Programs and Courses

Programs:

Courses:

Pedagogy for Learning Assistants
Seminar in Learning
Seminar in Teaching
Curriculum Theory
Doctoral Internship
Dissertation Research

Research

Select Publications and Presentations

Lee, J., McCaslin, K., Sikorski, T., & Webster, N. (2025). Asset-Based Approaches to Visitor Observation in Museums: A Practice Brief for Program Evaluations and Informal Science Educators. Informal STEM Community Repository. Washington, DC: Reimagining Equity and Values in Informal STEM Education (REVISE) Center.

Sikorski, T. (2025, March). What the NAEP scoring guides miss in students’ answers to open-response items. In Bumbacher, E., Geller, B., Gifford, K., Hammerness, K.., Kuo, E., Long, C., Matsko, K., Short, M. E., Sikorski, T., Stroupe. D., & Levin, D., Symposium: Understanding How Learners Seek Coherence in Science. 2025 National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual International Conference, National Harbor, MD.

White, G. & Sikorski, T. (2025, March). Student Learning and Limiting Case Analysis. American Physical Society Global Physics Summit, Anaheim, CA.

Sikorski, T. & Straus, A. (2025). Comparing curriculum coherence and student coherence seeking: a secondary analysis of the TIMSS video study. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 1-24. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00220272.2025.2460482

Shittu, E., Sikorski, T., Wortham, E., Singh, U., & Starita, J. (2025). Undergraduate Student Views on Social Innovation in Engineering. International Journal of Engineering Education, 41(1), 75-87.

Sikorski, T., Nganga, C., & Dortch, D. (2024, October). Where Does Research Ethics Mentorship Happen in Your EdD Program? [Learning Exchange]. Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate Annual Convening, Honolulu, HI.

Sikorski, T., McCaslin, K., Webster, N. & Lee, J. (2024, April). Evidence of Asset-Based Orientations to Science Museum Visitor Knowledge in Observation Protocols [Paper]. 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, PA.

Sikorski, T. R., & Lee, B. K. (2024). Repurposing Concept Inventories to Help Students Find Gaps in Explanations. The Physics Teacher, 62(4), 255-258.

Singh, U., Sikorski, T., Wortham, E., & Shittu, E. (2023, October). Analysis of Vlog Transcripts using Topic Modeling, Summarizer, and Cluster Analysis [Paper]. IEEE Frontiers in Education 2023 Conference, College Station, TX.

White, G., Sikorski, T. R., Landay, J., & Ahmed, M. (2023). Limiting case analysis in an electricity and magnetism course. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 19(1), 010125.

Sikorski, T. (2023, April). Epistemic Frame Shifts to Analyze Coherence from the Learners’ Perspective [Paper]. In F. Williamson, B. Couch, R. Talbot, S. Lo, G. Dolphin, & J. Taylor, Contemporary Methods in Science Education Research RIG session on Measurement, Methodologies, and Methods in Science Education Research. 2023 National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual International Conference, Chicago, IL.

Sikorski, T. (2023, April). Reflecting on the Definition of a Learning Progression. In J. Osborne, K. Gunkel, R. Lehrer, A. Alonzo, M. Wilson, & T. Sikorski, Learning Progressions in Science: What have we learnt and where next? [Symposium]. 2023 National Association for the Research in Science Teaching Annual International Conference, Chicago, IL.

Sikorski, T., Shittu, E., & Wortham, E. (2023, April). Social Innovation as Accountable Disciplinary Knowledge in Undergraduate Engineering [Paper]. 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

Shittu, E., Sikorski, T., & Wortham, E. (2022, March). Engineering students’ self-efficacy and civic responsibility in a social innovation curriculum [Paper]. 2022 National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual International Virtual Conference.

Williams, T., Chappell, K., & Sikorski, T. (2022, January). Supporting equitable, place-based science education for early elementary children and their teachers [Presentation]. Association for Science Teacher Education 2022 Conference, Greenville, SC.

Professional Activities

Reviewer for Physical Review Physics Education Research, Science Education, Science & Education, and The Physics Teacher
Co-founder of the GW Learning Assistant Program
Journal of Young Investigators Board of Directors member, 2011 - 2022