Dr. Brian Reiser

Biography

Brian Reiser is the Orrington Lunt Professor in Learning Sciences at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. His work explores how to make science learning meaningful in K-12 classrooms, focusing on students' abilities to investigate questions and problems. Reiser's research investigates how to support students' science knowledge-building practices through storyline curriculum materials and teaching approaches. He is the head of the NextGen Science Storylines project, which is a collaborative effort focused on developing and investigating design principles for storyline units that help students manage their trajectory of science knowledge building. Additionally, he leads Northwestern's team in the OpenSciEd Developer’s Consortium, which partners with ten state education agencies to design and field test storyline instructional materials. The project released a freely available middle school science curriculum in 2022 and is currently developing materials for K-5 and high school. Reiser has been a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Science Education from 2011 to 2018 and served on the NRC committee that authored the Framework for K-12 Science Education, guiding the development of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). He has also collaborated with various school districts and states to design professional learning programs that support K-12 teachers in implementing the NGSS. Reiser is a founding member of Northwestern's graduate program in Learning Sciences, having chaired it since shortly after its inception in 1993.

Research Interests

Awards