Resources
The Expressive STEM Collective is a family of interlocking projects. This page gathers what the Collective creates and shares, organized around its founding ethos: everyone teaches, everyone learns, everyone creates, and everyone researches, too.
Teach
Facilitation guides, protocols, and professional development models for anyone leading STEM learning experiences with others.
Learn
Activity guides and materials for participants — families, students, and community members — engaging directly with STEM content.
Make
Tools and access points for making things: media production, fabrication, digital authorship, and portfolio-building.
Research
Frameworks, data tools, and publications for those studying, adapting, or building on this work.
Publications
2026
Storymaking: An Innovative Multimodal Approach to Early Literacy Instruction. Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2026). . Language Arts, 103(6), 425–429.
A year of learning: Early childhood teachers’ computational learning and implementation while participating in a yearlong professional development project Assaf, L.C., & Justice, S. (2026). Computer Science Education, 1–31.
2025
Storymaking in an Afterschool Literacy Tutoring Program: Teacher Candidates Learn about Play, Talk, and Teacher Positioning. Assaf, L.C. & Justice, S. (2025). Journal of Early Childhood Literacy Education (1–18).
An Expressive STEM Approach to Computational Thinking Teacher Professional Development. Justice, S. & Assaf, L. C. (2025, April 23–27). [Conference presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, United States.
Expressive STEM Storymaking with KIBO!: Teaching and Learning with Robotics in Elementary School Classrooms Justice, S.B. & Assaf, L.C., Austin Texas. (February 4, 2025).
2024
Expressive STEM storymaking: Art, literacy, and creative computing. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2024). In A. Lai & Y. Cooper (Eds.), STEAM education: Intersections and thresholds (pp. 210-226). Brill.
Asset-based Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Classrooms: Centering Students’ Expertise in a Community of Learners Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024). Asset-based computational thinking in early childhood classrooms: Centering students’ expertise in a community of learners. Early Childhood Education Journal.
Early Childhood Teachers’ Use of Asset-based Computational Thinking Pedagogy: Centering Students’ Expertise and Life Experiences Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024, April 12). An asset-based approach to computational thinking in early childhood teacher education [Conference presentation]. American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Playful Literacies in a Hybrid Mentoring Project: Rethinking Literacy Teacher Education Assaf, L. C., & Justice, S. (2024, December 4–7). [Title of paper] [Conference presentation]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, United States.
2023
Make it Move! Arts & Inquiry Approaches to Computational Thinking in Teacher Professional Learning. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, October 19–21). Make it move! [Conference presentation]. Art Education Research Institute Symposium, Tucson, AZ, United States.
PreK to 2nd Grade Teachers Noticing, Naming, & Connecting Computational Thinking to Literacy Learning. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, June 16). [Conference presentation]. WeTeach_CS Summit, Houston, TX, United States.
ScratchJr Explorations: Noticing, Naming, and Connecting Tech App TEKS to Curriculum. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, July 19). [Workshop]. K-5 PD Extravaganza, WeTeach_CS, University of Texas at Austin, Round Rock, TX, United States.
EPK-2: Exploring Early Childhood Teachers’ Abilities to Identify Computational Thinking Precursors to Strengthen Computer Science in Classrooms. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2023, June 28–30).[Conference presentation]. Discovery Research PreK-12 (DRK-12) Principal Investigator Meeting, Washington, DC, United States.
Everyday Choreographies as Pathways for Building Computational Literacies: Noticing, Naming, and Connecting CT Precursors To Curriculum. Justice, S. & Assaf, L.C. (2023, June 13). Everyday choreographies as pathways for building computational literacies: Noticing, naming, and connecting CT precursors to curriculum [Guest lecture]. CUNY CS-in-6, College of Staten Island, New York, NY, United States.
Expressive STEM Storymaking: Art, Literacy, and Creative Computing Justice, S.B. & Assaf, L.C. (2023, June 25–28). Expressive STEM storymaking: Art, literacy, and creative computing [Conference presentation]. ISTELive Conference, Philadelphia, PA, United States.
2022
Computational Thinking and Literacy: Understanding Teachers’ Approaches to Leveraging CT and Literacy Across Early Childhood Classrooms. Assaf, L.C. & Justice S.B. (2022, November 28–December 2). [Conference presentation]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Phoenix, AZ, United States.
Multimodal Approaches to Literacy: Exploring Precursors to Computational Thinking with Primary Grade Teachers. Assaf, L. C. & Justice, S.B. (2022, July 4–6). [Conference presentation]. European Conference on Literacy, Dublin, Republic of Ireland.
2021
Thinking and making in tandem: An expressive STEM model for early childhood teacher education. Justice, S., & Assaf, L. C. (2021, November 29–December 3). [Roundtable session]. Literacy Research Association Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA, United States.