The Publications Advisory Committee (PAC) expresses appreciation to the following outgoing committee members for their substantial contributions: Nazan Bautista, Julie Brown, and Noemi Waight. We welcome the following new members: Lisa Blank, Hayat Hokayem, and Justin McFadden.

As part of NARST’s transition to a governance organization, the Publications Advisory Committee is now organized into three sub-committees, each with a Lead Co-Chair and a Co-Chair. The following committee members will take on these leadership roles in 2017-2018:

Research for Practitioners and Policymakers

• Lead Co-Chair: Heba EL-Deghaidy
• Co-Chair: Andrea Bierema

Scholarship Sub-Committee

• Lead Co-Chair: Lin Ding
• Co-Chair: Eli Tucker-Raymond

Pre-Conference Workshop and Sponsored Symposium Sub-Committee

• Lead Co-Chair: Deborah Tippins
• Co-Chair: Ron Gray

Scholarships for Classroom Teachers and Informal Educators

Under the leadership of Noemi Waight(Lead Co-Chair) and Lin Ding (Co-Chair) the Scholarship sub-committee awarded nine scholarships to teachers and informal educators to support their travel and participation in the NARST Annual International Conference in San Antonio, TX. These individuals and their nominating NARST members are listed below:

As you prepare proposals for the 2018 conference in Atlanta, GA, please consider involving teachers and/or informal educators in your plans, and look for the call for scholarship applications in November (with a deadline of December 15).

Selection of JRST Articles for the NSTA Reading List

Under the leadership of Julie Brown (Chair), and in collaboration with Debi Hanuscin, the NARST Liaison to NSTA, the Research sub-committee carefully reviewed articles published in the 2016 volume of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching to identify those most applicable to classroom teachers. This year, finalists were invited to submit a practitioner-friendly abstract, which was considered in the final selection of four honorees:

• Schwichow, M., Zimmerman, C., Croker, S., & Härtig, H. (2016). What students learn from hands-on activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(7), 980-1002.
• Monteira, S. F., & Jiménez‐Aleixandre, M. P. (2016). The practice of using evidence in kindergarten: The role of purposeful observation. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(8), 1232-1258.
• Kang, H., Windschitl, M., Stroupe, D., & Thompson, J. (2016). Designing, launching, and implementing high-quality learning opportunities for students that advance scientific thinking. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(9), 1316-1340.
• Hokayem, H. & Gotwals, A. W. (2016). Early elementary students’ understanding of complex systems: A learning progression approach. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 53(10), 1524-1545.

Also new this year, the PAC and the NARST Liaison to NSTA co-sponsored a special session at the 2017 Annual International Conference to highlight these authors’ work and foster discussion about how to best communicate research to practitioners.

PAC-Sponsored Sessions at the 2017 Conference

At the 2017 conference, PAC sponsored four sessions designed to support NARST members in communicating their research to various audiences. One session, co-sponsored with the External Policy and Relations Committee (EPRC) and Strand 15 (Policy) focused on communication with policymakers. (See EPRC article for details.) As mentioned above, another session highlighted JRST articles with particular relevance to classroom teachers and included discussion about how to communicate research to this audience. The other two sessions focused on communicating research within our own community. In a pre-conference workshop (facilitated by Julie Luft), early career scholars had the opportunity to get advice about scholarly writing for publication through panel discussions, small group conversations, and individual conferences with senior mentors Bryan Brown, Zahra Hazari, Vanessa Kind, Danusa Munford, Marissa Rollnick, and Bhaskar Upadhyay. Over 100 people attended a symposium on publishing in science education journals. The session featured a panel of editors and publishers, giving advice on the publication process, and roundtables during which attendees had the opportunity to talk with representatives from 13 journals and 3 publishers.