Teaching Design in Middle-School: Instructors’ Concerns and Scaffolding Strategies (original) (raw)
Related papers
Getting them early: Teaching engineering design in middle schools
International Journal of …, 2007
For three years, the Virginia Middle School Engineering Education Initiative has been developing Engineering Teaching Kits (ETKs) to introduce engineering design into middle school science and math classes. ETKs promote awareness of engineering, and stimulate excitement about its practice. They also help develop an appreciation for the tradeoffs involved in the practice of engineering, and how engineering decisions impact society and the environment. Each ETK includes real-world constraints (budget, cost, safety, and customer needs), and each involves a design challenge that requires creativity and teamwork.
Inside The Classroom: Challenges To Teaching Engineering Design In High School
2007 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
is a Ph.D. student in Science Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction at ASU. She earned her MA degree in Science Education at University of Missouri Columbia. Her BS degree is in Biology. Her principle research areas are inquiry-based learning and science and the equity in science education. She works on the project about investigating the efficiency of different type of induction programs on the development of beginning science teachers. Senay Yasar, Arizona State University Senay Yasar is a Ph.D. student in Science Education, Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Arizona State University. She earned her MA degree in Science Education at Arizona State University. Her BS degree is in Physics Education. Her principle research areas are inquiry-based learning and science and engineering education. She teaches an elementary science methods course for undergraduate students and is a research assistant on an NSF project.
Modeling In Support Of The Engineering Design Process: Experiences In The Elementary Classroom
2010 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
Increasingly students of all ages should be engaged in science, engineering and computational activities as it is used across an increasing amount of subject areas. Inquiry-based elementary science education provides students with some opportunities to engage in authentic science but the subject area expertise required by teachers can be daunting and time consuming. Currently engineering education professionals are looking for opportunities to positively influence elementary (STEM) experience but the school curriculum demands limit their opportunity to expose students to the benefits of engineering problem solving. Through professional development we have instituted some graphic-based modeling techniques that support and extend current inquiry science curriculum activities and leverage the engineering design cycle. Research and findings done as part of a two-year NSF-supported project in elementary education will be presented, demonstrating how modeling activities in the form of student-produced drawings and notebook entries have been used to help explore scientific and mathematical concepts underlying engineering problems. Specifically, kit-based science and technology education activities that actively support engineering problem-based learning are used as a context for exploring the potential of these graphic-based modeling activities.
Providing an engineering design model for secondary teachers
2009 39th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2009
The Texas Tech University (Texas-Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) T-STEM Center develops and offers professional development workshops for K-12 teachers in the engineering design process. Although, for many years we have offered workshops in varied areas such as LEGO Robotics, rocketry, GLOBE, FOSS and PASCO, our aim is to provide teachers exciting and innovative ways to teach science, math and technology so teachers and students might see a direct correlation between the subject and engineering disciplines. By developing an engineering design model that is accessible to secondary teachers who have little or no background in engineering, teachers see how engineering crosses disciplines and can be addressed in any discipline. The Texas Tech Engineering Design Model uses project-based and problem-based learning as the underpinnings for introducing teachers to the design process in an approachable model that becomes more elegant in application as the model is used to solve problems.
2008 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
In this study, middle school teachers and students provide critical feedback about three designbased science teaching kits so that the curricula can be refined and improved such that student learning and engagement in science and engineering is maximized. The curricula, packaged as kits, focus on a well-defined set of concepts in science. All lesson plans include a final design challenge. The middle school students must use the scientific and mathematical knowledge and methods they have learned to design, build, and test a working artifact to achieve a goal. Teachers felt that improvements could be made with each kit to enhance student engagement and learning, and some teachers enacted changes during their course of teaching with the kit. Teachers perceived that all three kits increased students' engagement and learning in science. Students enjoyed each of the three kits, thought learning with them was fun, and understood the teachers' learning objectives. Students thought that the best part of the entire unit was the design and construction of the engineered device. The curricula have the ability to help teachers not only teach required science content, but allow students to master standards-based science content in a science reforms-based manner, through inquiry, active, and situated learning.
Modeling in support of engineering design process: Experiences in the elementary classroom
Increasingly students of all ages should be engaged in science, engineering and computational activities as it is used across an increasing amount of subject areas. Inquiry-based elementary science education provides students with some opportunities to engage in authentic science but the subject area expertise required by teachers can be daunting and time consuming. Currently engineering education professionals are looking for opportunities to positively influence elementary (STEM) experience but the school curriculum demands limit their opportunity to expose students to the benefits of engineering problem solving. Through professional development we have instituted some graphic-based modeling techniques that support and extend current inquiry science curriculum activities and leverage the engineering design cycle. Research and findings done as part of a two-year NSF-supported project in elementary education will be presented, demonstrating how modeling activities in the form of student-produced drawings and notebook entries have been used to help explore scientific and mathematical concepts underlying engineering problems. Specifically, kit-based science and technology education activities that actively support engineering problem-based learning are used as a context for exploring the potential of these graphic-based modeling activities.
Supporting knowledge construction in elementary engineering design
Science Education, 2019
Engineering design learning experiences are increasingly offered as part of elementary school, but research on how to support young learners’ knowledge construction during classroom engineering is still preliminary. Questions remain about how classroom supports can make engineering thinking visible so that students build engineering knowledge along with engineering products. We report results from a case study of an 11‐day teaching experiment in two elementary classrooms. With the classroom teachers, we guided fourth and fifth graders to document their design iterations with a digital notebooking tool, participate in whole‐class design talks, and create and exhibit posters with “stomp rocket” design recommendations. We conducted a microethnographic analysis of students’ interactions with these notebooking, talk, and poster tools. Our findings characterize how students constructed engineering design knowledge through the discourse of sense‐making about rocket phenomena, decision‐maki...