Student-Centered Engineering Experience Design and Development through Teacher-Undergraduate Engineering Student Partnerships

Engineering is everywhere and K-12 teachers across the United States are increasingly tasked with teaching engineering content in ways that meet state educational standards and in ways that engage all students. As teachers strive to meet these dual requirements, they face two major challenges. First, many teachers have little experiential or professional preparation for teaching engineering content effectively. Second, the engineering educational experiences that occur in K-12 science classrooms often fail to engage all learners, particularly those who do not have prior experience with engineering. To overcome these challenges, this work will generate new ways to support teachers' roles in creating and implementing engineering experiences that allow all students to fully participate regardless of their background. This early-stage design and development project will support a new teacher professional development and support model that builds the agency of high school science teachers to design, implement, and refine engineering instruction for all high school students. A unique feature of this engineering experience design and development program is its partnering of high school teachers with undergraduate engineering students in collaborative teams to co-design and implement tailored, standards-aligned, formal and informal engineering experiences. Using mixed methods (i.e., interviews, focus groups, surveys and observation), the team will examine the program's impact on high school teachers': (a) identities as teachers of engineering; (b) agency in designing and teaching K-12 engineering experiences; (c) integration of engineering in ways that are tailored to support the students in their classroom; and (d) experience of the teacher-engineer partnerships embedded in the professional development program. The project represents partnerships among university faculty, university student organizations, high school teachers, and outreach professionals. This project is funded by the Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.