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Work in Progress – The Development of a K-12 Integrated STEM Observation Protocol

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Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

ERM Technical Session 8: Survey and Instrument Development

Tagged Division

Educational Research and Methods

Page Count

6

DOI

10.18260/1-2--33573

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/33573

Download Count

550

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Paper Authors

biography

Gillian Roehrig University of Minnesota Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6943-7820

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Dr. Roehrig is a professor of STEM Education at the University of Minnesota. Her research explores issues of professional development for K-12 science teachers, with a focus on beginning teachers and implementation of integrated STEM learning environments. She has received over $30 million in federal and state grants and published over 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. She is a former board member of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching and past president of the Association for Science Teacher Education.

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biography

Elizabeth Ring-Whalen St. Catherine University

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Elizabeth A. Ring-Whalen is an Assistant Professor of Education at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN. She holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction - STEM Education from the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on STEM education and what this looks like in PreK-12 classrooms and explores teachers’ beliefs of integrated STEM as well as how these beliefs influence teachers’ practices and student achievement in the classroom. Alongside this research, she has worked to explore the attitudes and beliefs teachers hold about cultural diversity and teaching culturally diverse students. Past and current projects include designing and teaching undergraduate and graduate-level coursework intended to help teachers develop effective science teaching practices and culturally relevant pedagogy for their classrooms, mentoring pre-service science teachers, working with in-service science teachers to develop and implement integrated STEM curricula, leading STEM integration professional development for in-service science teachers, working with administration and teachers to develop STEM programming in their schools, and developing a K-12 STEM observation protocol that can be used in a variety of educational contexts through an online platform.

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Jeanna R. Wieselmann University of Minnesota Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-1004-1191

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Jeanna R. Wieselmann is a Ph.D. Candidate in Curriculum and Instruction and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on gender equity in STEM and maintaining elementary girls' interest in STEM through both in-school and out-of-school experiences. She is interested in integrated STEM curriculum development and teacher professional development to support gender-equitable teaching practices.

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Emily Anna Dare Florida International University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-6247-8486

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Dr. Emily Dare is an Assistant Professor of Science Education at Florida International University. Previously, she taught at Michigan Technological University from 2015-2018, where she is still an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences. Dr. Dare's research interests are focused on K-12 STEM education. In particular, she is interested in supporting science teachers’ reform-based instruction while simultaneously understanding their beliefs. As science classrooms shift to more integrated STEM approaches, this is especially critical. Additionally, Dr. Dare has a passion for working with K-12 students to understand how changes in classroom instruction impacts their attitudes towards and beliefs about STEM fields. In particular, she is looking at methods that positively impact girls, which may increase the number of women pursuing careers in STEM-related fields where they are currently underrepresented.

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Joshua Alexander Ellis Florida International University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6575-811X

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Abstract

This WIP presentation is intended to share and gather feedback on the development of an observation protocol for K-12 integrated STEM instruction, the STEM-OP. Specifically, the STEM-OP is being developed for use in K-12 science and/or engineering settings where integrated STEM instruction takes place. While the importance of integrated STEM education is established through national policy documents, there remains disagreement on models and effective approaches for integrated STEM instruction. Our broad definition of integrated STEM includes the use of two or more STEM disciplines to solve a real-world problem or design challenge that supports student development of 21st century skills. This issue is confounded by the lack of observation protocols sensitive to integrated STEM teaching and learning that can be used to inform research of the effectiveness of new models and strategies. Existing instruments most commonly used by researchers, such as the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP), were designed prior to the development of the Next Generation Science Standards and the integration of engineering into science standards. These instruments were also designed for use in reform-based science classrooms, not engineering or integrated STEM learning environments. While engineering-focused observation protocols do exist for K-12 classrooms, they do not evaluate beyond an engineering focus, making them limited tools to evaluate integrated STEM instruction. In order to facilitate the implementation of integrated STEM in K-12 classrooms and the development of the nascent integrated STEM education literature, our research team is developing a new integrated STEM observation protocol for use in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. This valid and reliable instrument will be designed for use in a variety of educational contexts and by different education stakeholders to increase the quality of K-12 STEM education. At the end of this project, the STEM-OP will be made available through an online platform that will include an embedded training program to facilitate its broad use. In the first year of this four-year project, we are working on the initial development of the STEM-OP through video analysis and exploratory factor analysis. We are utilizing existing classroom video from a previous project with approximately 2,000 unique classroom videos representing a variety of grade levels (4-9), science content (life, earth, and physical science), engineering design challenges, and school demographics (urban, suburban). The development of the STEM-OP is guided by published frameworks that focus on providing quality K-12 integrated STEM and engineering education, such as the Framework for Quality K-12 Engineering Education. Our anticipated results at the time the ASEE meeting will include a review of our item development process and finalized items included on the draft STEM-OP. Additionally, we anticipate being able to share findings from the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on our video-coded data, which will identify distinct instructional dimensions responsible for integrated STEM instruction. We value the opportunity to gather feedback from the engineering education community as the integration of engineering design and practices is integral to quality integrated STEM instruction.

Roehrig, G., & Ring-Whalen, E., & Wieselmann, J. R., & Dare, E. A., & Ellis, J. A. (2019, June), Work in Progress – The Development of a K-12 Integrated STEM Observation Protocol Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--33573

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2019 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015