[43, 47]: Page 11.288.10• Long term effort,• Technical assistance, as well as support networks,• Collegial atmosphere in which teachers share views and experiences,• Opportunities for reflection on one’s own practice,• Focus on teaching for understanding through personal learning experiences, and• Professional development grounded in classroom practice.The teaching of science should be centered on inquiry-based strategies that incorporate thesolution of real world problems. The integrative nature of science and engineering lies in thefact that engineering and design also provides a systematic approach to problem solving in a realworld
experiences to solve real-world problems. Preparing K–12 teachers to provideauthentic engineering activities in their classrooms required integrated mathematics and scienceapplications, along with exposure to engineering design.3 Learning engineering related activities Page 23.505.4and collaborating with other STEM teachers allowed teachers to think more like an engineer —analytically, critically, and reflectively.3 Professional development resulted in secondary teachersgaining knowledge and skills to transfer this new learning into the classroom and school setting.Teachers identified effective professional development as including hands-on activities
building at all times, withchildren off task. Instructions are not good enough to use without help.” These observationnarratives make apparent the range of student engagement in the lessons and the nature of theirengagement, both of which may reflect the learning that was anticipated to be taking place.Through our coding of observation narratives it also became apparent there were a range ofinteractions among students and between students and teacher. For example, during one lessonthe observation was made, “Focus and joy in classroom were obvious. Lots of give and take withstudents, and emphasis on doing and re-doing to make things work,” and in another “Whenstudents were turned loose, they designed their own methods and tested them with
curriculum modules.II. Why Sensors?Sensors now play an important role in environmental research. The education of the 21st centuryenvironmental technology workforce therefore demands an understanding of sensor technology, Page 25.1194.2as well as the ability to resolve complex environmental issues and to communicate findings to abroad audience. Developing and maintaining such a workforce calls for innovative educationalprograms that prepare future sensor technology professionals at a variety of levels and in avariety of environmental fields1. This type of multidisciplinary, technology-based approach isnot sufficiently reflected in our current
+ or - .05) for eight items. Two of the positive items were statistically significant pre-to-post: “Create design posters using technology” and “Program w/computer software.” End School Year Student QuestionnaireStudents were also asked to complete a survey at the end of their spring Expo experiences. Theywere asked to reflect on their experiences over the previous year. Here are a few of thehighlights:I. Career Intentions:At the end of their first year in HSE, 70% (32 of 46 surveyed) of Cadre I and 61% (34 of 56surveyed) of Cadre II students indicated that they are considering STEM careers. Longitudinaldata will continue to be collected for these students so we can learn if attitudes about careerintentions in STEM are
and statistics. We plan on expanding this component of the professionaldevelopment and develop a guide for the teachers in this area. For the research experience partof the program, teachers have indicators that they would like to have more group meetings of theresearchers and the RET teachers to discuss the research being conducted. We will work withthe research mentors to have more such meetings.AcknowledgmentThis project was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0908889. Anyopinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those ofthe author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation
opportunities presented in SENSE ITincorporate problems reflecting societal need and align to technology and science contentstandards.Design-based activities, such as those included in the SENSE IT project, provide a rich contextfor learning and lend themselves to sustained inquiry and revision. SENSE IT helps students andteachers develop the deep understanding needed to apply knowledge in the complex domains ofreal world practice. Children learn best if they are immersed in complex experiences and aregiven the opportunity to actively process what they have learned [2]. Our Other Youth [3], reportsthat the majority students learn best when instruction emphasizes application. Yet only 16percent of instruction in U.S. classrooms could be characterized as
haunchesTransferable Educational Element: This activity is a culmination of a number of differentconcepts. While this lesson clearly reflects a ‘led discussion’ rather than a free designexperience, it allows the student to see how the whole design process brought to bear on aparticular problem for which a brilliant solution was devised. It also models more sophisticatedengineering practices where engineers have a good idea of what will work before they actuallybuild
reflection of the students‘ perception of engineering per se.In order to conduct quantitative analysis of the open-ended results, responses were categorized.Percentage responses in each category were calculated to generate frequencies of responses.Responses from students who provided more than one answer to a question were talliedseparately to report the full range of responses.A second set of entrance and exit closed-ended surveys was administered primarily to assess thestudents‘ engagement or interest and attitudes toward STEM. A copy of this instrument isincluded in Tables 4 - 6.The questions in the closed-ended survey are aimed at discovering thelevel of short term or long term interest, or feelings that respondents hold with regard
participated in, werecompared between engineers and non-engineers in an effort to investigate whether engineeringand non-engineering students show differential rates of participation in Tech to Teaching. Thiscount of semesters in which students participated reflects a count of any semesters in which theyparticipated in one or more Tech to Teaching activities. The activity count is a count of the totalnumber of distinct Tech to Teaching activities in which they participated. Page 22.32.21 Figure 10. Count of semesters in which students participated – all Tech to Teaching students
speak out about science, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 32 (1), 3-27.[8] American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. (2000). Tech-Savvy: Educating girls in Page 15.735.15 the new computer age. Washington, DC: Author.[9] American Association of University Women Educational Foundation. (2004). Under the Microscope: A decade of gender equity projects in the sciences. Washington, DC: Author.[10] Resnick, M. & Silverman, B. (2005). Some reflections on designing construction kits for kids. Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children conference, Boulder, CO.[11
education research focused on young learners raises questions such as howengineering experiences can be integrated into existing school curricula, and which engineeringframeworks are significant, engaging, and inspiring to students 7,8. There are many differenttheories of how to engage students in what they are learning. One of these is ExperientialLearning Theory (ELT), which was developed by educational theorist David Kolb and hiscolleagues. In ELT, “knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” 9, andultimately provides students with the opportunity to directly involve themselves in a learningexperience, reflect on their experiences using analytic skills, and eventually gain a betterunderstanding of the new knowledge and retain