A Balancing Act: Elementary Teachers and their Students Balancing Trade-offs in Engineering Design Projects (Fundamental)

Matthew Johnson; Minyoung Gil

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: PCEE Technical Session 8: Engineering Design in Elementary School
Page Count: 26
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41258
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41258
Download Count: 417

Paper Authors

biography

Matthew Johnson Pennsylvania State University

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Matt Johnson is an Associate Professor of Science Education with the Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS). In this role, he collaborates with scientists and engineers to propose and facilitate teacher professional development opportunities for K-12 STEM teachers, often as broader impacts components of research grants. He is also PI of an NSF grant focused on learning how rural teachers learn about engineering through participation in workshops and how they take that new knowledge and adapt it to be relevant for their students.

Matt received a BA in Biology from Mercyhurst College. He then earned a BS in Education from Clarion University of PA. As a teacher, he earned an MEd in Science Education from Penn State and after starting work at CSATS, he earned a PhD in Science Education. His research interests include better understanding how teachers learn and participate in the practices of scientists and engineers in professional learning experiences and how those experiences affect their teaching.

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Minyoung Gil Pennsylvania State University

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Abstract

This fundamental research in pre-college education engineering study investigates the ways in which elementary school students and their teacher balance the tradeoffs in engineering design. STEM education reforms promote the engagement of K-12 students in the epistemic practices of disciplinary experts to teach content. This emphasis on practices is a paradigm shift that requires both extensive professional development and research to learn about the ways in which students and teacher learn about and participate in these practices. Balancing tradeoffs is an important practice in engineering but most often in classroom curricula it is embedded in the concept of iteration; however, improving a design is not always the same as balancing trade-offs. Optimizing a multivariate problem requires students to engage in several engineering practices, like considering multiple solution, making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints, applying math and science knowledge to problem solving, constructing models, making evidence-based decisions, and assessing the implications of solutions5. The ways in which teachers and students collectively balance these tradeoffs in a design has been understudied1. Our primary research questions are, “How do teachers and students make decisions about making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints” and “What type of feedback do teachers give students to help them balance tradeoffs, and how does it related to their workshop experience.” We take an ethnographic perspective to investigate these phenomena, and collected video data, field notes, and engineering journals of two elementary teachers in a workshop and similar data from those teachers’ classes as they implemented the curriculum they learned in the workshop. Our analyses focus on the disciplinary practices teachers and students use to make decisions for balancing tradeoffs, how they are supported (or impeded) by teachers, and how they justify these decisions. Similarly, we compared two of the teachers wearing their “student hat” in the workshop as well as their “teacher hat” in the classroom. Our analyses suggest three significant findings. First, teachers and students tended to focus on one criterion (e.g. cost, performance) and had few discussions about trying to minimize cost and maximize performance. The teachers focused on performance and not cost. Second, all of the designs improved through balancing trade-offs, but in distinct but pedagogically important ways. Last, despite having more experience in designing the filters used in the project, teachers intentionally avoided feedback that might affect the students’ designs. Implications of this study are relevant to both engineering educators and engineering curriculum developers.

Citation
Format

Johnson, M., & Gil, M. (2022, August), A Balancing Act: Elementary Teachers and their Students Balancing Trade-offs in Engineering Design Projects (Fundamental) Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41258

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - 	This fundamental research in pre-college education engineering study investigates the ways in which elementary school students and their teacher balance the tradeoffs in engineering design. STEM education reforms promote the engagement of K-12 students in the epistemic practices of disciplinary experts to teach content. This emphasis on practices is a paradigm shift that requires both extensive professional development and research to learn about the ways in which students and teacher learn about and participate in these practices. 
	Balancing tradeoffs is an important practice in engineering but most often in classroom curricula it is embedded in the concept of iteration; however, improving a design is not always the same as balancing trade-offs. Optimizing a multivariate problem requires students to engage in several engineering practices, like considering multiple solution, making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints, applying math and science knowledge to problem solving, constructing models, making evidence-based decisions, and assessing the implications of solutions5. The ways in which teachers and students collectively balance these tradeoffs in a design has been understudied1.
	Our primary research questions are, “How do teachers and students make decisions about making tradeoffs between criteria and constraints” and “What type of feedback do teachers give students to help them balance tradeoffs, and how does it related to their workshop experience.” We take an ethnographic perspective to investigate these phenomena, and collected video data, field notes, and engineering journals of two elementary teachers in a workshop and similar data from those teachers’ classes as they implemented the curriculum they learned in the workshop. Our analyses focus on the disciplinary practices teachers and students use to make decisions for balancing tradeoffs, how they are supported (or impeded) by teachers, and how they justify these decisions. Similarly, we compared two of the teachers wearing their “student hat” in the workshop as well as their “teacher hat” in the classroom.
	Our analyses suggest three significant findings. First, teachers and students tended to focus on one criterion (e.g. cost, performance) and had few discussions about trying to minimize cost and maximize performance.  The teachers focused on performance and not cost. Second, all of the designs improved through balancing trade-offs, but in distinct but pedagogically important ways. Last, despite having more experience in designing the filters used in the project, teachers intentionally avoided feedback that might affect the students’ designs. Implications of this study are relevant to both engineering educators and engineering curriculum developers.	

AU  - Matthew Johnson
AU  - Minyoung Gil
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - A Balancing Act: Elementary Teachers and their Students Balancing Trade-offs in Engineering Design Projects (Fundamental)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41258
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41258
ER  -