Salt Lake City, Utah
June 23, 2018
June 23, 2018
July 27, 2018
Elementary Students: Computational Thinking, Reasoning, and Troubleshooting
Pre-College Engineering Education
23
10.18260/1-2--30663
https://peer.asee.org/30663
917
Emily M. Haluschak is an undergraduate student in Chemical Engineering working within INSPIRE Institute at Purdue University. She primarily focuses on data analysis for K-2 STEM integration while also editing STEM curriculum.
Michelle Stevens is a 1st grade teacher at Glen Acres Elementary School in Lafayette, Indiana. She became interested in the implementation of STEM integration in the early grades after teaching the 1st grade STEM curriculum in her classroom. She continued working on STEM research, specifically problem scoping for young children, at Purdue University in the summer of 2017.
Tamara J. Moore, Ph.D., is a Professor in the School of Engineering Education and Director of STEM Integration in the INSPIRE Institute at Purdue University. Dr. Moore’s research is centered on the integration of STEM concepts in K-12 and postsecondary classrooms in order to help students make connections among the STEM disciplines and achieve deep understanding. Her work focuses on defining STEM integration and investigating its power for student learning. Tamara Moore received an NSF Early CAREER award in 2010 and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2012.
Kristina M. Tank is an Assistant Professor of Science Education in the School of Education at Iowa State University. She currently teaches undergraduate courses in science education for elementary education majors. As a former elementary teacher, her research and teaching interests are centered around improving elementary students’ science and engineering learning and increasing teachers’ use of effective STEM instruction in the elementary grades. With the increased emphasis on improved teaching and learning of STEM disciplines in K-12 classrooms, Tank examines how to better support and prepare pre-service and in-service teachers to meet the challenge of integrating STEM disciplines in a manner that supports teaching and learning across multiple disciplines. More recently, her research has focused on using literacy to support scientific inquiry, engineering design, and STEM integration.
Monica E. Cardella is the Director of the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering and is an Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.
Dr. Morgan Hynes is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University and Director of the FACE Lab research group at Purdue. In his research, Hynes explores the use of engineering to integrate academic subjects in K-12 classrooms. Specific research interests include design metacognition among learners of all ages; the knowledge base for teaching K-12 STEM through engineering; the relationships among the attitudes, beliefs, motivation, cognitive skills, and engineering skills of K-16 engineering learners; and teaching engineering.
Elizabeth Gajdzik is the Assistant Director of the INSPIRE Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received both her B.S. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a specialization in mathematics and M.S.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in mathematics education from Baylor University. Prior to her work at INSPIRE, Elizabeth was a district curriculum mathematics specialist in San Antonio, TX and a middle school mathematics teacher at a Title 1 school in Waco, TX.
Ruben D. Lopez-Parra is a graduate research assistant at Purdue University pursuing a Ph.D. in Engineering Education. Previously, he worked as a Natural Science teacher in High School where he, as a scholarly teacher, constantly assessed his performance to design better learning environments that promote students’ conceptual understanding. In 2015, Ruben earned the M.S in Chemical Engineering at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia where he also received the title of Chemical Engineer in 2012. His research interests include cognition and metacognition in the engineering curriculum.
Engineering design as “the glue” to integrate science, mathematics, and computational thinking standards-based content is becoming more prevalent in educating K-12 students. In a simplistic view of engineering design, engineers iterate between understanding the problem and developing a solution to the problem. The need to deeply understand the problem as part of the process of developing solutions is called problem scoping and framing. Problem scoping affects the way a problem is investigated, analyzed, and eventually solved; therefore, understanding how a problem is approached is an extremely important step in understanding how the solutions are developed. There is some research regarding pre-college problem scoping techniques; however, there is a gap in knowledge with respect to primary students. The purpose of this research is to explore problem scoping and framing during integrated science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computational thinking (STEM+C) curricular units. Our research question is: What are the patterns of K-2 student talk and action when participating in problem scoping activities from a STEM+C integration curricula?
This study involved three units from an integrated literacy and STEM+C curricula that were developed for use in K-2 classrooms. There are four main components that set this curriculum apart from other commonly-implemented engineering lessons: 1) engineering design as the interdisciplinary glue, 2) engineering design to provide opportunities for student participation in problem scoping and framing as well as solution development, 3) realistic engineering contexts to promote student engagement, 4) high-quality literature to facilitate meaningful connections and 5) instruction of specific STEM+C content within an integrated approach.
This study explores the problem scoping patterns in students in grades K-2 after the integrated curricula was implemented in classrooms. Using purposeful sampling, data from six different classrooms out of 17 was selected to be analyzed. Video and audio data of the interactions between the teacher and students as well as among multiple students was coded based on patterns relating to a previously developed problem scoping framework that includes three components: naming, setting the context, reflecting.
When looking at the patterns around problem scoping that were observed during the implementation of these integrated STEM+C lessons, there was evidence of student talk and action related to problem scoping within all three components of the framework: naming, setting the context, reflecting. The results also identified differences within the three problem scoping components across the various grade levels. For example, students in 2nd grade could individually name or identify the problem that was being solved, while students in Kindergarten and 1st grade needed to build off each others’ responses along with teacher support before grasping the problem that was being solved.
This paper will show that students in grades K-2 are able to engage in engineering practices, specifically problem scoping and framing. Discussion of developmentally appropriate problem scoping practices that facilitate K-2 student learning will be included.
Haluschak, E. M., & Stevens, M. L., & Moore, T. J., & Tank, K. M., & Cardella, M. E., & Hynes, M. M., & Gajdzik, E., & Lopez-Parra, R. D. (2018, June), Initial Problem Scoping in K-2 Classrooms (Fundamental) Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--30663
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