Using Blended Modalities for Engineering Education Professional Development: Supporting Elementary Teachers’ Development of Community-Focused Engineering Curricula

Blake Wiehe; Miracle Moonga; Brock Lameres; Rebekah Hammack; Nick Lux; Paul Gannon

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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: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 7
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41930
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41930
Download Count: 237

Paper Authors

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Rebekah Hammack Montana State University - Bozeman

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Dr. Rebekah Hammack is an Assistant Professor of K-8 Science Education at Montana State University. She holds a bachelors in animal science from the Ohio State University, a masters in animal science from Oklahoma State University, and a doctorate in science education form Oklahoma State University. Prior to beginning her faculty position at MSU, she completed an Albert Einstein Fellowship within the Directorate of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation and spent 12 years teaching science and engineering in rural and small town settings at the K-8 level. She is also a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Dr. Hammack researches science and engineering teacher efficacy and student engineering identity development at the K-8 level.

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Miracle Moonga is a graduate student in the Curriculum & Instruction program at Montana State University. His interest is in K-12 science and engineering education.

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Abstract

This paper presents an overview of teacher professional development work conducted as part of a National Science Foundation Research in the Formation of Engineers project. The overall goal of the project is to increase awareness and preparedness of rural and indigenous youth to consider and pursue engineering and engineering related careers. To reach this goal, we are working with elementary pre and in-service teachers in rural and reservation communities to connect local funds of knowledge with classroom curriculum. The first summer professional development focused on two items: (1) training elementary teachers and pre-service teachers in ethnographic methods and photo journal elicitation, and (2) introducing teachers to different ways to integrate engineering instruction into their teaching. The current paper focuses on the second summer professional development phase. During this second professional development phase, which was designed to build upon the foundation built during the first summer, the emphasis was on supporting participating teachers’ development and implementation of community-focused engineering curricula. The second summer teacher professional development was presented in a blended manner using both asynchronous and synchronous meetings platforms to support collaboration. Participating teachers came to the synchronous meetings with a list of potential topics that could be used to connect engineering to their local school community. During the synchronous sessions, teachers worked with project team members to further develop these ideas and plan for lesson implementation the following academic year.

Citation
Format

Hammack, R., & Lux, N., & Lameres, B., & Wiehe, B., & Gannon, P., & Moonga, M. (2022, August), Using Blended Modalities for Engineering Education Professional Development: Supporting Elementary Teachers’ Development of Community-Focused Engineering Curricula Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41930