Work

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

Year: 2024

Type: conference-paper

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.

Source: ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41930

Authors: Rebekah Hammack, Nick Lux, Brock Lameres, Blake Wiehe, Paul Gannon, Miracle Moonga

Institutions: Montana State University, The Ohio State University

Language: English

Topic: Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

Subfield: Education

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Quality education

Open Access status: bronze

Funders: National Science Foundation, Oklahoma State University, Directorate for Education and Human Resources