Impact of Professional Development in Culturally Relevant Engineering Design for Elementary and Middle School Teachers (RTP, Diversity)

Frank Bowman; Bethany Jean Klemetsrud; Emine Ozturk; Julie Robinson; Erin Lacina

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Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: July 12, 2024
Conference Session: Principal Skinner's Secrets: Cultivating STEM in Remote Locations, Steamed Hams!
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/47561

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Paper Authors

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Frank Bowman University of North Dakota

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Frank Bowman is Thomas C. Owens Endowed Chair, Professor and Chair in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of North Dakota. He holds a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and a B.S from Brigham Young University

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Bethany Jean Klemetsrud P.E. University of North Dakota

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Beth Klemetsrud is an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota where she studies equity and culturally relevant pedagogy in engineering education, waste to energy conversion, and life cycle assessment. Beth is from the White Earth Nation and is grateful to be able to work on my homelands and to be so close to my family and community. She graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth. She obtained her doctorate from Michigan Tech under the supervision of Dr. David Shonnard where she focused on renewable energy production and life cycle assessment of biobased energy production from hybrid poplar.

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Emine Ozturk North Carolina State University orcid.org/0000-0001-9997-2982

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Julie Robinson University of North Dakota

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Dr. Julie Robinson is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Dakota and the Director of UND’s Center for Engineering Education Research. Her research explores strategies for broadening access and participation in STEM, focusing on culturally relevant pedagogy in science and engineering. She also investigates strategies for increasing access and participation in STEM through teacher professional learning opportunities and by exploring the impact of group gender composition on girls’ motivation and engagement. Dr. Robinson is a PI and Co-PI on several NSF sponsored grant projects which focus on teacher professional learning and self-efficacy with implementing culturally relevant engineering education, connecting to place and community, and centering culture and Indigeneity within STEM education. Dr. Robinson has over twenty years of K – 12 teaching experience, including seven years as a teacher leader of professional development in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics, and in elementary science and engineering pedagogy.

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Erin Lacina

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Abstract

Effectively teaching engineering within a culturally relevant framework (Ladson-Billings, 1995) has the potential to dramatically increase student engagement, outcomes, and representation within STEM, particularly for students who have not historically seen science and engineering as relevant to their lives. Yet many teachers feel they lack the training and self-efficacy to include engineering in their curricula in ways that are meaningful and connect to students’ lives and communities (Hammack & Ivey, 2017). This paper describes results from a professional development (PD) program to help elementary and middle school teachers create and implement engineering design tasks in their classrooms that are relevant to the cultures and communities of their Native American and rural student populations and that are aligned with local STEM standards and curricula. A total of 15 teachers from grades 3-8 and in a range of subjects (Science, Math, Language Arts) participated in a full year of PD, including 5 days in the summer and 3 days during the academic year. Teachers implemented 3 culturally relevant engineering design (CRED) tasks that they designed for their own classrooms. A CRED framework was adapted from Guerra et al.’s (2012) engineering design process to explicitly include connections to community, culture, and place within each design stage (Identify, Describe, Generate, Embody, Finalize). The PD program was built on a theoretical framework using Bandura’s (1977) Social Cognitive Theory to develop self-efficacy and collective efficacy within the teacher cohort. Teachers were given tools, practice, and support to develop their own CRED tasks. The cohort model provided opportunities for peer mentorship and ongoing collaboration within and across school districts. PD sessions included time for teachers to develop lesson plans, explore resources, and reflect on their learning. We used a mixed methods research design to investigate the impact of the PD program on teacher self-efficacy and classroom pedagogy with a focus on cultural relevance and engineering design. Quantitative pre/post data was collected using three survey instruments: Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale (TESS), Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (CRTSES), and Culturally Congruent Instruction Survey (CCIS). Qualitative data included videotaped classroom observations, individual teacher interviews after each design task, and teacher focus groups and written reflections during the summer and school year PD days. Study results showed a promising and consistent picture of increased teacher self-efficacy and changes to teaching practice. Statistically significant gains were seen in pre/post surveys, with specific gains that include increased self-efficacy related to “guid[ing] my students’ solution development with the engineering design process” and “us[ing] examples that are familiar to students from diverse cultural backgrounds” and increased classroom use of “science activities in which students designed solutions to problems relevant to their community.” Teachers also report increased engagement from all students, particularly among previously struggling and disengaged students who took on greater leadership, and female students who showed greater confidence and engagement. Teachers also noted increased student capacity for independence, creativity, problem-solving, and productive collaborative work.

Citation
Format

Bowman, F., & Klemetsrud, B. J., & Ozturk, E., & Robinson, J., & Lacina, E. (2024, June), Impact of Professional Development in Culturally Relevant Engineering Design for Elementary and Middle School Teachers (RTP, Diversity) Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/47561

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Effectively teaching engineering within a culturally relevant framework (Ladson-Billings, 1995) has the potential to dramatically increase student engagement, outcomes, and representation within STEM, particularly for students who have not historically seen science and engineering as relevant to their lives. Yet many teachers feel they lack the training and self-efficacy to include engineering in their curricula in ways that are meaningful and connect to students’ lives and communities (Hammack &amp;amp; Ivey, 2017). This paper describes results from a professional development (PD) program to help elementary and middle school teachers create and implement engineering design tasks in their classrooms that are relevant to the cultures and communities of their Native American and rural student populations and that are aligned with local STEM standards and curricula.
 
A total of 15 teachers from grades 3-8 and in a range of subjects (Science, Math, Language Arts) participated in a full year of PD, including 5 days in the summer and 3 days during the academic year. Teachers implemented 3 culturally relevant engineering design (CRED) tasks that they designed for their own classrooms. A CRED framework was adapted from Guerra et al.’s (2012) engineering design process to explicitly include connections to community, culture, and place within each design stage (Identify, Describe, Generate, Embody, Finalize). The PD program was built on a theoretical framework using Bandura’s (1977) Social Cognitive Theory to develop self-efficacy and collective efficacy within the teacher cohort. Teachers were given tools, practice, and support to develop their own CRED tasks.  The cohort model provided opportunities for peer mentorship and ongoing collaboration within and across school districts. PD sessions included time for teachers to develop lesson plans, explore resources, and reflect on their learning.
 
We used a mixed methods research design to investigate the impact of the PD program on teacher self-efficacy and classroom pedagogy with a focus on cultural relevance and engineering design. Quantitative pre/post data was collected using three survey instruments: Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale (TESS), Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy Scale (CRTSES), and Culturally Congruent Instruction Survey (CCIS). Qualitative data included videotaped classroom observations, individual teacher interviews after each design task, and teacher focus groups and written reflections during the summer and school year PD days.
 
Study results showed a promising and consistent picture of increased teacher self-efficacy and changes to teaching practice. Statistically significant gains were seen in pre/post surveys, with specific gains that include increased self-efficacy related to “guid[ing] my students’ solution development with the engineering design process” and “us[ing] examples that are familiar to students from diverse cultural backgrounds” and increased classroom use of “science activities in which students designed solutions to problems relevant to their community.” Teachers also report increased engagement from all students, particularly among previously struggling and disengaged students who took on greater leadership, and female students who showed greater confidence and engagement. Teachers also noted increased student capacity for independence, creativity, problem-solving, and productive collaborative work.
AU  - Frank Bowman
AU  - Bethany Jean Klemetsrud P.E.
AU  - Emine Ozturk
AU  - Julie Robinson
AU  - Erin Lacina
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Impact of Professional Development in Culturally Relevant Engineering Design for Elementary and Middle School Teachers (RTP, Diversity)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/47561
ER  -