Social and Critical Consciousness Across the Engineering Curriculum

Publications

Driven by scholarly work that promotes incorporating the study of social justice issues in the engineering curriculum, this work-in-progress paper focuses on teaching social and critical consciousness in engineering. The purpose of this study is to discuss and compare the implementation of social and critical consciousness in a first-year general education engineering course and a senior design engineering course.

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Building Automation and IoT as a Platform for Introducing STEM Education in K-12

Publications

There is growing concern in the United States about the lack of interest and aptitude in science, math and, in particular, technology and engineering disciplines. Certainly one reason for this could be the lack of true engineering experiences available to students when they are in junior high and high school. This is in part due to the fact that while most teachers are well versed in math and science through their formal education, very few have experience and/or educational backgrounds in engineering and technology. To promote STEM careers, a partnership among university engineering faculty

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Creating Socially Relevant Mobile Apps: Infusing Computing into Middle School Curricula in Two School Districts

Publications

In this paper, we share our experiences implementing a professional development program in two school districts with middle school teachers who integrated an introductory computer science curriculum into their teaching. The 15 to 20–hour curriculum was based on students collaboratively creating mobile apps for socially relevant purposes with MIT App Inventor. Eleven teachers infused the curriculum into technology, math, engineering, library and art courses. We investigated how teachers modified the curriculum to fit their respective standards and students’ needs. We discuss the challenges they

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Changes in Teacher Dispositions Among Participants in Hands-on Teaching of a STEM Curriculum

Publications

Going Green! Middle Schoolers Out to Save the World (MSOSW) focuses on students using energy monitoring equipment to assess the amount of standby power consumed by their home entertainment devices and appliances when not performing any useful functions. This program focuses on improving the STEM pipeline by preparing both teachers and students in engaging activities aimed at creating and increasing interest in STEM careers for students. Teachers who participated in this hands-on, real world curriculum project, that included professional development, project tools and resources, gained in their

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Contrasts in Climate Change Attitudes and STEM Dispositions Among Children Versus Adults Attending a Science and Technology Exposition

Publications

Children and adults attending a three-day Science and Technology Exposition in Washington D.C., during April 2016 completed Climate Change Attitude Surveys and STEM Semantic Differential Surveys while visiting a booth featuring hands on demonstrations of testing various houshold appliances for consumption of standby power. Demos were conducted by middle school teachers from three states in the USA as part of a four-year Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) project, funded by NSF. Findings were that adults overall were more positive than children but significantly

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You Can Take it With You: Empowering Learners Across Contexts

Publications

A central way in which FUSE provides powerful learning affordances is by breaking down the silos of A key way in which FUSE provides powerful learning affordances is by breaking down the silos of traditional STEM disciplines, and engaging learners in more authentic, interdisciplinary, and personally meaningful experimentation ICLS 2016 Proceedings 1029 © ISLS and making (e.g., Dewey, 1897; Resnick et al., 2009). Consequently, FUSE activities have the potential to not only motivate students to engage in future STEM learning, but also to provide them with a toolkit of knowledge and practices to

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Learner Choice and the Emergence of Diverse Learning Arrangements in FUSE

Publications

This paper explores how FUSE Studios are organized, describing key design elements, the ways these differ from a traditional classroom model, and the types of diverse learning arrangements that emerge. Data in this paper was primarily collected from five classrooms in the 2013-14 school year and the analysis was refined through discussions within the research team about ongoing data collection during the 2014-15 (one classroom) and 2015- 16 (seven classrooms) school years.[See pages 1025-1032]

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Developing and Recognizing Relative Expertise in FUSE

Publications

Traditional methods of STEM education position the child as a novice and create narrow opportunities for children to demonstrate and constructively utilize their developing skills, related interests and capabilities, perhaps even inadvertently suppressing them (Stevens, 2000; Bevan, Bell, Stevens, & Razfar, 2012; Barron, 2006). Researchers have explored expertise in terms of domain mastery (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Romer, 1993), developed models for how novices become domain experts (Alexander, 2003), and discussed pathways along which students move in developing science expertise (Schwarz et

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Utilizing Wearable Technologies as a Pathway to STEM

Publications

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a pilot study that utilized a wearable technologies intervention as a way to increase attitudes towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) content areas for students in grades 4 to 6. The study utilized a previously developed attitudinal instrument that examined eight constructs around motivation, self-efficacy and learning strategies. The findings indicate that wearable technologies may indeed increase STEM attitudes and could particularly be a viable way to increase participation in STEM for females.

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Design-based Information Technologies Learning Experience Project for K-12 STEM Outreach

Publications

This paper presents the design of the Design-Based Information Technologies Learning Experiences (DITLE) project, a large K-12 STEM outreach project supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It impacts IT education among six public high schools in a metropolitan area. The designed activities of the project are presented and shared with the education research community to invoke discussion. The project is currently in its first year of a three-year grant period. The lessons and experiences learned so far are also summarized for discussion.

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