ITEST Resources

The purpose of this article is to provide awareness of the danger of design fixation and promote the uses of brainstorming early in the design process--before fixation limits creative ideas. The authors challenged technology teachers to carefully limit the use of design examples too early in the process and provided suggestions for facilitating brainstorming sessions to help generate innovative ideas. The authors are not suggesting that teachers never provide design examples; in fact, this article highlights techniques for providing students with authentic examples and the benefits of this

This case study described teachers with varying technology skills who were implementing the use of geospatial technology (GST) within project-based instruction (PBI) at varying grade levels and contexts 1 to 2 years following professional development. The sample consisted of 10 fifth- to ninth-grade teachers. Data sources included artifacts, observations, interviews, and a GST performance assessment and were analyzed using a constant comparative approach. Teachers’ teaching actions, beliefs, context, and technology skills were categorized. Results indicated that all of the teachers had high

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.

This paper addresses the need for enhancing our awareness of user‐centered design in educational technology through a more explicit and systematic alignment between the needs of educational technology users (learners and educators) and the affordances provided by the technology. First, we define the term “affordance” and discuss it from the perspectives of cognitive psychology and user interaction design. Next, we propose a taxonomy of functional affordances that builds on prior research and reflects the current trends in the design of educational technologies. The paper is concluded with an

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

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

Fossils and the science of paleontology provide a charismatic gateway to integrate STEM teaching and learning. With the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as well as the exponentially increasing use of three-dimensional (3-D) printing and scanning technology, it is a particularly opportune time to integrate a wider variety of fossils and paleontology into K–12 curricula. We describe a curricular prototype that integrates all four components of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) into authentic research using dentitions of the Neogene giant shark Megalodon (Carcharocles

MIT App Inventor has enabled middle school students to learn computing while creating their own apps-including apps that serve community needs. However, few resources exist for building apps that gather and share data. There is a need for new tools and instructional materials for students to build data-enbaled, community-focused apps. We developed an extension for App Inventor, called AppleVis, which allows app-makers to publish and retrieve data from our existing web-based collaborative data visualization platform.

How algebraic reasoning can be fostered within the important big idea of equivalence is demonstrated using hanging mobiles. A concrete-representational-abstract approach is used, without any formal algebraic symbolism, to elicit algebraic reasoning and higher-order thinking.

The challenges of addressing increasing calls for the inclusion of computational thinking skills in K-12 education in the midst of crowded school curricula can be mitigated, in part, by promoting STEM learning in after-school settings. The Visualization Basics: Using Gaming to Improve Computational Thinking project provided opportunities for middle school students to participate in after-school clubs focused on game development and LEGO robotics in an effort to increase computational thinking skills. Club leaders and teachers, however, first needed to develop proficiency with the computational