Building community capacity for integrating engineering in rural middle school science classrooms

Abstract

Broadening participation in engineering is an important national priority and has led to increasing demands for engineering content to be integrated into traditional K-12 curriculum. However, expecting teachers to incorporate engineering into their classrooms without additional training or resources is unreasonable. Partnering teachers with industry partners is one promising way to prioritize integrated science and engineering content while also introducing youth to possible career paths. In this programmatic article, we introduce the Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools (PEERS) project that focuses on the collaborative design, implementation, and study of recurrent hands-on engineering activities with middle school youth in three rural communities in or near Appalachia. We discuss the curricular priorities of the program as well as preliminary findings on both student-focused and capacity-building metrics across the partnerships. Key discussion points include (1) a need to distill goals for engineering outreach by wrestling with what success might really look like for middle-school youth engagement with engineering and (2) cultivating community capacity to better support education systems and the simultaneous potential for and challenges of collaborating to build such infrastructure.

A multiple case study of an interorganizational collaboration: Exploring the first year of an industry partnership focused on middle school engineering education

“…Asking reflective questions may promote shared benefits while mitigating unexpected expenditure of resources. Based on our findings, we have developed a reflective tool for practitioners engaging in interorganizational collaboration, which can be found in Appendix B and Grohs et al (2020).…”

“…This study is in part motivated by the desire to understand the collaborative processes on a deeper level and provide suggestions for sustainable development. The full programmatic description of this project can be found in the study by Grohs et al (2020). Table 1 details the specific activities undertaken through the partnership by teachers, university, and industry stakeholders.…”

“…The classroom activities aligned with science standards already in use by the teachers' school counties and the NGSS Science and Engineering standards for middle school (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Design of these lessons focused on several elements: aligning with existing learning standards, emphasizing hands‐on classroom activities, forging connections to engineering thinking or engineering careers, and creating relevancy for rural youth (Grohs et al, 2020). Evaluating criteria used to design and assess the efficacy of the lesson designs were adapted from Cunningham and Lachapelle (2014).…”

Changes in Teacher Self-efficacy Through Engagement in an Engineering Professional Development Partnership

“…Focus group transcripts, specifically the responses from the teachers, were analyzed qualitatively using the four sources of self-efficacy as codes in a first round of deductive coding: mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and physiological arousal [23]. After this first round, the coded portions were then grouped into common themes [24].…”

“…VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Communities) is a program designed to "provide recurrent hands-on engineering activities to middle school students in rural communities in or near Appalachia" [23]. The project partners middle school teachers, university affiliates, and local industry partners throughout the state region to develop and implement engineering activities that align with state defined standards of learning (SOLs).…”