Teachers Teaching Teachers: Linking K 12 Engineering Curricula With Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

Teachers are accountable for progressively higher expectations of performance in their classrooms. With the addition of standards-based teaching and performance testing, today's teachers feel the pressure of implementing quality lessons and curricular units in the classroom within strict time constraints. Not only is the number of qualified teachers in short supply, often they are expected to teach subjects outside their area of primary preparation. Teachers in science and technology classrooms, especially at the elementary and middle school levels, regularly report a lack of confidence in their ability to teach those subjects and seek content-specific professional development opportunities to enhance their classroom success. Supported by National Science Foundation and Department of Education grants, the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder has worked with K-12 teachers for six years to integrate engineering into their science curricula by offering varied professional development models. Most recently, we explored a model that built upon former workshops and incorporated new ideas. The new workshop format combines the talents of university professors, engineering outreach staff and K-12 teachers, and uses already-developed engineering curricula to support two-day teacher workshops in which teachers teach peer teachers hands-on engineering curricula. Working with university faculty content experts, the teachers use their own pedagogical knowledge to aid their content learning and overcome apprehensions associated with the prospect of teaching engineering in their classrooms. Comprehensive hands-on K-12 engineering curricular units, comprised of multiple stand-alone lessons, form the backbone of the teacher workshop offerings. Teachers benefit by having a tested set of standards-based curricula to take back into their classrooms, coupled with the confidence of having learned how to teach the content. The university K-12 Engineering Program benefits from observing the lesson plan presentations made by the teachers during the workshop and incorporating the teachers' suggestions to improve the curriculum.

A State-wide Professional Development Program in Engineering with Science and Math Teachers in Alabama: Fostering Conceptual Understandings of STEM

“…In their work, Zarske et al (2004) emphasized not only the importance of the engineering design-based curricula itself but the added benefit of having teachers work together to teach each other how to implement the curricula. These results helped determine that the "teachers teaching teachers" model of professional development was effective in promoting engineering designbased curricula implementation at the K-12 level.…”

Bringing Engineering Into K 12 Schools: A Problem Looking For Solutions?

“…Curricular materials in support of the integration of engineering into science instruction have been made available through professional organizations such as ASME and IEEE, as well as universities and teacher developed lesson plans [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Most recently, curriculum modules, under the umbrella of "TeachEngineering" (TE) have been made available through the National Science Digital Library [35].…”

“…Several different models have been reported, each of which incorporates one or more of the factors considered essential for successful professional development [43,47]. Most of them consist of 1-3 week summer workshops, which include time for teachers to share views and experiences, and unstructured follow up experiences during the school year [4,5,[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Several programs include different models of "teachers teaching teachers", including teachers presenting lesson plans to other teachers at summer workshops [13], teachers collaborating with university faculty as workshop leaders [4], and teachers who become certified to become workshop leaders [5,17].…”

“…In addition to open-ended opinion surveys for the summer workshop, one project also included pre-and post-content quizzes [13].…”

“…Technology education programs have been developed and implemented both nationally and at local levels [4][5][6][7]. Programs for science teachers have included training and curriculum development that integrates engineering applications with scientific principles has been reported [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Many of the efforts have attempted to align the content of the curriculum materials and activities with state content standards [8][9][10][11][15][16][17][18][19].…”