Aerospace Concepts for Elementary Education Majors

迫切需要提高小学课堂科学教学的质量。我们通过让工程学院的教师为基础教育专业的学生开设一门课程来满足这一需求，该课程侧重于当前的工程主题，更重要的是，以一种未来教师能够在课堂上使用材料的方式来呈现材料。这是通过首先介绍工程主题的科学原理，然后以适当的教学方法提供指导，最后通过实验室会议完成该主题来完成的，该会议涉及可以在小学课堂上使用的项目。该课程由工程学和教育学教师与小学教师合作开发。我们将每个主题作为一个模块提供，以便于移植到小学课堂，并允许提供一个、两个或三个学分的课程。我们针对的是职前小学专业的学生，尽管这门课程适合在职教师，而且可以很容易地为中学学员量身定做。我们正在与教育学院的教职员工合作，将这门课程与他们现有的科学教学方法课程重叠。我们希望参与者对科学主题更有信心，并使用我们的材料，能够更有效地教授科学。将通过在州内和全国范围内的专业会议上发表演讲来传播已开发的材料。此外，我们正在制作一本与课程配套的教科书。我们将通过访谈参与者和教育学院的教职员工来评估课程的有效性。

There is a critical need to improve the quality of science instruction in elementary school classrooms. We address this need by having College of Engineering faculty offer a course for elementary education majors that focuses on current engineering topics and, more importantly, to present material in such a way that future teachers will be able to use the material in their classrooms. This is accomplished by first introducing the scientific principles of an engineering topic, then providing instruction in an appropriate teaching method, and finally completing the topic with a laboratory session that involves projects that can be used in an elementary classroom. The course is being developed by engineering and education faculty in collaboration with elementary school teachers. We will offer each topic as a module to facilitate portability to the elementary classroom and to allow offering the course for either one, two, or three credit hours. We are targeting pre-service elementary majors although the course is suitable for in-service teachers and could be easily tailored to accommodate middle-school participants. We are collaborating with College of Education faculty to overlap this course with their existing science teaching methods course. We expect that participants will be more confident with science topics and, using our material, will be able to teach science more effectively. Dissemination of the developed materials will occur via presentation at professional meetings within the state and nationally. In addition, we are creating a textbook to accompany the course. We will evaluate the effectiveness of the course by interviewing participants and College of Education faculty.