CAREER: Examining Factors that Foster Low-Income Latino Middle School Students' Engineering Design Thinking in Literacy-Infused Technology and Engineering Classrooms

这是一份针对NSF 15-555计划征集的教职早期职业发展计划(Career)提案。职业生涯计划是国家科学基金会范围内的一项活动，为那些通过杰出的研究、出色的教育以及教育和研究的整合来体现教师学者作用的初级教师提供最有声望的奖项。该项目将调查以识字为基础的教学策略以及背景因素如何促进包括英语学习者在内的低收入拉丁裔中学生在参加技术和工程课程时发展工程设计思维。工程设计思维将集中在这一学科的基本方面，例如识别问题；考虑可能的解决方案；为解决方案制定计划；开发、实施和测试计划；评估结果、重新设计计划并再次测试。以识字为基础的教学策略将包括理解(总结、预测、推理和质疑书面文本)；词汇(通过联系学生的背景知识来构建明确的定义)；写以学为启发(识别需求、定义问题、生成解决方案、测试、观察结果、根据经验证据提出主张、优化和反思想法如何变化)；以及辩论(思考并阐明主张与证据之间的关系)。技术和工程课程的基础是通过使用基本工程原理和技术技能将现有技术应用于工程领域，同时解决国家扫盲、科学和工程标准问题。这些课程旨在让学生熟悉各州的劳动力市场和他们可以准备的就业机会。研究将集中在三个研究问题上：(1)基于识字的教学策略如何中介工程设计思维的发展？(2)技术和工程课堂环境的特征似乎如何支持学生的识字和工程设计？以及(3)背景因素似乎如何支持或限制中学技术和工程教师使用基于识字的教学策略？该项目采用交错的基于设计的研究及其设计、实施和回顾分析的迭代周期；该项目将与(A)10所城市和农村中学、(B)10名教授必修技术和工程课程的教师、(C)22个教室和(D)660名学生在7个学期的课程中合作，他们将工程设计与扫盲相结合。每个教室将组织成代表英语语言水平的小组(学生对)(例如，不同水平的英语学习者；非英语学习者)，以促进合作学习，促进扫盲战略的实施，并在工程思维的背景下追踪概念变化的证据。数据收集策略将包括课堂观察、两人合作的视频和录音、前后调查以及对学生和教师的采访。数据解释策略将包括回顾分析、微基因学习分析、案例内分析、跨案例分析和持续比较分析，以确定支持学生参与识字的技术和工程课堂环境的特点。案例研究将根据学生在特定学习环境中的学习情况，确定治疗的后果，并说明这些关系在目标人群中发生的机制和条件。这项拟议研究的主要成果将是为拉美裔中学生提供一种充满识字能力的工程设计、基于研究和实地测试的教学模式，可能适用于其他类似的环境。一个拥有工程、工程设计和识字指导专业知识的四人顾问委员会将每年监督工作并评估完成的任务。一名外部研究人员将负责对该项目进行形成性和总结性评估。

This is a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) proposal responsive to Program Solicitation NSF 15-555. The CAREER program is a National Science Foundation-wide activity that offers the most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research. The project will investigate how literacy-based instructional strategies, as well as contextual factors, mediate the development of engineering design thinking of low-income Latino middle school students, including English learners, as they attend technology and engineering courses. Engineering design thinking will focus on fundamental aspects of this discipline, such as identifying a problem; considering possible solutions; formulating a plan for the solution; developing, implementing, and testing the plan; evaluating results, redesigning the plan, and testing it again. Literacy-based instructional strategies will include comprehension (summarizing, predicting, inferring, and questioning written text); vocabulary (constructing explicit definitions by making connections to their students' background knowledge); writing-to-learn heuristic (identifying a need, defining a problem, generating solutions, testing, observing results, making claims based on empirical evidence, optimizing, and reflecting on how ideas change); and argumentation (thinking and articulating the relationships between claims and evidence). Technology and Engineering courses are based on the application of existing technology within the field of engineering through the use of basic engineering principles and technical skills, while simultaneously addressing national literacy, science, and engineering standards. These courses are designed to acquaint students with the states' labor markets and the employment opportunities for which they can prepare.The study will focus on three research questions: (1) How do literacy-based instructional strategies mediate the development of engineering design thinking?; (2) How do features of technology and engineering classroom settings seem to support students' literacy and engineering design?; and (3) How do contextual factors appear to afford or constrain middle school technology and engineering teachers' use of literacy-based instructional strategies? Employing a staggered design-based research and its iterative cycle of design, implementation, and retrospective analysis; the project will work with (a) 10 urban and rural middle schools, (b) 10 teachers who teach mandatory technology and engineering courses, (c) 22 classrooms, and (d) 660 students over the course of 7 trimesters, as they integrate engineering design and literacy. Each classroom will be organized in small groups (pairs of students) representative of English language proficiencies (e.g., English learners at different proficiency levels; non-English learners) to promote cooperative learning, facilitate the implementation of the literacy strategies, and trace evidence of conceptual change in the context of engineering thinking. Data gathering strategies will include classroom observations, video- and audio-taped of pairs working, pre- and post-surveys, and interviews with students and teachers. Data interpretation strategies will include retrospective analysis, microgenetic learning analysis, within-case analysis, cross-case analysis, and constant comparative analysis to identify the features of the technology and engineering classroom settings that support students' engagement with literacy. Case studies will result in contextualized profiles of student learning in particular learning environments, suitable for identifying the consequences attributable to the treatments and describing the mechanisms and conditions under which these relationships occur within the target population. The key outcome of the proposed study will be a literacy-infused engineering design, research-based and field-tested model of instruction for middle school Latino students, potentially adaptable in other similar settings. A four-member advisory board with expertise in engineering, engineering design, and literacy instruction will oversee the work annually and assess completed tasks. An external researcher will be responsible for the formative and summative evaluation of the project.