Connections in the Making: Elementary Students, Teachers, and STEM Professionals Integrating Science and Engineering to Design Community Solutions

该项目将推进学生和教师创新技术体验（ITEST）计划的努力，以更好地理解和促进提高学生在科学，技术，工程或数学（STEM）领域追求职业生涯的动机和能力的做法。该项目将开发和研究社区连接，综合科学和工程课程单元，利用移动的制造商空间和数字笔记本技术，以支持不同的小学生的科学和工程的想法，实践和态度。学生将开发原型并分享解决方案，以应对植根于当地社区的设计挑战，同时探索相关现象的科学解释。这些综合单位将通过当地两所大学的科学和工程教育研究人员、当地两个学区的教师和管理人员以及波士顿公共交通系统的STEM专业人员的合作共同开发和制定。这种合作将促进综合学习经验，不仅支持学科的想法和实践，而且还提高学生的职业兴趣和认识，使科学和工程能够解决自己社区的挑战。一个基于设计的研究方法与嵌入式课程比较研究将推进有关机制的知识，通过社区和学科的连接支持不同的小学生的能力，动机，并坚持在科学和工程。将通过涉及1 440名小学生和36名小学教师的三个设计周期收集数据，以调查如何通过综合科学和工程单位以社区连接的方式提高教学能力。该项目的成果将为课程开发和实施提供一个模型，该模型将独特地定位教师，地区领导人和STEM专业人员，作为制定和颁布综合科学和工程课程的重要贡献者。它还将促进利用伙伴关系作为工具，扩大来自社会经济和文化多样性公立学区的学生和教师的参与。除了对项目参与者的影响外，这项研究的信息将通过职前教师教育课程、教师入职网络和在职专业发展传播。项目产出，包括课程单元、课程开发框架和学生作业样本，将通过学区在线门户网站和大学托管的在线课程资源库与教育工作者分享。教师，地区领导人和STEM专业人员的专业网络将被用来提高对这些资源的认识。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM). This project will develop and study community-connected, integrated science and engineering curriculum units that leverage mobile maker space and digital notebook technologies to support diverse elementary students' science and engineering ideas, practices, and attitudes. Students will develop prototypes and share solutions to a design challenge rooted in their local community while exploring scientific explanations of related phenomena. The integrated units will be co-developed and enacted through a collaboration of science and engineering education researchers from two local universities, teachers and administrators from two local school districts, and STEM professionals from Boston's public transportation system. This collaboration will promote integrated learning experiences and will not only support disciplinary ideas and practices but also increase students' career interests and recognition of the transformative ways in which science and engineering can address challenges in their own communities. A design-based research approach with an embedded curriculum comparison study will advance knowledge about mechanisms through which community and disciplinary connections support diverse elementary school student competence, motivation, and persistence in science and engineering. Data will be collected through three cycles of design involving 1,440 elementary students and 36 elementary teachers to investigate ways to improve the capacity to teach and learn through integrated science and engineering units in a community-connected way. Outcomes from this project will provide a model for curriculum development and implementation that will be unique in positioning teachers, district leaders, and STEM professionals as valued contributors in crafting and enacting integrated science and engineering curricula. It will also promote the utility of partnerships as vehicles for broadening participation of students and teachers from socioeconomically and culturally diverse public school districts. Beyond the impact on project participants, information from this study will be disseminated through pre-service teacher education courses, teacher induction networks, and in-service professional development. Project outputs, including curriculum units, curriculum development framework, and student work samples will be shared with educators both through school-district online portals and through university-hosted online collections of curriculum resources. The professional networks of the teachers, district leaders, and STEM professionals will be leveraged to raise awareness of these resources.