Integrating Science Content and Engineering Thinking in the Elementary Classroom

在国家科学基金会罗伯特·诺伊斯教师奖学金计划的资助下，小学课堂中整合科学内容和工程思维项目将招募科学、技术、工程和数学专业的学生和专业人员，并为他们成为小学教师做好准备。该项目将在五年内每年资助10笔津贴，从而培养50名初级科学教师。在这个项目中，马萨诸塞大学波士顿分校将与波士顿两所公立小学和音乐学院实验室学校合作，将工程设计过程作为一种可用于促进科学学习的教与学方法的理念。通过工程设计的教学有可能促进符合新的科学教育标准要求的综合教学。以设计为基础的学习可以帮助学生发展科学探究和解决现实世界问题的技能，增强特定学科的内容知识和批判性思维能力，并促进对科学或工程职业的兴趣。该项目将促进初级STEM教师培训领域的知识和理解，使小学教师能够利用工程实践，结合科学内容，向小学生教授科学。项目成果将有助于确定最近K-12教育改革的成效，特别是那些呼吁将工程学与科学教育相结合的改革，并将科学和工程学的实践与教学内容相结合。很少有小学教师培训计划专门专注于为小学教师讲授STEM内容做准备。在拟议的教师培训计划中内置了两项新的评估，以跟踪教师在小学课堂上整合工程和科学内容的能力，即视频案例诊断和课程批评和修订工具。由于它的重点是STEM在初级水平，这个独特的计划将利用这两个工具来确定STEM整合在为小学生构建科学内容知识方面的有效性。

With funding from the National Science Foundation's Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program, the Integrating Science Content and Engineering Thinking in the Elementary Classroom Project will recruit Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics majors and professionals and prepare them to become elementary teachers. The project will fund 10 stipends per year over five years, resulting in the preparation of 50 elementary science teachers. In this project, the University of Massachusetts at Boston will collaborate with two Boston public elementary schools and the Conservatory Lab School to build on the idea of engineering design process as a teaching-learning approach that can be used to promote science learning. Teaching through engineering design has the potential to facilitate integrated instruction that meets the requirements of the new science education standards. Design-based learning can help students develop scientific inquiry and real world problem-solving skills, enhance discipline-specific content knowledge and critical thinking skills, and promote interest in science or engineering careers. This project will advance knowledge and understanding in the area of STEM teacher preparation at the elementary level by preparing elementary teachers to use engineering practices, integrated with science content, to teach science to elementary-aged children. Project outcomes will help determine the effectiveness of recent reforms in K-12 education, particularly those that call for the integration of engineering with science education, and will integrate the practices of science and engineering with didactic content. There are very few elementary teacher preparation programs that focus exclusively on preparing elementary teachers to teach STEM content. Built into the proposed teacher preparation program are two new assessments for tracking the ability of teachers to integrate engineering and science content in the elementary classroom, the Video Case Diagnosis and the Curriculum Critique and Revision tools. With its focus on STEM at the elementary level, this unique program will utilize these two tools to determine the effectiveness of STEM integration for building science content knowledge for elementary students.