From Direct Instruction to Authentic Learning: A Shift to Increase Academic Success and Engineering Competencies among Youth of Color

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Evidence shows that low-income youth of color are significantly underrepresented in postsecondary institutions and engineering-related fields. Many believe that these findings are connected, at least in part, to the emphasis on direct instruction that persists in many American urban high schools today. This project, based in an urban public high school, aims to support teachers as they move from direct instruction, which stresses content-based learning and rote memorization, to authentic learning, which focuses on project-based approaches and engineering literacies. During the grant period, we will observe classroom practice, create teacher inquiry groups, and conduct semi-structured interviews with teachers and students to understand the effects of this pedagogical shift on classroom learning and student outcomes. The project will demonstrate the instructional practices and pathways that are most likely to increase academic outcomes and college placement, which will ultimately create a more diverse group of individuals with the skills, literacies, and competencies to pursue careers in engineering. This project seeks to validate that authentic learning is directly tied to college placement and success in engineering careers and seeks to explore the reactions among the students and teachers who are committed to moving their curricular and pedagogical approaches from direct instruction to authentic learning. Through a mixed-methods approach that combines classroom observations, student/teacher interviews, textual analysis of student work, and analysis of student-level data, the study will examine the ways that teachers and students react to these instructional changes, and how these shifts affect students' academic outcomes and diversify the pathways to and through engineering. The research will have broad implications to understanding and replicating instructional practices and learning processes that best prepare urban youth of color for postsecondary success and engineering careers by fundamentally restructuring the way that instruction is delivered. It will leverage the Next Generation Science Standards and the Engineering Habits of Mind to explore the development of engineering literacies. The findings from this study will generate a framework for understanding school reform and instructional change that takes into account teacher and student identities and perspectives, and outline the most promising ways for urban public high schools to increase academic engagement, engineering competencies, and college persistence among youth of color.