A Service-Learning Partnership to Enhance Engineering Education and Elementary Pre-service Teacher Education for Undergraduate Students

改善小学阶段STEM概念的教学和学习是STEM教育的一个重要优先事项。 这个改进本科STEM教育（IUSE），开发和实施项目旨在开发服务学习项目，涉及包括本科工程和教育专业的团队。 这些本科生将合作开发和提供一个小时的工程课程，小学生。 该项目解决了三个需求：1）提高工程专业学生的学术和专业持久性; 2）准备工程师和初级职前教育工作者在多学科背景下合作和沟通的工作场所需求;和3）准备小学教师获得信心和能力，将工程融入教学。 这些跨学科的服务学习项目将嵌入到三个教育核心课程和三个工程专业学生的核心课程中。合作1将配对一年级工程学生学习工程设计和教育基金会的职前教师。协作2将配对计算方法的高级工程学生和教育技术的职前教师。合作3将配对上师工程学生在流体力学与职前教师在科学方法。本研究的目的是探讨这一干预对以下方面的影响：1）工科学生对工程概念的理解; 2）工科学生的工程和科学知识的教育; 3）两组学生的合作技能; 4）一年级工科学生对工程的学术坚持;（5）高层次学生对工程和教学的专业坚持性。 数据将按学生参与者的人口统计数据（例如，种族、性别、民族和军事地位）。 该项目的目标是：1）提高一年级工程专业学生的学术坚持性; 2）提高高级工程专业学生的专业坚持性; 3）提高工程和教育专业学生的合作技能; 4）提高工程专业学生的工程知识; 5）提高职前教师的工程知识。工程专业的学生和职前教师将在下一代科学标准和弗吉尼亚学习标准的指导下开发课程，以提高小学生对工程和计算思维的理解。工程专业的学生将帮助设计工程挑战，这将推动基于探究的课程，而教育专业的学生将主要负责制定课程计划。这两个学生团体都将参与向小学生授课。该项目旨在：检查适合每一组学生的标准化考试结果（例如，工程和实践考试的基本问题适合正在研究的主题）;使用标准化的评估规则来评估学生的技术工作（仅工程）和协作技能（工程和教育）;定性评估学生对课程开发过程的反思;并跟踪工程专业学生的持久性。 该项目旨在确定这种教学方法是否可以显著改变工程内容知识，沟通和协作技能以及持久性。 拟议的研究预计将有助于在教学和学习的知识体系，确定是否可以通过工程和小学教育学生之间的合作伙伴关系，实现工程/科学内容的知识的显着变化。 预计一个可复制的教学模式，可以通过工程和教师培训计划在全国范围内将导致。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Improving the teaching and learning of STEM concepts at the elementary level is an important priority for STEM education. This Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE), Development and Implementation project aims to develop service learning projects that involve teams that include undergraduate engineering and education majors. These undergraduates will collaborate to develop and deliver one-hour engineering lessons to elementary school students. This project addresses three needs: 1) to increase the academic and professional persistence of engineering students; 2) to prepare engineers and elementary pre-service educators for workplace demands of collaborating and communicating in multi-disciplinary contexts; and 3) to prepare elementary teachers to gain confidence and competence to integrate engineering into instruction. These cross-disciplinary, service-learning projects will be embedded into three core classes for education and three core classes for engineering students. Collaboration 1 will pair first year engineering students studying engineering design and pre-service teachers in Education Foundations. Collaboration 2 will pair upper level engineering students in Computation Methods and pre-service teachers in Educational Technology. Collaboration 3 will pair upper division engineering students in Fluid Mechanics with pre-service teachers in Science Methods. The research conducted in this study seeks to examine the ways in which this intervention affects: 1) the engineering students' understanding of engineering concepts; 2) the education students' knowledge of engineering and science; 3) the collaboration skills of both groups of students; 4) the first year engineering students' academic persistence in engineering; and 5) the upper level students' professional persistence in engineering and teaching. Data will be disaggregated by student participant demographics (e.g., race, gender, ethnicity, and military status). The goals of this project are to: 1) increase academic persistence in first year engineering students; 2) increase professional persistence in upper level engineering students; 3) enhance collaboration skills for engineering and education students; 4) enhance engineering knowledge of engineering students; and 5) enhance engineering knowledge of pre-service teachers. Engineering students and pre-service teachers will be guided by the Next Generation Science Standards and Virginia Standards of Learning as they develop lessons to enhance elementary students' understanding of engineering and computational thinking. Engineering students will help devise the engineering challenges that will drive the inquiry-based lessons, while education students will be primarily responsible for developing the lesson plans. Both student groups will be involved in lesson delivery to elementary school students. This project intends to: examine standardized exam results appropriate for each group of students (e.g., fundamentals of engineering and Praxis exam questions suitable to the topic being studied); use standardized assessment rubrics to assess student technical work (engineering only) and collaboration skills (engineering and education); qualitatively assess student reflections about the process of lesson development; and track persistence in the engineering students. This project aims to determine if this approach to teaching can significantly change engineering content knowledge, communication and collaboration skills, and persistence. The proposed research is expected to contribute to the body of knowledge in teaching and learning by determining whether significant changes in engineering/science content knowledge can be achieved through collaborative partnerships between engineering and elementary education students. It is anticipated that a replicable instructional model that can be adopted by engineering and teacher preparation programs across the country will result.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.