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

有证据表明，低收入的有色人种青年在高等教育机构和工程相关领域的代表性明显不足。许多人认为，这些发现至少在一定程度上与当今许多美国城市高中仍然强调直接教学有关。该项目位于一所城市公立高中，旨在支持教师从强调基于内容的学习和死记硬背的直接教学转向注重基于项目的方法和工程素养的真实学习。在资助期间，我们将观察课堂实践，创建教师探究小组，并对教师和学生进行半结构化访谈，以了解这种教学转变对课堂学习和学生成果的影响。该项目将展示最有可能提高学术成果和大学安置的教学实践和途径，这将最终创造一个具有技能、文化和能力的更多样化的个人群体，以追求工程事业。该项目旨在验证真实学习与大学安置和工程职业生涯的成功直接相关，并试图探索那些致力于将课程和教学方法从直接指导转变为真实学习的学生和教师的反应。通过结合课堂观察、学生/教师访谈、学生作业文本分析和学生水平数据分析的混合方法，该研究将检查教师和学生对这些教学变化的反应方式，以及这些变化如何影响学生的学术成果，并使通往工程专业的途径多样化。这项研究将对理解和复制教学实践和学习过程产生广泛的影响，通过从根本上重组教学方式，使城市有色人种青年为中学后的成功和工程职业做好最好的准备。它将利用下一代科学标准和工程思维习惯来探索工程素养的发展。本研究的结果将为理解学校改革和教学变革提供一个框架，该框架将考虑教师和学生的身份和观点，并概述城市公立高中提高有色人种青年的学术参与度、工程能力和大学坚持性的最有希望的方法。

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.