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

有证据表明，低收入有色人种青年在高等教育机构和工程相关领域的代表性严重不足。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对直接教学的重视有关。该项目以一所城市公立高中为基础，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正学习。在资助期间，我们将观察课堂实践，创建教师调查小组，并与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结果的影响。该项目将展示最有可能提高学术成果和大学排名的教学实践和途径，最终将培养出一群更多样化的个人，他们具有追求工程职业的技能、识字和能力。该项目旨在验证真实的学习与大学安置和工程职业生涯的成功直接相关，并试图探索学生和教师的反应，他们致力于将他们的课程和教学方法从直接教学转变为真实的学习。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，这项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业成绩，并使通往和通过工程的途径多样化。这项研究将对理解和复制教学实践和学习过程具有广泛的影响，这些教学实践和学习过程通过从根本上调整教学方式，为城市有色人种青年为中学后的成功和工程职业生涯做好最好的准备。它将利用下一代科学标准和思维的工程习惯来探索工程素养的发展。这项研究的结果将为理解学校改革和教学变革提供一个框架，其中考虑到教师和学生的身份和视角，并概述城市公立高中在有色人种青年中提高学业参与度、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.