3D Printing Integrated Engineering Design Education for Preservice STEM Teachers

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This project aims to serve the national interest by developing an Engineering Design and Technology course tightly integrated with 3D Printing for preservice STEM teachers. 3D printing brought transformative change to the Engineering Design Process which is an iterative process that needs virtual/physical prototyping; 3D printing can be used to rapidly make physical prototypes. However, mere availability of 3D printing is not enough for teachers to fully utilize its potential in their classrooms. In addition, while the Maker movement, which embraces 3D printing, has been gaining traction, rigorous and credible empirical research on the utilization of 3D printing for high school preservice STEM teachers is missing from the literature.The project intends to purposefully integrate in-depth discussion of 3D printing in a preservice STEM teachers' course on the Engineering Design Process. The approach is to dissect a 3D printer’s hardware, explain each component’s function, introduce each component’s manufacturing methods, describe possible defects, and elucidate what works and what does not. The course modules will be designed to meet the requirements from the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards. The development process will follow the Scaffolded Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge lesson design model. The developed course modules will be implemented and assessed in the Engineering Design and Technology for Preservice Teachers course in the teachHOUSTON program, the University of Houston’s secondary STEM teacher preparation program. The target audience is ~45 STEM majors seeking STEM teacher certification per year with diversified ethnic backgrounds for a total of 135 STEM majors who are preservice STEM teachers impacted during the project. The project intends to contribute credible empirical research results to the literature on the 3D printing-integrated Engineering Design Process for secondary preservice STEM teachers. These modules will be shared and disseminated through the teachHOUSTON STEM Interactive summer camp, teachHOUSTON teacher professional development, and the University of Houston Research Experience for Teachers site. The project research team will report the results in conference presentations/papers and journal papers. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools. Partial funding is from the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship program.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.