Culturally Responsive Engineering Experience Design and Development through Teacher-Undergraduate Engineering Student Partnerships

工程学无处不在，K-12教师越来越多地肩负着教授工程学内容的任务，教学方式要符合国家教育标准，并让来自不同种族和民族背景的学生参与进来。在教师努力满足问责和反应能力这两个要求的同时，他们面临着两大挑战。首先，教师对有效教授工程学内容的经验或专业准备有限。其次，目前的工程文化不能公平地吸引不同的学习者，而且历史上一直将人们排除在少数族裔和族裔人口之外，并将他们边缘化。在中学后教育中复制K-12教育中的工程学，可能会重演这种历史上的排斥和边缘化。虽然K-12教师可以越来越多地获得支持他们教授工程学内容的资源，但这项工作将产生新的方式来支持教师作为变革推动者的角色，制定以历史上被排斥的人为中心的工程学教学。这个为期三年的早期设计和开发项目将支持一个新的教师专业发展和支持模式，该模式建立了30名迈阿密-戴德县公立高中理科教师的代理机构，为他们的拉丁裔和黑人学生设计、实施和改进工程学教学，这些学生占当地公立学校人口的90%以上。文化响应型工程体验设计与开发(CREED2)项目的一个独特之处在于，高中教师与Latinx和黑人工程本科生在协作团队中合作，共同设计和实施包容性的、符合标准的正式和非正式工程体验。该小组将使用混合方法(即访谈、焦点小组、调查和观察)，检查该项目对高中教师的影响：(A)作为文化响应型工程学教师的身份；(B)设计和教授K-12工程经验的机构；(C)以回应拉丁裔和黑人高中学生的方式融入工程学；以及(D)专业发展计划中嵌入的教师-工程师伙伴关系的经验。该项目还考察了具有共同种族和/或种族认同的工程学学生的近距离同行指导如何影响拉丁裔和黑人高中生在工程学方面的课堂体验。该项目代表了大学教职员工、大学生组织(女工程师协会、西班牙裔专业工程师协会、全国黑人工程师协会)、高中教师和包括行业在内的多元化专业人士通过全国多元文化工程计划倡导者协会建立的伙伴关系。探索研究PREK-12计划(DRK-12)旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高Pre-K-12学生和教师在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)方面的学习和教学。 -12计划中的项目建立在STEM教育的基础研究和先前的研究和开发工作的基础上，为拟议的项目提供了理论和经验上的证明。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Engineering is everywhere and K-12 teachers are increasingly tasked with teaching engineering content in ways that meet state educational standards and in ways that engage students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. As teachers strive to meet these twin requirements, of accountability and responsiveness, they face two major challenges. First, teachers have limited experiential or professional preparation for teaching engineering content effectively. Second, engineering culture in its current state does not equitably engage diverse learners and has historically excluded and marginalized people from minoritized racial and ethnic populations. Reproducing engineering in K-12 as it has existed in post-secondary education may reproduce this historical exclusion and marginalization. While K-12 teachers have increasing access to resources that support their teaching of engineering content, this work will generate new ways to support teachers’ roles as change agents in enacting engineering pedagogies centering those who have been historically excluded.This three-year early-stage design and development project will support a new teacher professional development and support model that builds the agency of 30 Miami-Dade County public high school science teachers to design, implement, and refine engineering instruction for their Latinx and Black students who comprise more than 90% of their local public-school population. A unique feature of the Culturally Responsive Engineering Experience Design and Development (CREED2) program is its partnering of high school teachers with Latinx and Black undergraduate engineering students in collaborative teams to co-design and implement inclusive, standards-aligned formal and informal engineering experiences. Using mixed methods (i.e., interviews, focus groups, surveys and observation), the team will examine the project’s impact on high school teachers’: (a) identities as culturally responsive teachers-of-engineering; (b) agency in designing and teaching K-12 engineering experiences; (c) integration of engineering in ways that are responsive to their Latinx and Black high school students; and (d) experience of the teacher-engineer partnerships embedded in the professional development program. The project also examines how near-peer mentoring by engineering students with shared ethnic and/or racial identities influences Latinx and Black high school students’ classroom experiences with engineering. The project represents partnerships among university faculty, university student organizations (Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers), high school teachers, and diversity professionals including industry through the National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates. The Discovery Research preK-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools. Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects. 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.