Digital technology integration and engineering contexts to support elementary students' systems thinking

该项目将推动学生和教师创新技术体验(ITEST)计划的努力，以更好地了解和促进实践，提高学生在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域追求职业的动机和能力。研究表明，在小学教师中，数字技术的使用和工程教学有限。这个项目解决了七个ITEST指导性问题中的两个：学生对新兴技术的体验以及教学和课程创新。使工程成为现实(ME-REAL)项目将开发和实施专业发展(PD)，以支持与STEM中人数众多的未被充分代表的学生一起工作的教师通过以下方式发展更丰富、更真实的STEM教育：(A)技术丰富的教学；(B)真实的工程机会；(C)发展系统思维技能。该项目将为基本工程环境中的技术集成提供指导方针，这些指导方针可以为弗吉尼亚州以外的人提供信息。这些指导方针还将为中学教师参与的干预措施提供信息，以支持在STEM教学中开发和整合更全面和越来越复杂的技术应用。该项目影响学生在STEM相关学位课程和职业生涯中取得成功所必需的能力，重点是更好地为小学和中学科学教师做好准备，为他们提供宝贵的教学工具。由于这个项目，学生们将有更多的机会在真实的环境中进行工程设计，以反映科学家工作的方式使用相关技术，并以批判性的方式思考系统。先前的研究表明，教师的信念必须被引出并解决，以支持教学实践的变化。然而，问题仍然是，纳入对信仰的关注的干预措施在多大程度上导致了教学变化。将ME-REAL教师的创新采用率与其他研究中引用的采用率进行比较，在这些研究中，干预包括建模、实践、规划和指导，但不关注信念，这将允许确定关注信念促进教学变革和创新采用的程度，特别是在计算机模拟领域。ME-REAL的目标是增加和改善1)小学教师的教学和学生在STEM工程、数字技术和系统思维领域的参与和理解，以及2)在STEM中传统上代表性较低的群体(如农村、黑人、西班牙裔、低社会经济地位)中的小学生科学学习。通过延迟治疗准实验设计，ME-REAL项目将促进对以下方面的理解：(1)有效支持小学生系统思维的教学(例如数字技术整合)和工程背景；(2)促进教师系统思维、工程理解和数字技术应用的PD；以及(3)在PD过程中关注教师信念促进教学变革和创新采用的程度。这个ME-REAL项目的结果对设计课程工具和支架以培养学生对所有STEM领域的系统的批判性思考具有意义。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This project will advance efforts of the Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program to better understand and promote practices that increase students' motivations and capacities to pursue careers in fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Research has indicated limited digital technology use and engineering instruction among elementary teachers. This project addresses two of the seven ITEST guiding questions: student experiences with emerging technologies and instructional and curricular innovations. The Making Engineering Real (ME-REAL) project will develop and implement professional development (PD) to support teachers who work with high populations of underrepresented students in STEM to develop richer, more authentic STEM education through: (a) technology-rich instruction, (b) authentic engineering opportunities, and (c) the development of systems thinking skills. The project will provide guidelines for technology integration within elementary engineering contexts that can inform expectations beyond Virginia. These guidelines will also inform interventions involving secondary teachers to support the development and integration of more comprehensive and increasingly complex technology use within STEM instruction. The project impacts the competencies essential for students to be successful in STEM-related degree programs and careers and is focused on better preparing elementary and secondary science teachers, providing them with valuable instructional tools. Because of this project, students will have more opportunities to engineer within authentic contexts, use relevant technologies in ways that reflect the work of scientists, and think about systems critically. Prior research indicates teacher beliefs must be elicited and addressed to support changes in instructional practices. However, the question remains as to the extent interventions that incorporate attention to beliefs leads to instructional change. Comparison of ME-REAL teachers' innovation adoption rates to adoption rates cited in other studies in which the intervention included modeling, practice, planning, and coaching, but not attention to beliefs will allow the determination of the extent attending to beliefs promotes instructional change and innovation adoption, especially in the domain of computer simulations. The goal of ME-REAL is to increase and improve 1) elementary teachers' instruction and students' engagement and understanding in the STEM domains of engineering, digital technology, and systems thinking and 2) elementary student science learning among traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM (e.g. rural, Black, Hispanic, low socioeconomic status). Through a delayed-treatment quasi-experimental design, the ME-REAL project will advance the understanding of (1) pedagogies (e.g. digital technology integration) and engineering contexts that effectively support elementary students' systems thinking, (2) PD that facilitates teachers' systems thinking, engineering understandings, and digital technology use, and (3) the extent to which attending to teachers' beliefs during PD promotes instructional change and innovation adoption. Results from this ME-REAL project have implications for designing curricular tools and scaffolds to develop students' critical thinking about systems in all STEM domains.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.