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

工程无处不在，K-12教师越来越多地以符合国家教育标准的方式教授工程内容，并以吸引来自不同种族和民族背景的学生的方式教授工程内容。当教师努力满足问责制和响应性这两个双重要求时，他们面临着两个主要挑战。首先，教师有效教授工程内容的经验或专业准备有限。其次，目前的工程文化并没有公平地吸引不同的学习者，而且历史上一直排斥和边缘化少数种族和民族人口。在K-12教育中复制工程学，就像在高等教育中存在的那样，可能会重现这种历史上的排斥和边缘化。虽然K-12教师有越来越多的机会获得支持其工程内容教学的资源，但这项工作将产生新的方法，以支持教师在制定以历史上被排除在外的人为中心的工程教学中作为变革推动者的角色。这个为期三年的早期设计和开发项目将支持一种新的教师专业发展和支持模式，该模式将建立一个由30名迈阿密-戴德县公立高中科学教师组成的机构，为占当地公立学校人口90%以上的拉丁裔和黑人学生设计、实施和改进工程教学。文化响应工程体验设计与开发（CREED2）项目的一个独特之处在于，它将高中教师与拉丁裔和黑人本科工程学生组成合作团队，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。采用混合方法（即访谈、焦点小组、调查和观察），该小组将审查该项目对高中教师的影响：(a)作为对文化敏感的工程教师的身份；(b)代理设计和教授K-12工程经验；(c)以适应拉丁裔和黑人高中生的方式整合工程；(d)专业发展项目中教师与工程师合作的经验。该项目还研究了具有共同民族和/或种族身份的工程专业学生的近同伴指导如何影响拉丁裔和黑人高中学生的工程课堂体验。该项目代表了大学教师、大学生组织（女性工程师协会、西班牙裔专业工程师协会、全国黑人工程师协会）、高中教师和多元化专业人士（包括通过全国多元文化工程项目倡导者协会的行业）之间的伙伴关系。探索研究preK-12项目（DRK-12）旨在通过研究和开发创新资源、模型和工具，显著提高preK-12学生和教师对科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）的学习和教学。DRK-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实证依据。 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知识价值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.