Connecting Science and Engineering Education Practices in Meaningful Ways: Building Bridges

384 Pages·2016·11.069 MB·English

by  Leonard A. Annetta, James Minogue (eds.)

Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education 44
Leonard A. Annetta
James Minogue Editors
Connecting Science
and Engineering
Education Practices
in Meaningful Ways
Building Bridges
Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science
Education
Volume 44
Series Editor
Dana Zeidler, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA
Founding Editor
Ken Tobin, City University of New York, USA
Editorial Board
Hsing Chi von Bergmann, University of Calgary, Canada
Michael P. Clough, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
Fouad Abd El Khalick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Marissa Rollnick, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Troy D. Sadler, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA
Svein Sjøberg, University of Oslo, Norway
David Treagust, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia
Larry Yore, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
SCOPE
The book series Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education provides a
forum for innovative trends and issues connected to science education. Scholarship
that focuses on advancing new visions, understanding, and is at the forefront of the
fi eld is found in this series. Accordingly, authoritative works based on empirical
research and writings from disciplines external to science education, including
historical, philosophical, psychological and sociological traditions, are represented
here.
More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/6512
Leonard A. Annetta (cid:129) James Minogue
Editors
Connecting Science and
Engineering Education
Practices in Meaningful
Ways
Building Bridges
Editors
Leonard A. Annetta James Minogue
George Mason University North Carolina State University
Fairfax , VA , USA Raleigh , NC , USA
ISSN 1878-0482 ISSN 1878-0784 (electronic)
Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education
ISBN 978-3-319-16398-7 ISBN 978-3-319-16399-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16399-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958086
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Contents
Part I Setting the Stage…The Culture and the Challenges
1 Creating Disruptive Innovators: Serious Educational Game
Design on the Technology and Engineering Spectrum ........................ 3
David Nelson and Leonard A. Annetta
2 Grand Challenges for Engineering Education ..................................... 19
Cary Sneider
Part II Student-Centered Design…Exemplary Projects
and Programs that Transfer Theory to Practice
3 Museum Design Experiences That Recognize New Ways
to Be Smart .............................................................................................. 39
Dorothy Bennett , Peggy Monahan , and Margaret Honey
4 Five Principles for Supporting Design Activity .................................... 59
Catherine N. Langman , Judith S. Zawojewski ,
and Stephanie R. Whitney
5 Studio STEM: A Model to Enhance Integrative STEM
Literacy Through Engineering Design .................................................. 107
Michael A. Evans , Christine Schnittka , Brett D. Jones ,
and Carol B. Brandt
6 Instrumental STEM (iSTEM): An Integrated STEM
Instructional Model ................................................................................ 139
Daniel L. Dickerson , Diana V. Cantu , Stephanie J. Hathcock ,
William J. McConnell , and Doug R. Levin
7 Robotics Education Done Right: Robotics Expansion™,
A STEAM Based Curricula ................................................................... 169
Anthony J. Nunez
v
vi Contents
8 Designing Serious Educational Games (SEGs) for Learning
Biology: Pre-service Teachers’ Experiences and Reflections .............. 187
Meng-Tzu Cheng and Ying-Tien Wu
Part III Preparing Teachers for the Grand Challenges…
Exemplary Professional Development Practices
9 Language of Design Within Science and Engineering ......................... 217
Nicole Weber and Kristina Lamour Sansone
10 Teaching with Design Thinking: Developing New Vision
and Approaches to Twenty-First Century Learning ............................ 237
Shelley Goldman and Molly B. Zielezinski
11 Elementary School Engineering for Fictional Clients
in Children’s Literature.......................................................................... 263
Elissa Milto , Kristen Wendell , Jessica Watkins , David Hammer ,
Kathleen S pencer , Merredith Portsmore , and Chris Rogers
12 Teaching Engineering Design in Elementary Science
Methods Classes ...................................................................................... 293
Christine D. Tippett
13 Infusing Engineering Concepts into High School Science:
Opportunities and Challenges ............................................................... 317
Rodney Custer , Arthur Eisenkraft , Kristen Wendell ,
Jenny Daugherty , and Julie Ross
14 How Do Secondary Level Biology Teachers Make Sense
of Using Mathematics in Design- Based Lessons
About a Biological Process? ................................................................... 339
Charlie Cox , Birdy Reynolds , Anita Schuchardt ,
and Christian Schunn
15 Final Commentary: Connecting Science and Engineering
Practices: A Cautionary Perspective ..................................................... 373
Michael P. Clough and Joanne K. Olson
Introd uction

The Next Great Debate?
B y elevating engineering design (practices) to the same level as scientifi c inquiry
(practices), the crafters of the Framework for K-12 Science Education (NRC 2012)
and the subsequent N ext Generation Science Standards (NGSS 2013) have caused
some controversy and lively debate, some of which is captured in Clough and
Olsen’s fi nal Commentary. represented what engineers do. Where do the true con-
nections between engineering and science practices reside. To what extent can and
should science and engineering practices co-exist in educational spaces?
In a recent issue of the J ournal of Science Teacher Education , Cunningham and
Carlsen (2014) offer a rather critical review of the way the nature and methods of
engineering are portrayed in these reform documents (NGSS 2013; NRC 2012). As
the editors of this volume, we acknowledge and accept (even embrace) the fact that
the e ight practices described in these reform documents look different across sci-
ence and engineering. We think these differences should be explicitly addressed
with students (as several of the contributing authors also suggest) but the mere exis-
tence of differences in these disciplines does not preclude their successful integra-
tion. We think these differences actually enrich and deepen their relationship. In this
book we do not really enter the debate over the relative value, importance, or proper
placement in the “standards” of science and engineering as separate disciplines.
Rather we maintain that, while different in nature and methods, science and engi-
neering are intimately intertwined and their thoughtful integration is essential to the
development of a scientifi cally literate citizenry moving forward. This book aims to
help researchers and practitioners better leverage power of these shared practices to
promote science profi ciency. This book is intended to help those looking for pro-
ductive ways to harmonize science and engineering practices to propel STEM
teaching and learning within a culture of innovation.
vii
viii Introduction
Building Bridges…
W hile the purposes of science and engineering may be different, their practices are
parallel and often quite complementary. In this book, we move beyond the proto-
typical “bridge building” activity that one might envision when they hear the words
“engineering design challenge”. Here the “bridges” being built are novel and inte-
grated approaches to teaching science and engineering practices that span diverse
and traditionally isolated research communities to foster dialogue and fruitful syn-
ergies. In Chap. 1 , Nelson and Annetta help set the stage by defi ning “design think-
ing” and remind us of the power of “contextualization”. They underscore the value
of productive failures and paint a picture of how to develop “disruptive innovators”
to feed the next generation STEM workforce, a theme of this volume.
This volume also highlights the many ways in which the prudent integration of
science and engineering practices can be used to create new and exciting opportuni-
ties to learn in K-16 educational spaces (both formal and informal). From Cox’s and
colleagues’ (Chap. 1 4) forward-looking approach to curricular integration and cut-
ting edge work with serious educational games (SEGs) and robotics by Cheng
(Chap. 8 ) and Nunez (Chap. 7 ) to the foundational work by Goldman and Bullock
(Chap. 1 0 ), viewed alone or collectively these efforts represent thoughtful and
meaningful cross-cutting connections between research and practice within and
across diverse communities.
Facing the Challenges
We borrow Sneider’s G rand Challenges for Engineering Education (Chap. 2 ) to
help orient the reader to the content of this book. The early Grand Challenges
( Explaining Technology and E xplaining What Engineers Do) , while not the intended
focus of this book, are foundational to any work in this area. Dickerson and col-
leagues present an interesting approach to the treatment of this inherent disciplinar-
ity in their chapter about the I nstrumental STEM (iSTEM) project. They put forward
a novel instructional model that includes attention to the “nature of the domains”
followed by “domain specifi c instruction”. This explicit attention to difference in
the domains is also highlighted in Tippett’s chapter (Chap. 12) titled Teaching
Engineering Design in Elementary Science Methods Classes where she examines
the consequences of embedding engineering design in elementary science methods
courses and the “trouble with terminology” she has experienced. P roject Infuse ,
discussed in Chap. 1 3 by Custer and colleagues, attacks this issue head on by involv-
ing teachers in concept-driven engineering , used in contrast to simply “doing”
engineering- type of activities without a signifi cant understanding of what engineer-
ing is and of engineering practices and core concepts.
This book also addresses Grand Challenge #3 Developing New Curriculum
Materials as numerous exemplary projects are showcased. In their chapter
Introduction ix
(Chap. 4 ), Langman, Zawojewski, and Whitney describe the interdisciplinarity and
portability of model-eliciting activities (MEAs). They go on to use representative
MEAs to outline a set of Implementation Design Principals, the central focus of
which is to maintain students’ engagement in the foundational design process:
cycles of expressing, testing, and revising the object under design.
The Instrumental STEM (iSTEM) project shared by Dickerson and colleagues
(Chap. 6 ) serves as another example of new curricular materials being developed.
Here students design and build the tools and instruments they need to do authentic
scientifi c inquiry. They assert that this novel approach creates relevance for students
by requiring the successful design and fabrication of tools and instruments neces-
sary to answer questions that they have about things they care about.
In their chapter (Chap. 1 1 ) titled E lementary School Engineering for Fictional
Clients in Children’s Literature , Milto and team introduce us to the I ntegrating
Engineering and Literacy (IEL) project and chronicle how engineering that is situ-
ated within the literature that students are reading in their class helps them to frame
engineering problems and design solutions for the problems that the characters in
the book are experiencing.
T he authors in this volume also offer some really keen insights into and practical
examples of ways to t each the design process to the K-12 students, their teachers,
and even teacher educators (Sneider’s Grand Challenge #4 and 6, respectively). Part
II ( Student-Centered Design…Exemplary Projects and Programs that Transfer
Theory to Practice ) is full of examples that engage K-12 students in innovative
STEM programs that promote the development of science and engineering prac-
tices. Bennett, Monahan, and Honey’s showcasing of N ew York Hall of Science’s
(NYSCI) D esign Lab (Chap. 3 ) helps set the stage for the rest of the programs fea-
tured. Their focus on the “what” and “how” of children’s experiences mirrors the
NRC’s new view of three-dimensional learning (NRC 2014) well, and their idea of
helping children fi nd a “new way to be smart” captures the spirit of this part nicely.
Evans and his team present S tudio-STEM (Chap. 5 ), an engineering-based out of
school program that engages learners in open-ended real-life problems around
energy and sustainability. Their work looks closely at motivation and career intent
but at its core maintains that learning is the result of social practices and communi-
cative acts.
T his vision is shared by Weber and Sansone (Chap. 9 ) in their description of the
Language of Design . We placed this work at the front of Part III: Preparing Teachers
for the Grand Challenges…Exemplary Professional Development Practices because
the problem-based transdisciplinary teacher professional development experience
they describe sets the tone for the rest of this part. Their efforts to “transform sci-
ence teaching by engaging teachers experientially in local, inquiry-based research
projects with the integration of science and engineering with the graphic design
processes” is the sort of thoughtful teacher (both preservice and inservice) profes-
sional development that we need as a fi eld.
G oldman and Bullock from Stanford University (Chap. 1 0) take us even further
down a productive path forward with their sharing of the d.Loft STEM Learning
project. Their extraordinary work helping teachers develop their own “design t hinking”