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1. When Wrong is Right: The Instructional Power of Multiple Conceptions

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3446871.3469750  

   Margulieux, Lauren; Denny, Paul; Cunningham, Kathryn; Deutsch, Michael; Shapiro, Benjamin R. (August 2021, Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference on International Computing Education Research)

   For many decades, educational communities, including computing education, have debated the value of telling students what they need to know (i.e., direct instruction) compared to guiding them to construct knowledge themselves (i.e., constructivism). Comparisons of these two instructional approaches have inconsistent results. Direct instruction can be more efficient for short-term performance but worse for retention and transfer. Constructivism can produce better retention and transfer, but this outcome is unreliable. To contribute to this debate, we propose a new theory to better explain these research results. Our theory, multiple conceptions theory, states that learners develop better conceptual knowledge when they are guided to compare multiple conceptions of a concept during instruction. To examine the validity of this theory, we used this lens to evaluate the literature for eight instructional techniques that guide learners to compare multiple conceptions, four from direct instruction (i.e., test-enhanced learning, erroneous examples, analogical reasoning, and refutation texts) and four from constructivism (i.e., productive failure, ambitious pedagogy, problem-based learning, and inquiry learning). We specifically searched for variations in the techniques that made them more or less successful, the mechanisms responsible, and how those mechanisms promote conceptual knowledge, which is critical for retention and transfer. To make the paper directly applicable to education, we propose instructional design principles based on the mechanisms that we identified. Moreover, we illustrate the theory by examining instructional techniques commonly used in computing education that compare multiple conceptions. Finally, we propose ways in which this theory can advance our instruction in computing and how computing education researchers can advance this general education theory. 

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2. Examining Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Student Interest as a Consideration in Designing Assessments

   https://doi.org/10.1080/1046560X.2024.2435747  

   Penuel, William R; O’Connor, Keelin; Allen, Anna-Ruth; Jacobs, Jennifer K; Lo, Abraham S (December 2024, Journal of Science Teacher Education)

   A key goal of science education articulated in A Framework for K-12 Science Education is to create opportunities for students to answer questions about the world that connect to their interests, experiences, and identities. Interest can be seen as a malleable relationship between a person and object (such a phenomenon students might study). In this paper, we analyzed data from a design study of an online course focused on preparing 11 secondary teachers to design three-dimensional tasks that align to the Next Generation Science Standards and that connect to students’ interests. Our data sources were teachers’ descriptions of their design decisions about what phenomena to use to anchor assessment, designed assessment tasks, and interviews with them about those decisions. We found that interest was an important consideration for assessment design, but they considered student interests in different ways. Some teachers shifted their views of what it meant to engage student interests in the context of assessment design over the course of their participation in professional learning. Most teachers made decisions about what they believed their students were interested in based on their knowledge of students or beliefs about their students’ interests. In supporting teachers to design summative assessments that link to students’ interest, it is critical to assume teachers bring a range of conceptions of interest, and to consider the feasibility and utility of task design tools from teachers’ point of view. 

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3. The New York City Classroom - An increasingly diverse population

   Birney, Lauren B; McNamara, Denise (April 2017, American international journal of humanities and social science)

   It is important for teachers to realize that their classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse. Nowhere is this more evident that in the schools of New York City. Many of the students come from a plethora of backgrounds and in fact, there are as many as 800 languages spoken in New York City, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. Approximately 36% of the city’s population is foreign-born, substantiating the fact that the students in NYC classrooms will not have had the same cultural experiences as their teacher (Hernandez et al, 2013). In order to be successful in this setting, a teacher must create a positive, welcoming, and engaging environment. To do so, one may employ what is referred to as a culturally responsive education. Culturally responsive education emphasizes the link between culture and classroom instruction (The Knowledge Alliance: Brown University, 2008). It recognizes and respects students of varying backgrounds by acknowledging their differences in language, culture, life experiences, and values. In order to achieve this, teachers must implement the following strategies: communicate high expectations, use active teaching methods, act as a facilitator, create positive ties with community members, possess cultural sensitivity and reshape curriculum to address students’ backgrounds. In addition, situated learning or learning in an authentic context that focuses on problem-solving skills, is vital for the acquisition of content knowledge (Altomonte, et al, 2016). Each component is pivotal to creating an atmosphere where students are willing to learn and are engaged in the learning process. 

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4. Contextualizing Engineering Science Courses by Teaching History and Judgement

   Bell, Martell C; Johnson, A W; Vitali, R V (June 2024, ASEE)

   Engineering programs have long struggled with balancing curricula that are rigorous enough to prepare graduates to be capable practitioners and educational experiences that are engaging enough to retain undergraduate students. Data show a little more than half of students who start in a program leave after the first or second year, and that many of those students came to dislike engineering or lost interest in the profession. These findings suggest a mismatch between what incoming students think engineering practice is and what message they receive during their first two years of a program. This work will aim to understand how contextualization of what it means to practice engineering can improve the intentions of students, particularly those identifying as underrepresented minorities and women, to persist in a discipline that historically struggles to retain them. With this understanding, changes can be made to undergraduate engineering education to better retain students. In addition, this work will contribute new knowledge about students’ understanding of what it means to practice engineering and how that understanding changes with exposure to different types of contextualization (e.g., historical or technical). It will also contribute new knowledge about how undergraduate students associate engineering science and judgement with engineering practice, particularly with respect to how these facets of engineering practice are directly in service to design. Engineering science courses that occupy the middle two years of a program most often utilize traditional lecture-based pedagogy and simplified close-ended textbook problems, which do not typically allow students to engage in the kind of decision-making that is essential to developing engineering judgement. This work proposes a teaching pedagogy intended to provide students with context for how engineering science concepts are implemented in authentic engineering practice and how engineering judgement is essential in that implementation. Moreover, this work will aim to employ another teaching pedagogy to provide a more holistic contextualization of engineering practice by introducing students to the history of the profession. This pedagogy was implemented during the Fall 2023 semester in a required seminar course for mechanical engineering sophomores at [name of university]. This work will advance the field of engineering education research by studying how students’ perceptions of engineering practice develop as they progress through a program, and how these educational activities can shape that progress and/or reframe their beliefs about their education and training. Semi-structured interviews will reveal how students’ perceptions of engineering practice change longitudinally and whether the aforementioned educational activities influence that trajectory. In addition, a larger group of students will be invited to participate in surveys, which will enable drawing inferences from a broader sample about intention to persist as well as baseline levels of familiarity with engineering in general. 

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5. Engineering Learning among Black and Latinx/e/a/o Students: Considering Language and Culture to Reengineer Learning Environments

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--47286  

   Perez, Greses; Mabour, Lise; Marvez, G R; Polanco_Pino, Ymbar (June 2024, 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This conceptual paper explores language and cultural resources as forms of multicompetence for engaging in engineering epistemologies (what we know) and practices (what we do). The need for a more diverse pool of engineers to tackle the complex challenges facing society is undeniable, but stereotypes about the discipline can create alienation among many students and undermine efforts to build a more inclusive profession. Drawing on scholarship from engineering education, science education, and learning sciences, this paper argues that the resources of Multicompetent Learners (ML), who have acquired valuable experiences and knowledge through social interaction within their communities, are valuable for engineering learning environments. By leveraging the language and cultural resources that students bring with them, engineering education can better prepare learners to develop solutions and knowledge that serve a diverse population. This work underscores the critical role of language and cultural resources in helping students be heard, seen, and understood in engineering and illustrate how these resources can help bridge the gap between students' lives and engineering. The paper further explores the multidimensional nature of language and cultural resources and how students draw on different sets of talk depending on the context, whether near or distal from the activity at hand. It contends that without a deeper understanding of the role of non-dominant ways of speaking in the act of becoming and belonging, efforts to diversify engineering will remain elusive. Ultimately, this paper summarizes these ideas through a conceptual model for engineering learning environments that value and leverage the resources that students bring from their communities. By creating more equitable and socially just solutions, engineering education can better serve the needs of diverse populations and ensure that the profession is truly reflective of the communities it serves. 

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