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The purpose of this research study is to understand teacher experiences throughout their second year of engagement in the Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Schools partnership. This partnership is an assets-based community partnership in a rural environment between middle school teachers, regional industry, and university affiliates that is focused on implementing recurrent, hands-on, culturally relevant engineering activities for middle school students. This qualitative study uses constant comparative methodology informed by grounded theory on teacher interviews to capture both teacher experiences in the partnership as well as teacher-identified assets in their classrooms and school communities. Using the sensitizing concepts of pedagogical content knowledge, self-efficacy, and the Interconnected Model of Teacher Growth, this study found that while teachers experienced the program differently depending on their contextual setting of their schools, all teachers expressed shifts in their recognition of and value placed on community assets. Findings also suggest that teachers greatly value involving industry and university partners in the classroom to highlight the applications of engineering in their communities and support a reimagination of engineering conceptions and careers for both students and teachers. Teachers reported that the hands-on, team-based, culturally relevant engineering activities engaged learners and showcased individual strengths in ways they otherwise do not see exhibited in their traditional curriculum. The partnership ultimately allowed teachers to identify how assets in schools’ rural communities, beyond those previously identified within their schools, could aid them in further developing and implementing engineering activities. With teachers serving as role models for students, it is important to support teachers’ reimagination of engineering conceptions and integration into the classroom to ultimately increase students’ engineering engagement. Our findings highlight the value of community-based approaches in supporting engineering integration in the classroom and describe the assets that teachers note as being the most significant in their community.
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Undergraduate STEM Students and Community Engagement Activities: Initial Findings from an Assessment of Their Concern for Public Well-being
In response to findings from the Cech study on the Culture of Disengagement at American engineering institutions, much concern has emerged regarding how future engineers might not be developing a mindset that places the public’s well-being as a foremost priority. This, of course, could have an important bearing on the type of professionals that academic institutions are sending out into the world. Many candidate explanations could presumably emerge in terms of why students become “disengaged”, including practical worries about obtaining a job or paying off debt from college. Against this theoretical backdrop, our research team is in the process of investigating what may help to combat, or at least mitigate, this type of problem. In other words, we are seeking to identify which specific facets of community engagement activities contribute to or fortify the concern that engineering and other STEM students have for the well-being of the public. Our team is in the process of embarking on a five-year grant funded project to study the effects of a broad range of community engagement activities, both inside and outside of the classroom.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1635554
- PAR ID:
- 10074906
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ASEE annual conference & exposition
- Volume:
- 2018
- ISSN:
- 2153-5965
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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