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This paper examines the use of collaborative curriculum design (co-design) as a strategy for supporting teacher professional learning and the implementation of an inclusive middle school computer science and digital literacy (CSDL) curriculum in three urban school districts. The curriculum is focused on students developing mobile apps that provide social and community good. The second year of the project has been dedicated to developing and piloting curriculum resources that support remote learning and culturally relevant pedagogy while the partner districts switched to remote and hybrid instructions. This study explores teachers’ professional learning experiences in the collaborative design of curriculum materials and piloting the curriculum at their own classrooms. The paper includes analysis of three data sets: (1) co-design meeting notes and teacher reflections; (2) semi-structured interviews with teachers who co-designed and piloted the curriculum; (3) student pre- and post-survey responses on their attitude and interest in learning CSDL. Preliminary results indicate that the co-design approach supplemented with one-on-one coaching has not only facilitated the curriculum development process but also fostered professional learning and collective capacity building for implementing the project curriculum in the partner districts. Findings from student surveys show that students perceived their understanding of, and interest in computer science and creating apps were slightly improved, regardless of gender.
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Classroom orchestration of computer simulations for science and engineering learning: a multiple-case study approach
This multiple case study focused on the implementation of a computer-aided design (CAD) simulation to help students engage in engineering design to learn science concepts. Our findings describe three case studies that adopted the same learning design and adapted it to three different populations, settings, and classroom contexts: at the middle-school, high-school, and pre-service teaching levels. Although the classroom orchestration of the particular learning design was customised for specific audiences and contexts, findings from this study suggest that the core components of the learning design, such as content, assessment, and pedagogy, and their alignment among them, resulted in students’ learning. Specifically, results from a pre-post science assessment suggest that the three student groups arrived at similar understanding post-intervention levels, along with a significant aggregate growth in their scientific understanding. Regarding design performance, students in different groups demonstrated different levels of success in meeting design constraints. The findings also suggest that students’ success rate in meeting the design constraints directly influenced their final design performance, where middle-school students had better performance than students in the other groups. That is, across the board, students increased their conceptual understanding of heat transfer, Earth, and solar science and were able to produce feasible designs. Implications of the study include how learning experiences with engineering and science simulations should be designed so that teachers can adopt and adapt materials for their specific audiences, contexts, and settings.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2105695
- PAR ID:
- 10222580
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Science Education
- ISSN:
- 0950-0693
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 32
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2021.1902589
