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1. Integrating Technology in the Classroom to Engage Students

   Aji, C. A. (January 2019, 2019 ASEE 126th National Confere)

   null (Ed.)

   This paper will share the design of a learning environment that uses flight simulator-based activities designed to cognitively engage middle school students. The flight simulator provides an exciting, realistic, and engaging learning experience. It allows students to recognize the linkage between the concepts and application in real-world. Lesson plans were developed for several math and physics concepts integrating the flight simulator activities. To ensure buy-in for classroom implementation, the topics of these lessons were identified in consultation with the local middle school STEM teachers. Professional development on using the pedagogical approach was then provided to teachers from the middle schools that serve primarily underrepresented populations. Middle school students experienced the learning environment as part of a summer camp to deeply understand some science and math concepts. A quasi experimental between-subjects research design was used. Pre-post content and attitude instruments were utilized to collect data for determining the effectiveness of the approach. This paper provides an updated analysis (N = 50) combining the previously reported data from the 2017 camp and the implementation results of the summer 2018 camp. Results indicated statistically significant gains in students’ content knowledge and positive changes in attitudes of mainly female students towards science, technology, engineering and math. 

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2. Science Professional Learning that Offers Opportunities for Growth in Engineering Self-Efficacy for Rural School Elementary Teachers

   Galisky, J; Macias, M; Iveland, A; Inouye, M; Hammack, R; Robinson, J; Ringstaff, C; Summers, R (March 2024, NARST)

   Despite the intent to advance engineering education with NGSS, teachers across all grades lack self-efficacy in engineering pedagogy. Instructional shifts envisioned by NGSS, especially with inclusion of engineering, require substantial learning by teachers. For rural schools, due to geographic location and smaller collegial networks, there are challenges in providing content-specific professional learning. This project gathered researchers from four states to provide PL aligned to NGSS and delivered remotely to 150 rural teachers. In summer 2023, experts led a five-day workshop which modeled shifts called for by NGSS (e.g., equitable, discourse-rich, phenomena-based) and provided opportunities to experience next-generation teaching and learning. Likert scale surveys were collected before and after the workshop to gauge self-efficacy regarding teaching science and engineering. We found that science-focused PL, with engineering embedded rather than as stand-alone component, afforded growth in self-efficacy for teaching engineering. Pre-workshop surveys showed that teachers had higher self-efficacy towards teaching science than teaching engineering (Wilcoxon signed-rank; p<.001). Positive attitudes toward teaching science were leveraged to provide PL and pre-workshop to post-workshop analysis showed growth in self-efficacy towards teaching engineering (p<.001). Results are important for professional learning around teaching engineering, for professional learning with rural teachers, and for remote access to professional learning. 

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3. Quantum information science and technology professional learning for secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics teachers

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.20.020154  

   Kelly, Angela M; Darienzo, Michele; Wei, Tzu-Chieh; Schneble, Dominik (December 2024, Physical Review Physics Education Research)

   [This paper is part of the Focused Collection in Investigating and Improving Quantum Education through Research.] There is a growing need in the United States for a workforce trained in quantum information science and technology (QIST), a disciplinary topic that is rarely addressed in precollege science, mathematics, and computer science curricula. University quantum physics and physics education researchers designed and initiated a 4-week, 12-h QIST professional development workshop for $N=51$preservice and in-service secondary school science, mathematics, and computer science educators. A STEM integration framework guided the workshop structure, which incorporated a situated cognition model for learning quantum concepts and computing, identifying recent advances in quantum technologies, planning curricula, and differentiating among QIST subfields including quantum communication, quantum computation, quantum simulation, and quantum metrology and sensing. The pre-/post-research design employed a newly developed teacher attitude survey, Exploratory factor analysis identified three latent constructs in teachers’ self-efficacy, including (i) knowledge about QIST academic pathways and careers; (ii) QIST pedagogical fluency and STEM integration; and (iii) facilitating QIST learning. Parametric comparisons of means indicated that teacher participants showed significant gains overall and in all latent constructs with medium to large effect sizes ( $p<0.001$). This professional learning model shows promise in strengthening teachers’ self-confidence in pedagogical content knowledge of quantum ideas so they may facilitate student engagement in quantum information science, a field that involves conceptual change and is often considered abstract, counterintuitive, inaccessible, and suitable only for the academically elite. Implications for policy and practice are discussed. Published by the American Physical Society2024 

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4. Teachers’ Engagement and Self-Efficacy in a PK–12 Computer Science Teacher Virtual Community of Practice

   https://doi.org/10.26716/jcsi.2021.10.8.34  

   Schwarzhaupt, Robert; Wilson, Joseph; Lee, Fanny; Raspberry, Melissa (January 2021, Journal of Computer Science Integration)

   null (Ed.)

   Prekindergarten to 12th-grade teachers of computer science (CS) face many challenges, including isolation, limited CS professional development resources, and low levels of CS teaching self-efficacy that could be mitigated through communities of practice (CoPs). This study used survey data from 420 PK–12 CS teacher members of a virtual CoP, CS for All Teachers, to examine the needs of these teachers and how CS teaching self-efficacy, community engagement, and sharing behaviors vary by teachers’ instructional experiences and school levels taught. Results show that CS teachers primarily join the CoP to gain high-quality pedagogical, assessment, and instructional resources. The study also found that teachers with more CS teaching experience have higher levels of self-efficacy and are more likely to share resources than teachers with less CS teaching experience. Moreover, teachers who instruct students at higher grade levels (middle and high school) have higher levels of CS teaching self-efficacy than do teachers who instruct lower grade levels (elementary school). These results suggest that CoPs can help CS teachers expand their professional networks, gain more professional development resources, and increase CS teaching self-efficacy by creating personalized experiences that consider teaching experience and grade levels taught when guiding teachers to relevant content. This study lays the foundation for future explorations of how CS education–focused CoPs could support the expansion of CS education in PK–12 schools. 

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5. Changes in Teacher Self-efficacy Through Engagement in an Engineering Professional Development Partnership

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--34272  

   Schilling, Malle; Paradise, Tawni; Grohs, Jacob; Matusovich, Holly; Carrico, Cheryl; Lesko, Holly; Kirk, Gary (June 2020, ASEE Annual Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   K-12 teachers serve a critical role in their students’ development of interest in engineering, especially as engineering content is emphasized in curriculum standards. However, teachers may not be comfortable teaching engineering in their classrooms as it can require a different set of skills from which they are trained. Professional development activities focused on engineering content can help teachers feel more comfortable teaching the subject in their classrooms and can increase their knowledge of engineering and thus their engineering teaching self-efficacy. There are many different types of professional development activities teachers might experience, each one with a set of established best practices. VT PEERS (Virginia Tech Partnering with Educators and Engineers in Rural Communities) is a program designed to provide recurrent hands-on engineering activities to middle school students in or near rural Appalachia. The project partners middle school teachers, university affiliates, and local industry partners throughout the state region to develop and implement engineering activities that align with state defined standards of learning (SOLs). Throughout this partnership, teachers co-facilitate engineering activities in their classrooms throughout the year with the other partners, and teachers have the opportunity to participate in a two-day collaborative workshop every year. VT PEERS held a workshop during the summer of 2019, after the second year of the partnership, to discuss the successes and challenges experienced throughout the program. Three focus groups, one for each grade level involved (grades 6-8), were held during the summit for teachers and industry partners to discuss their experiences. None of the teachers involved in the partnership have formal training in engineering. The transcripts of these focus groups were the focus of the exploratory qualitative data analyses to answer the following research question: How do middle-school teachers develop teaching engineering self-efficacy through professional development activities? Deductive coding of the focus group transcripts was completed using the four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and physiological states. The analysis revealed that vicarious experiences can be particularly valuable to increasing teachers’ teaching engineering self-efficacy. For example, teachers valued the ability to play the role of a student in an engineering lesson and being able to share ideas about teaching engineering lessons with other teachers. This information can be useful to develop engineering-focused professional development activities for teachers. Additionally, as teachers gather information from their teaching engineering vicarious experiences, they can inform their own teaching practices and practice reflective teaching as they teach lessons. 

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