In this study, we examine the reported beliefs of two elementary science teachers who co-taught a four-week engineering project in which students used a computational model to design engineering solutions to reduce water runoff at their school (Lilly et al., 2020). Specifically, we explore the beliefs that elementary science teachers report while enacting an engineering project in two different classroom contexts and how they report that their beliefs may have affected instructional decisions.
Classroom contexts included one general class with a larger proportion of students in advanced mathematics and one inclusive class with a larger proportion of students with individualized educational programs. During project implementation, we collected daily surveys and weekly interviews to consider teachers’ beliefs of the class sections, classroom activities, and curriculum. Two researchers performed a thematic analysis of the surveys and interviews to code reflections on teachers’ perceived differences between students in the class sections and their experiences teaching engineering in the class sections.
Results suggest that teachers’ beliefs about students in these two different classroom contexts
may have influenced opportunities that students had to understand and engage in disciplinary
practices. The teachers reported making changes to activities based on their perceptions of
student understanding and engagement and to save time which led to different experiences for
students in each class section, specifically a more teacher-centered implementation for the
inclusive class. Teachers also suggested specific professional development and educative
supports to help teachers to support all students to engage in engineering tasks. Thus, it is
important to understand teachers’ beliefs to build support for teachers in their implementation of engineering projects that meet the needs of their students and ensure that students have access and support to engage in engineering practices.
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This content will become publicly available on February 16, 2025
Elementary teachers as collaborators: developing educative support materials for citizen science projects
Science education is an important component of a full education beginning in primary grades. In recent decades, research has identified young learners’ rich knowledge of the natural world and their potential to connect with sophisticated science ideas. Elementary teachers face many challenges to implementing reform-based science instruction in their classrooms. Some teachers may choose to enhance their students’ science experiences by introducing them to citizen science (CS) projects. Unfortunately, few CS projects offer substantial guidance for teachers seeking to implement the projects for instructional purposes, placing a heavy burden on teachers. To address these burdens, our research team collaborated with Teacher Advisory Group (TAG teachers) during the development and revision of educative support materials for two CS projects. We present data about how the TAG teachers informed our CS support materials’ revisions, how they implemented the two CS projects with and without educative support materials, and how they perceived their students’ classroom and outdoor experiences with the CS projects. These data demonstrate the importance of including teachers’ voices and experiences in reform efforts, particularly when trying to incorporate instructional elements that teachers may perceive as deviations from what they are expected to teach.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2009212
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10497217
- Publisher / Repository:
- International Journal of Science Education
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Journal of Science Education
- ISSN:
- 0950-0693
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 21
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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