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Abstract BackgroundElementary educators are increasingly asked to teach engineering design, motivating study of how they learn to teach this discipline. In particular, there is a need to examine how teachers reason about pedagogical situations and dilemmas in engineering—how they draw on their disciplinary understandings, attention to students' thinking, and pedagogical practices to support students' learning. Purpose/HypothesisThe purpose of our qualitative study was to examine elementary teachers' pedagogical reasoning in an online graduate program. We asked: What stances do teachers take toward learning and teaching engineering design? How do these stances shift over the course of the program? Design/MethodWe identified two teachers, Alma and Margaret, who exhibited productive shifts in their pedagogical reasoning during the program. Drawing on interviews and videos of their teaching, we developed case studies characterizing their stances toward teaching and learning engineering. ResultsAlma shifted in her reasoning about teaching the design process, from treating it as linear, discrete steps to recognizing the dynamic, overlapping nature of design practices. Similarly, Margaret shifted in how she reasoned about failure and iteration, recognizing the need to help students analyze unexpected design performances to learn from and iterate on their designs. For both teachers, these shifts were dynamic and nonlinear, reflecting both context‐sensitivity and growing stability in their reasoning. ConclusionsEngineering teacher educators should provide opportunities for teachers to reason about the specific pedagogical dilemmas in engineering and consider how teachers integrate disciplinary understandings with attention to students' reasoning and actions and pedagogical practices.
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This content will become publicly available on January 1, 2026
Enhancing Fisheries Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Participatory Processes and Cross-Disciplinary Strategies in Research
Marine and fisheries research play a crucial role in addressing complex challenges related to sustainable resource management, climate change, and ecosystem health. To tackle these multifaceted issues, researchers increasingly recognize the need for inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that integrate diverse perspectives from scientific disciplines and knowledge systems (Nyboer et al., 2023).
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- Award ID(s):
- 2318309
- PAR ID:
- 10599682
- Publisher / Repository:
- The Oceanography Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Oceanography
- ISSN:
- 1042-8275
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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