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Despite recent progress in the adoption of engineering at the K-12 level, the scarcity of high-quality engineering curricula remains a challenge. With support from a previous NSF grant, our research team iteratively developed the three-year middle school engineering curricula, STEM-ID. Through a series of contextualized challenges, the 18-week STEM-ID curricula incorporate foundational mathematics and science skills and practices and advanced manufacturing tools such as computer aided design (CAD) and 3D printing, while introducing engineering concepts like pneumatics, aeronautics, and robotics. Our current project, supported by an NSF DRK-12 grant, seeks to examine the effectiveness of STEM-ID when implemented in diverse schools within a large school district in the southeastern United States. This paper will present early findings of the project’s implementation research conducted over two school years with a total of ten engineering teachers in nine schools. Guided by the Innovation Implementation framework (Century & Cassata, 2014), our implementation research triangulates observation, interview, and survey data to describe overall implementation of STEM-ID as well as implementation of six critical components of the curricula: engaging students in the engineering design process (EDP), math-science integration, collaborative group work, contextualized challenges, utilization of advanced manufacturing technology, and utilization of curriculum materials. Implementation data provide clear evidence that each of the critical components of STEM-ID were evident as the curricula were enacted in participating schools. Our data indicate strong implementation of four critical components (utilization of materials, math-science integration, collaborative group work, and contextualized challenges) across teachers. Engaging students in the EDP and advanced-manufacturing technology were implemented, to varying degrees, by all but two teachers. As expected, implementation of critical components mirrored overall implementation patterns, with teachers who completed more of the curricula tending to implement the critical components more fully than those who did not complete the curricula. In addition to tracking implementation of critical components, the project is also interested in understanding contextual factors that influence enactment of the curricula, including characteristics of the STEM-ID curricula, teachers, and organizations (school and district). Interview and observation data suggest a number of teacher characteristics that may account for variations in implementation including teachers’ organization and time management skills, self-efficacy, and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Notably, prior teaching experience did not consistently translate into higher completion rates, emphasizing the need for targeted support regardless of teachers' backgrounds. This research contributes valuable insights into the challenges and successes of implementing engineering curricula in diverse educational settings.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2025
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Through the semester-long engineering curricula, middle school students complete a series of contextualized challenges that integrate foundational mathematics and science, introduce advanced manufacturing tools (CAD, 3-D printing), and engage students in the engineering design process. Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) DRK12 grant, our project is in the process of scaling the curricula in a large urban school district. Over the previous two years, the project has enlisted two cohorts of engineering teachers to implement the curricula in nine middle schools. In addition to understanding whether and how the critical components of the curricula are implemented in diverse school settings, our research team’s fidelity of implementation research investigates contextual factors that help explain why teachers and students engaged with the curricula the way they do. For this line of inquiry, we draw upon the Factor Framework (Century and Cassata, 2014; Century et al. 2012), which provides a comprehensive set of potential factors known to influence implementation of educational innovations. The framework organizes these implementation factors into five categories: characteristics of the innovation, characteristics of individual users, characteristics of the organization, elements of the environment, and networks. After consulting this framework to identify potential factors likely to influence the implementation, we analyzed teacher interview and classroom observation data collected over the course of three semesters of implementation to describe the degree to which various contextual factors either facilitated or limited implementation. Our data indicate three categories of factors influencing implementation: characteristics of the curriculum, characteristics of users (teachers and students), and characteristics of organizations (district, schools). Characteristics of the curriculum that facilitated implementation included features of the curricula and professional development including the perceived effectiveness of the curricula, the adaptability of the curricula, and the degree to which professional learning sessions provided adequate preparation for implementation. Characteristics of teachers identified as facilitating implementation included pedagogical content knowledge, self-efficacy, resourcefulness, and organizational and time management skills. Teachers reported that student interest in the curriculum challenges and STEM, more generally, was another facilitating factor whereas, to varying degrees, disruptive student behavior and students’ lack of foundational mathematics skills were reported as limiting factors. Teachers highlighted specific technological challenges, such as software licensing issues, as limiting factors. Otherwise, we found that teachers generally had sufficient resources to implement the curricula including adequate physical space, technological tools, and supplies. Across teachers and schools, we found that, overall, supportive school and district leadership facilitated implementation. In spite of an overall high level of support in participating schools, we did identify school and district policies with implications for implementation including school-wide scheduling and disciplinary policies that limited instructional time, policies for assigning and moving students among elective courses, and district-wide expectations for assessment and teaching certain additional engineering activities. We believe the findings of this study will be of interest to other researchers and practitioners exploring how engineering education innovations unfold in diverse classrooms and the array of factors that may account for variations in implementation patterns.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2025
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Engineering education, with its focus on design and problem solving, has been shown to be fertile ground for encouraging students’ further development of their fundamental math and science skills in a way that they find relevant and engaging, and for promoting interest in STEM more broadly. To capitalize on these positive aspects of the engineering context, researchers developed, implemented, and studied a three-year engineering curriculum for grades 6 – 8 that utilizes the engineering design process and problem-based learning. In this semester-long elective course, students work through a series of design challenges within a given context (a carnival, airplanes and flight, and robotics, respectively, for 6th, 7th and 8th grades) and learn engineering content as well as practice fundamental math and science skills. This curriculum was developed and researched as part of an earlier project; in that work, course participation was linked with increased academic achievement on state-wide math and science assessments as well as heightened cognitive and behavioral engagement in STEM and science interest [1]. The current work seeks to replicate the findings of this earlier study in a different and larger school district while a) expanding the research foci to include teacher training and teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and b) refining the curriculum materials including the teacher website and support materials. In this paper, we present the research strand focusing on the impact of the course on students’ attitudinal factors including engagement, science interest, and science and math anxiety. These factors were measured in each semester-long course using a pre-post survey design. Survey items are primarily from validated instruments and are similar to those used in prior research on this curriculum and its impact on students; prior research demonstrated good reliability, with alpha values ranging from 0.84 to 0.91 for each construct [1]. We compare students’ levels of engagement, science interest, and math and science anxiety at the pre and post time points to understand whether and how participating in the course influences their standing on these variables. . Open-ended survey items were used as a supplementary data source. The preliminary results from the first year of implementation (2022-2023 academic year) suggest that similar to the original study, there is an increase across some of the student constructs, including student engagement. This finding was also supported by engineering teachers’ input about student engagement in the classroom. As the study progresses into its planned 2nd and 3rd years of curriculum implementation, we will be able to further discern the extent to which multiple years of course enrollment might differentially impact the attitudinal factors of interest (i.e., dosage effects).more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available June 1, 2025
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Research exploring the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of engineering teachers remains sparse and more studies are needed to highlight systematic ways in which teachers scaffold teaching of engineering in K-12 schools. As part of an NSF funded DRK-12 project conducting research on the implementation of the STEM-ID curricula, we investigated the PCK of six middle school engineering teachers implementing a semester-long curricula in their 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classrooms. Using the theoretical lens of the refined consensus model of PCK in science teaching, we present preliminary findings of ways in which teachers converted their personal PCK (pPCK) into enacted PCK (ePCK) in engineering. We provide implications for research and its impact on scaffolding effective engineering PCK for K-12 teaching.more » « lessFree, publicly-accessible full text available January 1, 2025