Problem scoping-determining the nature and boundaries of a problem-is an essential aspect of the engineering design process. Some studies from engineering education suggest that beginning students tend to skip problem scoping or oversimplify a problem. However, the ways these studies often characterize students' problem scoping often do not reflect the complexity found in experts' designing and rely on the number of criteria a student mentions or the time spent problem scoping. In this paper, we argue for methodological approaches that take into account not just what students name as criteria, but also how they weigh, balance, and choose between criteria and reflect on these decisions during complex tasks. Furthermore, we discuss that these problem-scoping actions should not be considered in isolation, but also how they are connected to the pursuit of a design solution. Using data from an elementary school classroom, we show how these ways of characterizing problem-scoping can capture rich beginnings of students' engineering.

ABSTRACT—This article explores the ways in which knowledge from the cognitive neurosciences, linguistics, and education interact to deepen our understanding of reading's complexity and to inform reading intervention. We first describe how research on brain abnormalities and naming speed processes has shaped both our conceptualization of reading disabilities and the design of a multicomponent reading intervention, the RAVE‐O program. We then discuss the unique ways this program seeks to address the multiple and varied sources of disruption in struggling readers. Finally, we present efficacy data for the RAVE‐O reading intervention across multiple school settings.

The national efforts underway to include engineering in K–12 science education present a variety of new challenges, including how to prepare teachers to teach a new discipline. In this paper, we focus on elementary teachers and how they enter into responsive teaching, in which they closely attend and meaningfully respond to students’ thinking. This pedagogical approach is particularly critical for teaching engineering design in ways that support students in developing original solutions to complex, dynamic problems. Drawing on 3 years of professional development that helped teachers incorporate engineering in literacy contexts, we investigated the knowledge and abilities teachers displayed for responsive teaching and how features of instructional design and classroom dynamics impacted their teaching. Throughout the project, we observed and videotaped professional development workshops and teachers’ classrooms, and interviewed teachers about their classroom experiences. We then conducted a thematic analysis across these data sources, presenting common themes as conjectures for how teachers enter into responsive teaching in engineering. We discuss how these conjectures can inform teacher research and the design of teacher preparation programs in engineering.

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