Promoting Classroom Discourse Through Engineering Design: Access to Critical Thinking for Preservice Elementary Teachers

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) promote three-dimensional learning by integrating Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs), Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs) and Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs). The adoption of the NGSS and the Framework for K-12 Science Education require not only significant shifts in inservice K-12 science teacher practices, but also important shifts in the ways that science teacher educators prepare science teachers (NRC, 2015). These initial shifts initially take place in the teaching methods courses for science credential candidates. Science education faculty members are often the most knowledgeable about NGSS on their campuses, and their depth of this knowledge depends on experience with these new standards. We present specific shifts in courses and in teacher candidate thinking around NGSS and engineering practices based on student work artifacts, reflections from course instructors and students, and field notes from courses taught by three science education faculty members. Three faculty members engaged in a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) are featured here. The NIC was formed as part of the NSFfunded Next Gen ASET project (Next Generation Alliance for Science Educators Toolkit, NSF DUE # 1418440). Each faculty member used a rubric for the Science and Engineering Practice (SEP), "Designing Solutions" (for Engineering) and a graphic organizer for planning to incorporate NGSS-based strategies in their teaching methods courses. The objective of this paper is to provide an overview of data from three elementary science methods courses redesigned to provide opportunities for preservice teachers to engage in three NGSS aligned instructional segments that focused on: The engineering design process and the new concepts of Engineering, Technology and Society (ETS); the interconnectedness of the three dimensions; DCI, CCC, SEP; and integrating t h e SEP, "designing solutions" for real world problems. We will describe the pedagogical strategies and process by which course revisions took place resulting from careful study within a NIC and the results from implementation in three separate courses in two large California State teacher credentialing programs. Theoretical FrameworkBybee (2014) proposed three strategies to align teacher preparation programs with NGSS: Revise elements of the current program, such as the science teaching methods course(s); Replace components of the current program, (pieces or complete courses, such as the teaching methods course), with units or courses that give intense NGSS-focused learning experiences; and Reform the current program altogether, rebuilding teacher preparation programs from scratch. Bybee acknowledges that the first two strategies are most likely to occur with initial reform focusing on science teaching methods course(s) in teacher preparation programs. In many universities, it falls on the science education faculty members to be the "experts" on NGSS. The science teaching methods course(s) are often the only place in teacher preparation that s...