Rural secondary STEM teachers’ understanding of the engineering design process

Abstract

Though STEM teacher professional development is known to be beneficial, it is not available equally to educators in all geographic regions. Rural educators face unique challenges not often experienced by their urban and suburban counterparts. This study investigates the impacts of a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program on rural math, science, and technology education teachers’ perspectives on how these experiences changed their understanding of the engineering design process (EDP). From 2016 to 2019, eleven rural secondary STEM teachers engaged in a six-week professional development experience focused on research and implementing the EDP. These teachers were rural “solitary” STEM teachers, which meant they were the only teacher of their subject in their school building. This qualitative study used a thematic analysis approach to code and analyze individual and focus group interview transcripts. The results were analyzed to determine how the RET experiences impacted the teachers’ perception of how the EDP is used in problem-solving activities and how it could be integrated into their classroom practices. Results from this study show that the teachers developed a more authentic conceptual understanding of the EDP, which led to increased insightfulness on how to engage students in authentic engineering design activities that strengthen future workforce skills. This study demonstrated that an authentic engineering-based RET program can increase rural teachers’ commitment and readiness to incorporate the EDP into regular classroom practices. Further, this program resulted in teachers gaining a much more nuanced understanding of how the EDP’s non-linear steps and iterative nature contribute to creating authentic problem-solving challenges for students. In particular, the teachers realized the necessity of creating less prescribed challenges that require students to draw upon the constellation of skills necessary to design optimal solutions, resulting in higher-caliber opportunities to develop future workforce skills. These findings emphasize the critical need to design professional development experiences that target the unique needs of rural STEM teachers. Additional research is needed to tease out the extent to which teachers’ increased commitment to using the EPD and a more nuanced understanding of the EDP translate into sustained changes to classroom practice.

Measuring preservice science teachers’ performance on engineering design process tasks: implications for fostering STEM education

“…Other researchers have concluded that teacher preparation programs need to consider more comprehensive courses on topics such as communication, technology, curriculum design, the EDP in math and science education, transdisciplinary learning approaches and the implementation of STEM in the classroom (Shahat and Al-Amri, n.d.). Shume et al (2022) suggested that having student teachers conduct their own research regarding STEM can positively impact teacher training programs by helping student teachers develop a more authentic conceptual understanding of engineering design tasks, and it can help them create original problem-solving challenges for students in the classroom. Also, more consideration must be given regarding integrating STEM subjects through reflection on (1) the instruction received during their training; (2) school placement experiences and (3) teaching during microteaching (College of Education at SQU, 2021).…”

“…Geng, Jong, and Chai (2019) examined teachers' concerns regarding STEM education and found that for teachers to implement STEM education in the classroom successfully they require professional development, pedagogical support and curriculum resources. According to a recent study by Shume, Bowen, Altimus, and Kallmeyer (2022), teacher training that is focused on research and implementing the EDP has an impact on teachers by helping them acquire genuine conceptual knowledge of engineering design tasks and by inspiring them to come up with new problems for their students to solve.…”

Fostering Students’ Concept Mastery Through Stem-Engineering Design Process in Thermal Energy and Heat Transfer Topic

“…Research has established that engineering design process-oriented integrated STEM activities have a positive impact on students' achievement levels in science (Dedetürk, Kirmizigül, and Kaya's, 2021;Ercan & Sahin, 2015;Harwell et al, 2015;Wendell & Rogers, 2013).The significance of incorporating the STEM-EDP into regular classroom practices is underscored by its ability to actively involve students in authentic problem-solving. According to Shume et al (2022), educators express an increased commitment to empowering students with more responsibility throughout the problem-solving process, allowing them additional time to grapple with the iterative nature of design. This aligns with existing research findings, such as those by Bowen et al (2021), which highlight that teachers exhibit higher motivation to integrate the EDP into their instructional methodologies.…”

Integration of Mobile Phone Sensors into STEM Approach: Swing Activity with Phyphox Application

“…Alanyazın, ilkokul (Parker vd., 2016), ortaokul (Aydoğan & Çakıroğlu, 2022;English vd., 2017) ve lise seviyesinde (Fan & Yu, 2017) öğrenim görmekte olan öğrenciler ile öğretmen adaylarına (Capobianco & Radloff, 2022;Irmak & Öztürk, 2022;Kuvac & Koc, 2022) uygulanan mühendislik tasarım temelli STEM yaklaşımının etkililiğini göstermektedir. Ayrıca, öğretmenlere verilen eğitimler ile onların mühendislik tasarım temelli STEM yaklaşımı hakkında daha donanımlı olmaları sağlanmıştır (Shume, Bowen, Altimus & Kallmeyer, 2022). Bu araştırmanın odağını, fen bilgisi öğretmen adayları oluşturmaktadır.…”