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Utah State University

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Student Engagement

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Full-Text Articles in Education

Examining Spaces For Integrating Physics And Computing Through Classroom Inquiry, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Kristin Searle, Douglas Ball, Soojeong Jeong Jan 2023

Examining Spaces For Integrating Physics And Computing Through Classroom Inquiry, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Kristin Searle, Douglas Ball, Soojeong Jeong

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

As computing becomes an essential component of professional practice across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, integration of computing across content areas in K-12 classrooms is also becoming important. Particularly within science classrooms, computer science and computational thinking (CS/CT) are novel and necessary skills for modeling, working with data, and other foundational science skills. Finding ways to engage students in practicing and learning CT within authentic science learning is challenging for most teachers. In this article, the authors report on one teacher’s efforts to engage high school students in maker-based physics education, integrating computational thinking by designing and building …


Electrifying: One Teacher’S Discursive And Instructional Changes Through Engagement In E-Textiles To Teach Science Content, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Eliza Jex, Kristin Searle, Douglas Ball, Xin Zhao, Georgia Burnell Jan 2020

Electrifying: One Teacher’S Discursive And Instructional Changes Through Engagement In E-Textiles To Teach Science Content, Colby Tofel-Grehl, Eliza Jex, Kristin Searle, Douglas Ball, Xin Zhao, Georgia Burnell

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

This paper shares findings from the first of its kind quasi-experimental mixed methods study exploring the potential impacts on teacher instruction through engagement with making and e-textiles. Because engagement in hands-on inquiry has demonstrated strong promise for increasing student interest and engagement in STEM careers, finding curricular approaches that engage students in project-based learning remains important. As such, the Maker Movement and making has gained traction as a possible effort to improve such outcomes. This study shares outcomes from analyses of one teacher’s first engagement with teaching eighth-grade science through e-textiles. Four of his classes were taught using his traditional …