Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Personal Reflections / 12.14.20, José M. Torres

Personal Reflections

On Saturday, December 7, 2020, I got up early at 5:00 a.m., put on a white shirt, a black jacket, and shorts, and joined a zoom call broadcasted from Alexandria, Egypt. A longtime friend, Bill, passed away at age 90 from COVID-19 complications. Bill and his wife Peg, who passed away 12 years ago, opened their home to me in 1980, when I was only 20 years old and needed a place to stay. Six months later, I found a more permanent home. While my time living with them in their home was short, this experience and our continued relationship …

Method Of Joints: Theory And Practice Of Designing, Building, And Testing Trusses, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The authors of this article, like many of us, are proponents of engineering education but are also proponents of shop skills, craftsmanship, technological literacy, and the tacit knowledge and skills developed through applying sound theories during practical hands-on learning. The authors believe that engineering is an important aspect of our discipline, but so are the application of thinking, tool skills, measurement, geometric construction, manufacturing, instrumentation, testing and analysis, mathematical and scientific theories, and many other hands-on, minds-on skillsets that all need to maintain association with our discipline. As the authors are proponents for engineering education that is done well, they …

La Evolución Del Rol Del Director Escolar En Tiempos De Covid-19, José M. Torres

Keynotes, Speeches, and Lectures

No abstract provided.

Solving Concurrent And Nonconcurrent Coplanar Force Systems: Balancing Theory And Practice In The Technology And Engineering Education Classroom, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

The basic concepts inherent to statics, including unbalanced and balanced forces and instability and stability of physical systems, have traditionally been covered in middle and high school physical science courses (Physical Science as indicated in Next Generation Science Standards). Yet, these concepts are covered using a physical science approach that has minor but significant differences in terminology, structure, and focus when compared with an engineering approach. Since a robust understanding of statics is considered an essential component for most engineering disciplines, Technology and Engineering Education’s (T&EE) implementation of statics with an engineering approach could promote students’ ability to transfer learning …

Computer Science Teacher Survey, Josh B. Mcgee, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Arkansas Education Reports

In April/May of 2020, the University of Arkansas’ Office for Education Policy (OEP), in partnership with Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson's Computer Science and Cyber Security Task Force, fielded a survey with the 400+ Arkansas educators who at that time held a computer science endorsement (528), computer science approval code (5016), or computer science technical permit (5014) on their educator’s license. The survey received 153 responses, a nearly 40 percent response rate.

Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy: Reunión Nacional De Profesores Prepatec 2020, José M. Torres

Keynotes, Speeches, and Lectures

LEGISLATIVE MANDATE 1

The primary role of the Academy shall be to offer a challenging education for students talented in the areas of mathematics and science.

LEGISLATIVE MANDATE 2

The Academy shall also carry a responsibility to stimulate further excellence for all Illinois schools in mathematics and science.

For Us: Towards An Intersectional Leadership Conceptualization By Black Women For Black Girls, Angel Miles Nash, April L. Peters

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article is based on a STEM education case study that illumines the work that three Black women school leaders do specifically on behalf of Black girls, and in examining their asset-based approaches, conceptualises their work by articulating an intersectional leadership framework. By historicising and explicating the rich legacy of Black women school leaders, and specifically including the theoretical dispositions in which their pedagogy is rooted, we shine a light on the lacuna that exists in educational leadership that specifically articulates their praxes when working on behalf of students with whom they identify – that is, Black girls. Black women …

The Analytics Managers Ultimate Guide For Working With Universities, Robert J. Mcgrath

Faculty Publications

The challenges organizations are having related to finding (and retaining) deep analytical talent did not materialize out of thin air…or overnight. Analytics and Data science – and the role of the analytics professional – has evolved over the last several decades and has been fueled by our ability to capture and process increasingly larger and more complex variations of data and our desire to gain increasingly granular insights to fuel innovation and creativity. While many organizations recognize that a partnership with a university can be a resource to many of these challenges, the best way to start a conversation with …

Concrete Beam Design: Pouring The Foundation To Engineering In T&E Classrooms, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Ask a middle or high school student if they could design a concrete beam that weighs only 20 pounds and is 36” long but must hold 600 pounds without failing. What is the student likely to say? What if the student was told that, with some optimized decision making based on relatively straightforward mathematics, their beam could hold 2400 pounds or more? The focus of this article is not on concrete beam design, it is rather an introduction to engineering principles in beam design using a lab activity. The concepts and skills learned in this article will lead students into …

Analyzing Concrete Beam Design: Verifying Predictions In T&Ee Classrooms, Andrew J. Hughes, Chris Merrill

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

Design is often accepted as a fundamental aspect of engineering (Dym, et al., 2005). The design process is frequently portrayed as a set of steps. However, the design process is more complex than just a set of steps in a relatively fixed process. The complex nature of design, design thinking, questioning, and decision-making is exactly what technology and engineering classrooms are well suited to address. When addressing the question—“Why is technology and engineering education (T&EE) so important?”—the authors believe T&EE’s importance relates to our discipline’s ability to solve complex problems by balancing theory and practice in engaging hands-on learning scenarios …

Promoting Preservice Stem Education Teachers' Metacognitive Awareness: Professional Development Designed To Improve Teacher Metacognitive Awareness, Andrew John Hughes, Eddie Partida

Educational Leadership & Technology Faculty Publications

This quantitative portion of a convergent complementarity, mixed-methods, exploratory study describes the design and implementation of a 5-week preservice teacher professional development (PD) experience and the associated Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) measures before and after the experience. The PD experience was designed to explicitly address participants’ domain-general and domain-specific knowledge and regulation of cognition through a highly integrated academic and clinical preparation regimen centered on a cognitive coaching model. The study participants comprised preservice STEM education teachers (N = 11) enrolled in a dual teaching certification and Master’s in Education program. The findings showed an increase in participants’ regulation …

Combined Cognitive-Motivational Modules Delivered Via An Lms Increase Undergraduate Biology Grades, Jennifer Cromley, Tony Perez, Avi Kaplan, Ting Dai, Kyle Mara, Michael J. Balsai

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Students’ success in undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses requires effective studying behavior, but also the motivation to enact it. Promoting students’ achievement in STEM has commonly focused on either study strategies (cognitive) or motivational interventions; we hypothesized that combinations of these would be more effective. Using a learning management system (LMS) for delivery, we iteratively developed and tested the effect of different combinations of one of the four cognition-focused with one of the three motivation-focused intervention modules. Participants were 3,092 undergraduate introductory biology students tested in 10 studies at three universities over 4 years. They were randomly …