Engineering Commons^™

Elementary Teachers’ Mental Images Of Engineers At Work, Rebekah Hammack, Juliana Utley, Toni Ivey, Karen High

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The purpose of the current study was to determine the impacts of a multiple-day engineering-focused professional development program on elementary teachers’ perceptions of the work of engineers and their use of mathematics and science. Data were collected in the form of drawings of engineers prior to and immediately after the professional development program as well as an open-ended exit survey at the end of the program. Participants’ drawings were scored in the following areas: use of mathematics, use of science, and work of an engineer. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that the only significant change between measures was in ‘‘work of …

Refining An Instrument And Studying Elementary Teachers’ Understanding Of The Scope Of Engineering, Jacob Pleasants, Joanne K. Olson

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

To effectively incorporate engineering into their instruction, K–12 teachers need sufficient knowledge of the engineering discipline. An important component of teachers’ engineering knowledge is their understanding of the nature of engineering: what engineers do, the epistemological underpinnings of engineering, and the relationships between engineering and other fields of study. In this study, we present a quantitative tool that was developed to assess teachers’ knowledge of a particular nature of engineering dimension: the scope of engineering, which describes the demarcation between engineering and non-engineering. This tool was used to assess the knowledge of teachers and engineering graduate students, before and after …

Development And Impact Of Teacher Social Capital In An Engineering Education Teacher Professional Development Program, Wei Zakharov

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Teacher social capital is a set of social interaction assets such as collegiality and collaboration that enable teachers to work with each other in groups to improve teaching and learning. This results in instructional improvement and student success in school reform.

This study discusses how an engineering education teacher professional development program has developed an environment for long-term collegiality and collaboration among its teachers. Furthermore, the study presents an empirical evidence of the impact of teacher social capital on students’ engineering knowledge learning.

Ninety teachers and 621 students are examined in this program. The participants are from fifteen elementary schools …