Effective Teacher Professional Development: Middle-School Engineering Content
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| Audience/Grade: | 6-8 |
| Discipline(s): |
Engineering Education Research General Engineering, Engineering Science Mechatronics |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Educational Research Paper |
| Author(s): |
Angel dos Santos Morgan M. Hynes |
| Description: | Abstract: "The research outlined in this paper looks at a teacher professional development program designed designed to prepare middle school teachers to teach an after school engineering/technology LEGO robotics unit. Thirteen Massachusetts public middle-school teachers participated in a summer professional development programme during the first two weeks of August 2005. Many of these teachers had not had any formal training in teaching engineering/technology. This paper looks at aspects of the professional development course that worked and those that did not by considering confidence surveys, researcher observations and teacher interviews." Paper from the first special issue (out of two in 2007) for IJEE on pre-college engineering education. Vol 23, Number 1. |
| Rating: |
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| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | professional teacher development engineering education robotics after-school |
| Is Component of: |
Special Issue is on Pre-college engineering |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
Conclusions: "The goal of preparing middle-school teachers to teach an after-school LEGO robotics unit with technology/engineering content appears to have been achieved. All the teachers who participated said they were going to teach this unit either in an after-school or in-school setting. Aspects of the two-week professional development study that impressed teachers and researchers were walking through the curriculum step by step with the instructors, allowing the teachers plenty of hands-on experience with the materials and software, creating a safe environment for the teachers to practice teaching the unit, allowing teachers to observe other teachers teach the unit. The teachers felt it was important to be able to become familiar with how the unit would be taught and for them to be able to `play' with the materials beforehand. Surprisingly, having the teachers work with their students in a large room amongst the other groups was an aspect that enhanced the teachers' learning and confidence with the unit. For the future, work will be done to adapt teaching styles to better match the inquiry-based, hands-on learning environment the researchers wanted to create for the students. Teaching styles were difficult to change radically in only two weeks, and other strategies need to be looked at to accomplish this goal. The researchers will also be following-up with additional professional teaching development opportunities throughout the school year. For future programmes, it will be important that the teachers recruit their own students for the second week practicum as having that relationship ahead of time enhanced the learning experience for teachers and students." |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Interactivity Level: |
Very low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2007 |
| Platform/Format: |
Cross Platform |
| Cost: |
Not free |
| Download URL: | http://www.ijee.dit.ie/latestissues/Vol23-1/04_ijee1879.pdf |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
International Journal of Engineering Education
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