The Courses

1. Merging Engineering and Physics for K-12 Teachers Dr. Dan MacIsaac, Kathleen Stadler, Sam Cirpila, Bradley Gearhart, & Alyssa Cederman <macisadl@buffalostate.edu> Background Courses’ Activities and Qualitative Teacher Data The Integrated Science and Engineering Partnership (ISEP) is a $10 million dollar National Science Foundation Math Science Partnership project involving thirteen high needs schools from Buffalo Public Schools who are working together with SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo State College, the Buffalo Museum of Science, Praxair and other partners to improve classroom Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) instruction in K-12 classrooms. This poster focuses on the creation of specific courses combining Engineering Design, Technology and Physics content addressing NGSS standards for K-12 teachers.  These courses are offered as part of the SUNY Buffalo State Summer Physics Teachers’ Academy. As a core partner in ISEP, SUNY Buffalo State has committed to institutional change via the development of two new interdisciplinary professional development graduate credit summer workshop courses for K-12 teachers in Physics and Engineering.  This new collaboration is both across departments (Physics and Technology) and across schools (School of Natural and Social Sciences and School of Professions) at Buffalo State.  To develop such courses, Physics and Technology first offered two courses in Summers 2012 and 2013, with the intent of developing a merged curriculum after piloting suitable activities during summers 1 and 2 of grant activity, working with K-12 master STEM teachers. In Summer 2012 the first pilot course was taught in Physics at Buffalo State as part of the established Buffalo State Summer Physics Teachers Academy, and 15 Buffalo Public Schools teachers completed a course largely based on the Physics and Everyday Thinking curriculum for K-12 teachers (Goldberg et al). In Summer 2013, the second pilot course was taught in Technology Education largely centered upon Technology and the Engineering Design Process for K-12 teachers, and 12 BPS teachers and 3 non-BPS teachers completed this class. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the recently finalized curriculum guidelines expected to drive future NYSED STEM teaching reform also played a prominent role in 2013 summer workshop class activity. Final Poster Project PET Curriculum Both courses required a final presentation. In PHY 594 (2012), participants presented an activity or concept that they planned to incorporate into their instruction. In TED 594 (2013), participants were required to create and present a poster on an activity to incorporate the engineering design process into their instruction. The integration of STEM activities into the various classes, and grade levels, demonstrated a greatly enhanced understanding of the engineering and design process as it applied to each individual classroom population, as well as a high level of confidence to teach the process. The diverse inclusion of cross-curricular components in the final posters, indicated a conceptual understanding of the interconnectedness of the content areas though the lens of the engineering and design process. • PHY 594 participants worked through the Energy, Optics, and Magnetism units in the Physics of Everyday Thinking (PET) curriculum by Goldberg, Otero, and Robinson (2010). Throughout the curriculum, participants experienced reformed pedagogy through: • Hands-on activities throughout curriculum • Group whiteboard presentations and class discourse to build conceptual models and deepen understanding of content • Daily reflective journals indicated the wide variety of reflection levels. Initial Beliefs Initial opinions expressed by the participants of both courses demonstrated a wide range of expectations, levels of confidence, and perspectives. Some participants were eager for the hands-on STEM experience while others felt out of their comfort zone. Many participants hoped to learn how to integrate STEM into their curriculum. Journals pointed towards an increasing level of confidence with increasing grade level taught. High school teachers, overall, expressed more confidence than their peers teaching at the elementary level. Also, teachers of science and technology expressed far greater levels of self efficacy and comfort related to STEM education. Engineering Design Challenge Projects • TED 594 participants experienced the engineering design process through two separate challenges: • Participants of the skimmer car design challenge built skimmer cars andused the activity as a vehicle to walk through the engineering and design process by: • Whiteboard presentations about how the skimmer cars could be used to teach grade-specific NGSS content • Class discourse about science and engineering practices that relate to the activity • Building the cars, conducting initial tests, making measurements and organizing data • Used relevant concepts in science and engineering to analyze results and revise their car design • Connected activity to performance expectation contained within the NGSS • Participants of the mousetrap car design challenge designed and built mouse trap powered cars • Initial design, assembly, and testing of cars • Formal instruction on conservation of energy as related to the mousetrap cars • instructors modeled highly effective pedagogy to define different types of • energy and energy conversions between one • type to another • Image 1 shows a handout used to • facilitate class discourse • Revisions and retesting of cars • Competitions for speed, distance, and accuracy. The Courses Quantitative Teacher Data • Each course is two weeks, four hours per day; all BPS teacher expenses plus stipend paid • Elementary teachers as well as middle and high school teachers of science, • special education, and technology education • PHY 594 (2012): Focus on PET Energy, Magnetism and Optics • Energy as a unifying topic among different science • Magnetism for Nature of Science • Optics as a physical science topic that would interest Living Environment instructors. • TED 594 (2013): Focus on Engineering Design Process as related to NGSS • Learning how to navigate through and understand the Next Generation • Science Standards document • Exploration of content and practice development K-12 • Taking two specific engineering design challenges and relating both content • and practices to grade level and/or subject • Using experiences in the course to design lessons/activities that meet • performance expectations of NGSS • Time devoted to teaching physics content, including forces, energy and • simple machines as unifying principles among different science disciplines • and applications • PHY/TED 594: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers Goals: • Content Goals – to learn about the engineering design process as a unifying STEM construct, especially in the domains of mechanics and energy, with project extensions to biology, earth science, and chemistry. • Pedagogical Knowledge – to practice cooperative group learning, practice using white-boarding to support small and whole group discourse, to experience pedagogical framework through the student lens, and practice the use of reflective journals and projects to learn and teach both science content and engineering design process. • Other Goals – to foster membership in a professional learning community associated with ISEP, to establish and develop trust with colleagues and ISEP staff. The PHY 594 course was assessed with the PET Diagnostic. The PET Diagnostic is a nine item extended response instrument scored via a rubric from a total of twenty-eight possible points. The instrument item domains include Newton’s laws, force, motion and friction, elementary optics and circuit concepts and energy conservation The PET Diagnostic was administered pre and post instruction. However, only items 4,5 and 9 were used in the analysis since course instruction was focused on Energy, Magnetism and Optics, which correspond to item 4,5 and 9 on the Diagnostic. There is no item assessing magnetism. Participants showed a statistically significant gain in their scores for questions 4,5 and 9 from the PET diagnostic (see Table 1 and graph 1). These gains indicate that students increased in conceptual understanding of optics and energy transfer from course instruction. Conclusions Outcome and Disclaimer Formal Course Proposal – We are currently writing formal proposals for two new cross-listed 3cr workshop laboratory courses PHY/TED 503: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers I, and PHY/TED 504: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers II to the Buffalo State College Senate Curriculum Committee. These proposed courses will feature greater fluidity between Physics and Engineering design than has previously been offered. This activity was sponsored by the Integrated Science and Engineering Partnership (ISEP), NSF-MSP project DUE-1102998. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented are only those of the presenter grantee/researcher, author, or agency employee; and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. This poster is available at http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/pubs/AAPTmtgs/AAPT2014Jan/ Other Goals – Supplies were given to several schools which included whiteboards, markers and a variety of technology design kits. Every participant received a trebuchet kit and was offered funding for professional development opportunities related to STEM education. ISEP is creating both topical and local Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in various disciplines and we intend to start a Physics and Engineering community specifically at PS#31 and across all previous teacher attendees of TED594 in summer 2013 and PHY596 in summer 2012. Content Goals – The PET Diagnostics results show that content understanding grew over the course PHY 594. Final posters of TED 594 demonstrated effective application of the engineering and design process into their individual STEM content and grade levels. Posters also demonstrated growth in translating the NGSS into appropriate activities for each teacher’s content and grade level classrooms. Pedagogical Knowledge – By placing teacher participants in the role of students, participants began to question their own instructional practices and started to think about instructional pedagogy in addition to STEM content. Presentations from both classes demonstrated a shift towards hands-on, student centered activities associated with reformed methods of teaching.