“At First It Was Very Hard, Then It Was Fun”: Conjecturing a Learning Trajectory for Underrepresented Middle School Students in Mathematics and Engineering

• In Event: Creating Contexts of Pedagogical and Curricular Support for Non-English-Background Students in Mathematics and Science

Abstract

Description and Objectives

The Advancing Out-of-School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) project is an interdisciplinary effort comprised of faculty from bilingual/mathematics education and electrical and computer engineering. AOLME is designed to support underrepresented middle school students’ interactive and visual learning in engineering and mathematics. AOLME provides an engaging digital image and video processing integrated engineering curriculum. AOLME’s long-term goal is to establish STEM pipeline of support and motivation for predominantly Latina/o middle school students (NRC, 2011). Research questions include: What components of the project contribute to a learning trajectory for middle school students in mathematics and engineering? and 2) How do social interactions within the AOLME project support student learning, identity development, and appropriation of scientific discourse practices?

Theoretical Framework
We are guided by a participatory, situated, and experiential engineering learning perspective (Johri and Olds, 2011), where the development of engineering and mathematical identities is parallel to the process of learning (Litzinger et al., 2011). We expect this identification to be manifested through students’ narratives and their appropriation of scientific—mathematical/ engineering—discourse practices (Chval and Khisty, 2009). During implementation and evaluation, we focus on how the impact of curricular activities on the quality of student engagement, on students’ current knowledge, interests, and experiences; and the support of students’ meaning-making process of the targeted concepts (Warren and Rosebery, 2008), especially of underrepresented students, as they learn in out-of-school settings (Willey, LópezLeiva, Torres, and Khisty, in press).

Methods and Data Sources

Eighteen students participated in, and completed, the two-week, 36 hour Summer, 2013 program. All but one student was Latina/o. Over 90% were eligible for free and reduced meals, and 35.6% were English Language Learners (ELLs). Data includes 150 hours of videotaped group interactions, student journals; saved work on computers such as command scripts, digital images, videos, etc.; facilitators’ fieldnotes, student interviews, and pre and post results of mathematics and engineering attitudes (adapted version from LópezLeiva, 2007). Examples used in this paper provide support to the themes found to conjecture a learning trajectory for these middle school students.

Results and Conclusions
Three main themes or processes developed during group work and tightly connected to curriculum structure characterize a student learning trajectory. First, the Raspberry Pi, a simple computer system, provided a context for motivation, interest, and curiosity about learning basic computer architecture concepts, Linux Operating System commands, and the programming language, Python. Second, cooperative experiences supported student learning, through helping students get past basic concepts needed to program such as understanding binary and hexadecimal numbers ideas. Finally, students’ linguistic and cultural identities were affirmed. The program promoted the use of Spanish and English while learning about computer programming. Examples of videotaped interactions between the facilitator and the students are used to illustrate this point.

Scholarly significance
Our findings are providing foundational knowledge and experiences to extend and improve this middle school initiative, distinguishing from others programs (Karam & Rice, 2000; Tanimoto, 1995) in a more explicit programming approach of digital image processing at the pixel level.

Authors

• Sylvia Celedon-Pattichis, University of New Mexico

• Carlos Alfonso Lopez Leiva, University of New Mexico

• Marios S. Pattichis, University of New Mexico

• Daniel Llamocca, University of New Mexico