Exploring How Middle School Students Monitor and Regulate Their Understanding of Science and Engineering Concepts During Engineering Design Projects

• In Event: 52.029 - Interdisciplinary and Integrated STEM Education: Research, Practices, and Perspectives

Abstract

Although learning science, math and technology through engineering design holds promise (Daugherty, Reese & Merrill, 2010), most efforts in STEM education promote learning in a specific domain, namely science or mathematics (Bybee, 2010). Fewer incorporate engineering and even fewer focus on integration of domains (Satchwell & Loepp, 2002). Research on how students can learn science through engineering will be increasingly important as the Next Generation Science Standards incorporate engineering and gives equal importance to engineering design and scientific inquiry (National Research Council, 2011). Despite a lack of an overall corpus of published research on the impact of teaching engineering design at K-12 levels (Katehi, Pearson, & Feder, 2009), research demonstrates the potential of using design activities to teach science concepts (Apedoe, Reynolds, Ellefson & Schunn, 2008; Roth, 1996; Silk, Schunn, & Strand-Cary, 2009). In particular, engineering design offers novel ways to promote critical self-monitoring and self-regulation skills in science classrooms (Kolodner et al., 2003). Because engineering design explicitly calls for evaluation, testing and refining of solutions, it can encourage students to evaluate, test and refine their own understanding of related concepts. Similarly, engaging students in engineering design can help students monitor and regulate their understanding. For example, in testing a particular design, students may realize that they have gaps in their understanding and spur students to revisit instruction or seek out more information.

This presentation investigates how middle school students monitor and regulate their understanding of science and engineering concepts during engineering design projects, and explores if scaffolding engineering design can lead to students demonstrating self-monitoring and self-regulatory behaviors. To facilitate engineering design projects in authentic science classrooms, this research used WISEngineering, a web-based engineering design learning environment (Chiu et al., 2013). WISEngineering draws upon the knowledge integration learning perspective (Linn & Eylon, 2011) and an informed engineering design approach (Burghardt & Hacker, 2004) to help students develop connected science and engineering understanding. Middle school students from two teachers worked through a week-long WISEngineering project as part of normal class activities. To investigate what kinds of monitoring and regulating behaviors students demonstrate during WISEngineering units, a case study design was employed. Data included a combination of video from the class activities, as well as log data and embedded artifacts from the WISEngineering system for six student groups (2-3 students each). Videotapes were analyzed for planning, monitoring and strategy use adapted from prior research with similar technology-based environments (Azevedo, Guthrie & Seibert, 2004). Log data and embedded artifacts were used to supplement and confirm the video analysis. Preliminary results reveal that students verbalized and engaged in monitoring and regulatory behaviors during design phases, but not as much during knowledge building phases that focused on learning specific science content. Students benefitted from explicit prompting to connect the science content to their designs. Results provide insight for researchers interested in engineering approaches to science education.

Author

• Jennifer L. Chiu, University of Virginia