"Little Kids Can Do Ginormous Works": Youth's Engineering Design and Identity Work

• In Event: 29.030 - Equity-Focused Implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards: Exploring Models of Hope and Possibility

Abstract

Purpose
We engaged in design-based implementation research to support youth in developing productive identities in engineering, while also learning core practices that make up engineering for sustainable communities: defining problems and designing solutions. These practices align with the engineering focus identified in current science education reform initiatives (NGSS, 2013), while also providing opportunities to bridge engineering work with empowering community engagement (Nieusma & Tang, 2012). Our research focuses on how, when and why youth merge community-insider expertise with the engineering design practices towards designing for sustainable communities, and the impact this has on their learning and identity work.

Framework
We draw upon Engestrom’s (2001) idea of expansive learning -- how developing situated expertise results from vertical (disciplinary) and horizontal (cross-community) movement, and the concept of hybridity in learning (Moje et al., 2004). Juxtaposing these two ideas offers insight into how participating in local practices shapes youths’ identities in the context of social-cultural and historical-political struggles youths encounter in their lives.

Method
We conducted longitudinal case studies of 13 youth who participated in an out-of-school engineering club during 2013-14, focused on designing solutions for community concerns using the NGSS framework of engineering practices (120 hours). Data include: artifacts, youth conversation groups, and video/observations of sessions. We analyzed if/how/when students authored/recruited hybrid practices (merging home/community/disciplinary) towards defining the design problem and designing solutions and how such engagement related to their identity work.

Findings
First, as legitimate members of their communities, youth drew upon contextually specific resources (relational or material) and insights to elucidate everyday engineering issues meaningful to them, and to inform new hybrid enactments of the two core engineering practices identified above. Second, opportunities to engage a range of stakeholders (technical, scientific, everyday) through iterative dialog/feedback on design problem frames and solutions/prototypes expanded and strengthened their knowledge of the engineering practices as well as their community network connections, affording them public recognition for their hybrid expertise.
Third, youth began to articulate community engineering concerns as issues larger than personal interests tying their engineering work to broader social context and processes.
For example, Jennifer designed a solar-powered light-up scooter, with safety and economic concerns. With limited streetlights, her peers were unable to play with their scooters after dark. Through emergent hybrid practices (e.g., merging feedbacks from experts in science/engineering and in community, visualizing concrete ideas with tools such as Google Sketchup, 3D-models), Jennifer was able to appropriate knowledge/practices to define problems and design solutions. Jennifer came to view herself as an expert. As she states: “People will love it! People will say, who made this? The tiny person who always in the background did this? Little kids can do ginormous works!”

Significance
STEM identity gaps are strongest for students from non-dominant backgrounds. Even when students are successful in school-based learning, many still see it as disconnected from their lives. This study advances knowledge of how incorporation of engineering practices in current reforms can be informed by the cultural dimensions of learning to support productive identity work among youth from non-dominant backgrounds.
 

Authors

• Myunghwan Shin, Michigan State University

• Angela Calabrese Barton, Michigan State University

• Day W Greenberg, Michigan State University

• Edna Tan, University of North Carolina at Greensboro