Teachers' Beliefs and Practices With Student Decision Making During Engineering Design Activities

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Collaboration, Decision Making, and Integration in STEM

Abstract

This study reports on secondary science and mathematics teachers’ beliefs about student teaching making and the translation of these beliefs into their practice. The teachers were participants in a PD program to integrate engineering units into the instruction. Twelve teachers participated in the two year research program. This study reports on how the teachers described decision making, the opportunities they believed they provided for students to make decisions, and how those decision making opportunities were implemented. The qualitative data included interviews, observations, lesson plans, and surveys of instructional practices, resources and context. The data were analyzed qualitatively using pre-determined codes from the literature. Trends in the decisions were then considered across contextual variables among the teachers.

Author

• Helen Meyer, University of Cincinnati