Co-Constructing Family Engagement in Science and Engineering Curriculum With Low-Income Immigrant Families With Preschool Children

• In Event: Fly Me to the Moon: Family, School, and Community Partnerships Support STEM Learning

Abstract

Objective
Science and engineering curricula represents a particularly ripe area of learning for dual language learners (DLLs), because strong STEM pedagogy involves engaging children immediately with interesting materials, and with each other, in ways that invite exploration, inspire ideas, and provide ample opportunities to build skills across all domains of learning and development. Yet, for DLL children, access to engaging curricula in which their curiosity about the natural and human-made world could be leveraged for future success may be hampered not only by the well-documented barriers preschool teachers experience to teaching STEM content (Greenfield et al., 2009), but also by a lack of connection both to children’s prior knowledge and to family, cultural, and community contexts. In this presentation, we use our federally funded project as an illustration of one approach to developing and implementing a co-constructed curriculum that both builds on teachers’ existing practices and fosters home-school connections, which go well beyond the home extension activities that typically constitute the home involvement component of preschool curricula.

Perspectives
Our home-school collaboration component is guided primarily by the work of Joseph Tobin, Luis Moll, and sociocultural theory. From this perspective, families’ work, hobbies, and everyday activities and routines serve as rich sources for building learning experiences. Engaging families in a process of curriculum co-construction, built on trust and mutual respect, has the potential to create curricula that honor and incorporate the lived experiences of DLL children, as well as address barriers to family engagement that many parents experience when mainstream expectations for parental involvement (e.g., volunteering in the classroom, reading to one’s child) are the only options offered.

Data and Methods
This project took place in two Head Start programs selected on the basis of a high proportion of DLL children and immigrant families. Data come from analyses over three project years of videotaped interactions and meeting notes for each of four components wherein co-construction occurred: (1) parent-researcher dialogues during Parent Leader Meetings; (2) teacher-researcher interactions in Professional Development Workshops; (3) teacher-parent interactions during Joint Activities and Parent-Teacher Discussion groups; and (4) teacher-teacher interactions in Professional Learning Communities. We analyzed data qualitatively in Atlas.ti to operationalize dimensions of co-construction and provide empirical evidence for its manifestation across curriculum and home-school-collaboration components. We first identified core constructs through open coding, and then delineated conditions, strategies, processes, and consequences integrated into a preliminary model.

Results
Results suggest that co-construction is a process that includes setting the conditions for co-construction, joint activities as a core strategy, and understanding consequences of co-construction such as shifts in attitudes and appropriation of new terms and roles.

Significance
This study highlights the importance of co-construction as a strategy to increase reciprocal dialogue among families, teachers, and researchers to improve outcomes for young DLL children, particularly in STEM. Examples of products from using this approach with Head Start teachers and families will be provided and implications for going to scale will be discussed with respect to an on-going randomized controlled trial in over 60 urban Head Start classrooms.

Authors

• Christine M McWayne, Tufts University

• Jayanthi Mistry, Tufts University

• Daryl B. Greenfield, University of Miami

• Kimberly Brenneman, Heising-Simons Foundation

• Betty S. Zan, University of Northern Iowa