Engaging Students in Optimal Learning Environments

• In Event: 45.019 - Designing Science Engagement: An International Perspective

Abstract

Objective
The intervention we are employing to affect student engagement is Project-Based Learning (PBL), an instructional methodology that teaches students NGSS-based science content while engaging them in problem solving, collaborative interactions, agency, model building, and analytic design (Krajcik and Shin, 2014).
Perspective
Student engagement and achievement in science is a major concern for the international science education and research community; when students lack motivation to engage in science learning, students do not pursue STEM careers, making them less competitive in the global economy. International declining student interest in STEM, which resulted in the new Finnish (Finnish National Core Curriculum) and U.S. science standards (Next Generation of Science Standards [NGSS]), elevates the importance of an instructional intervention which promotes secondary school science education reform, teacher professional development, and international collaboration among researchers, teachers, and policy makers to meet this challenge. Implementation of PBL also promotes engagement of teachers with science learning and instruction, as they collaborate to create, disseminate, and revise units for their students with the help of professional science experts.
Method
We measure engagement based on an optimal learning moment theoretical paradigm (Schneider et. al, 2016) using similar sampling, instruments, and analysis with collaborating researchers in the US and Finland. Optimal learning moments (OLMs) are measured with the experience sampling method (ESM), which allows students to respond to questions about how they are feeling, what they are thinking, and what they are doing in the classroom in real-time as compared to traditionally delayed single questionnaire responses.
Results
During 2016-17, 321 students participated in the study, producing 1,291 responses. Results show that when students worked in the laboratory as part of their PBL experience, it positively affected their situational engagement. Additionally, PBL experiences significantly increased imagination (treatment = 0.124, p<.05), and analyzing different points of view (treatment = 0.146, p<.01). PBL also increased students beliefs that science was important to their future in both the US and Finland.
Significance
This symposium aims to review the overall PIRE study and report results from two different countries. Results from this preliminary work will be released in spring 2019. What is clear from this work is that it is possible with PBL to alter teacher instruction and student learning in science

Author

• Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University