Scaffolding Productive Teacher Practice in a Computer-Aided Design–Enabled Engineering Design Learning Environment

• In Event: 79.050 - MTCC Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: 79.050-6 - Teachers as Learners: Unearthing the Black Boxes of Computer-Supported Technological and Pedagogical Innovations

Abstract

This study investigated one way of supporting middle school teachers in implementing a project-based unit using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool, Energy3D (Xie et al., 2014), designed to engage students in the engineering design process with an emphasis on the uncertainty that is inherent in engineering problems. Prior research suggests that there may be two types of uncertainty in engineering problem scenarios – (a) content uncertainty i.e. uncertainty caused by inadequate understanding or incomplete information related to the content and concepts relevant to the problem being solved and (b) relational uncertainty i.e. uncertainty caused by interaction with teachers and peers in the context of solving the engineering problem (Metz, 2004; Jordan and McDaniel, 2014). Both these uncertainties can lead to dissonance in the classroom that is ultimately part of the authentic experience of solving an engineering problem. However, teachers are not prepared to foster dissonance in the classroom and help students manage uncertainty (Frykholm, 2004).
In this design-based research study, we adopted the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra and Koehler, 2006) to create a teacher-researcher co-design process for iteratively developing and refining the pedagogical scaffolds and professional support needed by the teachers in our context. This study was part of a larger design-based research study that was conducted in a middle school in the Midwest US. While the larger study spanned three grades – sixth (102 students), seventh (124 students), and eighth grade (92 students) – and their respective science and technology teachers; for the illustrative case study we will focus on Grade 6 that was taught by Ms. Pai. The entire study was conducted in all the grades simultaneously and spanned one week with 45 minute lessons every day. The data set for this paper comprises of classroom observation notes, videos of student-teacher interaction in the classroom, student-work from Grade 6, and teacher-work completed during the teacher workshop. Ms. Pai participated in an immersive teacher workshop that was part of the larger study and designed the lesson plan for her classroom using a TPACK-based lesson plan redesign template provided to her during the workshop. She focused on three key factors influencing the design of an energy efficient house- effective use of solar radiation by solar panels, relationship between insulation and heat transfer, and seasonal variation in the direct and indirect solar radiation and its effect on energy consumption. Students’ engagement with these topics and final design challenge were facilitated by the Energy3D CAD software. For designing the lesson plan, Ms. Pai decided to narrow down the focus to these few topics based on her experience with the software from the previous year and her emphasis on providing mini-challenges that lead to the final challenge.
Authentic engineering problems and their solutions frequently require engineers and designers to grapple with uncertainty and manage that during the solution process. This work provides one way of fostering such an experience in the classroom and proposes teacher resources that may help them prepare for playing a productive role in such classrooms.

Authors

• Chandan Dasgupta, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

• Alejandra J. Magana, Purdue University