Insider Perspectives on Networks That Support and Constrain Problem-Based Invention Education

• In Event: Educational Responsibilities in Problem-Based Education (PBE): Principles, Practices, and Networks Creating and Supporting PBE

Abstract

Objectives
The purpose of this study was to explore networks that support (or constrain) problem-based invention education (IvE). Networks are examined from the insider perspectives of a high school teacher and student who had collected video and other records from the year in which they engaged in the problem-based invention project, InvenTeam.

Perspectives
Problem-based education is a learner-centered philosophy and pedagogical approach that engages students and other actors in integrated, often transdisciplinary, learning around real-world problems. In problem-based learning environments, learners work collaboratively to co-construct an understanding of complex problems with the goal of developing possible solutions to the needs that learners had identified (Chian, Bridges, & Lo, 2019). Invention education is one of such problem-based education models.

IvE emphasizes the iterative and recursive processes of identifying real-world problems and developing new, unique, and useful solutions to those problems (Couch, Skukauskaite, & Estabrooks, 2019). Given that IvE involves a variety of actors within and beyond the school, we also draw on social capital theory, which foregrounds the role of economic, cultural and social networks supporting or constraining opportunities for learning (Bourdieu, 2002; Coleman,1988). We specifically emphasize the social aspect of the theory (network ties) to examine what makes problem-based invention education possible and in what ways.

Methodology
This study is guided by ethnographic epistemology (Green, Skukauskaite & Baker, 2012; Green & Bridges, 2018) and seeks to understand who participates and supports invention education, in what ways, when, where, with whom, for what purposes and with what outcomes or consequences for a variety of actors engaged in problem-based learning processes. We used event and eco-system mapping and ethnographically-informed discourse analysis (Kelly & Green, 2019) methods to uncover multiple layers of supports for IvE from insider perspectives.

Data Sources
The records include video and audio recordings of InvenTeam activities, artifacts, and notebooks created by a student “historian” on the InvenTeam in 2018. In 2020, the historian and her teacher from Oregon joined a university-based research team in Florida to explore insider and outsider perspectives on the problem-based invention process. We engaged collaboratively in ethnographic conversations and participatory analyses of historian-generated records. We also recorded all collaborations, thus creating new data layers for continuing research.

Results
The teacher and student as insiders and the university-based team as outsiders created an ecomap to demonstrate the networks and resources supporting this InvenTeam. The ecomap (Figure 1) illustrates that the local networks of support included student and teacher families and friends, technical mentors, school personnel, and individuals and organizations in the community. Media and funding supports were local and national, and the national Lemelson-MIT program supported the team in multiple ways. In the presentation we further explain how these networks enabled or constrained the problem-based IvE project.

Scholarly Significance
Through participatory analyses and ecomaps, we demonstrate the importance of networks within and beyond school to foster innovative problem-based student engagement. We argue that these networks create the potential to generate social capital for students underrepresented in invention and STEM.

Authors

• Audra Skukauskaite, University of Central Florida

• Cristina Lucia Saenz, University of Central Florida

• Michelle Sullivan, University of Central Florida

• Katrina Hull, McKay High School

• Jazmin Morales Rodriguez, Willamette University