The Targeted Math-Science Partnership of Science Learning through Engineering Design (SLED) vision is to increase grade 3-6 student learning of science by developing Indiana's first integrated, engineering design-based approach to elementary/intermediate school science education. The partnership involves Purdue University's colleges of Engineering, Science, Technology, and Education working with four Indiana school districts: Taylor Community School Corporation, Plymouth School Corporation, Lafayette School Corporation, and Tippecanoe School Corporation. The project is devising a design- and standards-based curriculum, inventing design-informed science instructional methods, and implementing on-going assessments to inform the project at the pre- and in-service teacher education levels in central Indiana. The partnership is using summer institutes, linkages with Purdue pre-service teachers, cyber-infrastructure, action research, and graduate coursework to equip teachers with design-based pedagogical skills and science content. An external advisory board consisting of recognized experts in science education, mathematics education, and engineering design meet annually to provide input to the project team.
The project has four interrelated components:
1) collaboration between STEM disciplinary faculty and grades 3-6 teachers to adapt and develop engineering design-based tasks; 2) an in-service teacher professional development program to equip grades 3-6 teachers in partnering schools to use engineering design as a tool for teaching science through authentic, inquiry-based, multi-disciplinary design units; 3) a pre-service teacher education program to prepare future elementary school teachers to teach science using the engineering design process; and 4) research that will investigate how grades 3-6 teachers teach science through the engineering design process and how students learn through design-based activities.
Specific outcomes that the partnership is working to produce include:
1) In-service professional development for 200 elementary/intermediate school teachers and preparation of 100 pre-service teachers in the use of engineering design to teach science through authentic, inquiry-based, multi-disciplinary design projects. 2) Improved science achievement of 5,000 students in grades 3-6 in the partner schools through exposure to engineering design-based curriculum and activities implemented by teachers. 3) A library of tested, design-based curricular materials to support teaching science in grades 3-6. 4) Creation of a cyber-infrastructure-enabled community of practice related to science education through engineering design that can disseminate grades 3-6 engineering design-based curriculum materials. 5) Research on the understanding of how teachers teach science through the engineering design process and how young students learn science through design-based activities. 6) Institutionalization of engineering design-based innovation through the development of an undergraduate engineering design-focused science methods course, a graduate course for in-service teachers and STEM graduate students, and the integration of engineering design-based curriculum in grades 3-6 of partner schools.
