This award provides funding for a 3 year continuing award to support a Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering Site program at Oklahoma State University (OSU), in the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology (CEAT) and the College of Education (CoE) entitled, "RET Site: Transitioning Engineering Research to Middle Schools (TERMS)", under the direction of Dr. Karen A. High.
This Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering Site involves a total of 21, 6th-9th grade teachers from three local public school districts, 7 each year for three years, and two REU students per year in combined research and K-12 content development. The program consists of pre-visit preparation, a six week summer research experience for the teachers, a twelve week summer research experience for the REU students and follow up academic interactions between RET teachers, OSU faculty, REU students, and middle school students.
The project's intellectual and educational focus is on how engineers understand, design, fabricate, and test materials and structures engineered so collective interactions give rise to unique properties. TERMS will recruit participating teachers from low income, rural, and Native American communities.
Research Experience for Teachers (RET) project focused on the middle level teachers who teach the students that tend to lose interest in science, engineering, and mathematics as they progress through school. These students’ attitudes toward science and math degrade as they advance through middle school classes. The middle grades are a critical period for students, representing the period most beneficial to provide engaging academic opportunities. The TERMS project personnel developed curriculum and experiences for the middle grades by organizing the teachers into a community of practice. The research component of the project was improved over the three year project as the teachers wrote research papers, developed research boards for science fairs, and gave research presentations. The program has enhanced teacher perceptions towards engineering research and teaching. A survey that was adapted from one available to the national RET network showed the improvements. The survey looks at the satisfaction with the RET experience, the extent that the faculty mentor met RET expectations, the success of the RET experience, the impact of the RET program on the RET personally, level of engagement, and learning experiences. Additional researcher developed surveys provide results that examine teacher perceptions towards research and science and mathematics teaching through the context of engineering. The TERMS project was a combined REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) and RET program that engages teachers in middle grades (6th-9th) and undergraduate engineering students in research. Teachers and undergraduate students were matched with a faculty mentor on a focused research project. All research emphasized a single theme: how engineers understand, design, fabricate, and test materials and structures whose overall properties are determined by collective interactions of their parts or emergent phenomena. Each research team developed curriculum units that transitioned this research to the classroom TERMS had four elements. The first aspect of this project is that TERMS targeted the middle school teachers who teach the students most at risk for losing interest in science, engineering, and mathematics. While there are several programs focusing on students and teachers in high school, few are designed for earlier grades. One question is whether it is appropriate for 6th through 9th grade science and math teachers to undertake focused research experiences. To address this concern TERMS builds previous work that has shown teachers in the middle grades can be successful in transitioning research experiences to educational activities. TERMS paired teachers with undergraduate REU students who have experience with research that the teachers may not have. A second element is that TERMS focused on an important research topic that falls in Pasteur’s Quadrant addressing both basic science and application. TERMS research focuses on how to engineer materials and structures whose behavior is determined by the collective interactions of their parts. Research on developing conceptual understanding has shown that misconceptions about "direct" processes are easier to correct than misconceptions about "emergent" processes. The third aspect of TERMS is that participants were taught effective ways to transition research into the classroom by engineering faculty who have successfully done so. The cohort of teachers and REU students devoted approximately one day each week to creating inquiry-based projects appropriate for K-12 students that are drawn from their research. The final element is that TERMS was developed based on an analysis of other RET programs to understand key elements of a successful research experience. An independent evaluation of RET participants suggests specific improvements to the RET program that TERMS addresses such as involvement of low income school districts, development of ongoing collaborations, and engagement of appropriate research faculty mentors. A main research question was "Does the placement of teachers into a community of practice – teachers in engineering research teams – improve their perceptions of engineering and of teaching engineering?" From the results of the surveys provided, the answer is yes. These results are specific to perceptions at the end of a six week university research experience for the three cohorts (communities of practice) studied. The teachers showed an increased confidence in themselves as teachers as well as an enthusiasm for teaching, allowed them to network with other teachers and have an improved perception of professional development opportunities. They also gained confidence in themselves in their understanding of engineering and their ability to teach their students engineering. They feel that they are more understanding of engineering research methods and engaged in a variety of productive research efforts. They feel that they produced quality research results and published these results using a variety of methods.
