Investigating Middle School Teachers' Engineering Subject Matter and Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Investigators
Morgan Hynes
Dissertation Committee
Barbara Brizuela & Judah Schwartz (Tufts University, Education Department)
Chris Rogers
David Crismond (City College New York)
Goals
The goal of this research is to investigate the subject matter knowledge(SMK) and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) that middle-school math,science, and technology teachers use and develop as they teach an engineering unit. Understanding the knowledge base required to teach engineering at the middle-school level can guide teachers and teacher educators in preparing future engineering teachers.
Research Questions
• What subject matter knowledge do middle school math and science teachers use and develop as they teach an engineering unit focusing on the engineering design process?
• What engineering pedagogical content knowledge do middle school math and science teachers know, use,and develop as they teach the said engineering unit?
• How do math and science teachers connect their subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge the same and differently when teaching the said engineering unit?
Methodology
Six middle-school teachers were selected to participate in this study and all taught the same LEGO robotics-engineering curriculum developed by the researcher and collaborators. Each of the teachers previously participated in a summer teacher professional development workshop led by the researcher or collaborators. Data from these teachers was collected in the form of: (1) semi- structured interviews, (2)videotaped classroom observations, (3) hands-on think-aloud tasks, and(4) student projects.
Miles and Huberman's (1994) qualitative data analysis approach will be applied in the analysis of the interview, task, observation, and student project data. The approach incorporates different types of data into displays and matrices to help reduce and organize data for analysis. The data is then analyzed by noting patterns and themes, clustering data, making comparisons, and noting relationships and then organizing the data into conceptually ordered matrices and charts, which help tell the story. A complete content analysis of the curriculum and results from the previous pilot study (see Hynes, 2007b) provided the basis for the coding scheme that has been developed to this point. Both within-case analysis for each teacher and cross-case analysis among the teachers will be used to examine the data.
Implications
The results from this study may help inform engineering educators prepare teachers,develop teacher resources, and create curriculum that will foster students' knowledge and interest in engineering. The research may also provide valuable insight into methods of analyzing teacher knowledge and how it can be researched further. If nothing else a small handful of teachers and their students will experience the excitement of engineering with LEGO!
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