Learning from a Teacher's Perspective

In recent years, enrollment in STEM related fields has steadily declined. To combat this, the INSPIRES curriculum (INcreasing Student Participation, Interest, and Recruitment in Engineering & Science) was developed with the goal to increase student motivation to learn by incorporating real world engineering examples and interactive lessons into the class room. Included are hands-on activities, online animations and simulations and a team engineering design challenge which allows students to solve a real world engineering problem using creativity and commonly found items. The curriculum being used this year, "Engineering in Healthcare: A Heart Lung Case Study," follows a young girl who suffers from a heart defect which requires her to have open heart surgery to repair. The INSPIRES project has evolved from creating curriculum to providing teacher Professional Development. The most recent step of this evolution has been to extend the teacher Professional Development (PD) from a two day workshop to a three week summer workshop. The new PD program has allowed for a more in depth cohesion of engineering content, pedagogy, and reflection. The PD program was split up into three distinct sections. In the mornings, the teachers were team taught the heart lung curriculum by experienced engineering faculty and inquiry-based pedagogical facilitators. In the afternoons, the teachers applied what they learned as they taught students that were enrolled in the Upward Bound program. While teaching, the teachers were videotaped and observed by the INSPIRES team. After each lesson, the teachers and the INSPIRES team reviewed the recordings and collectively provided constructive criticism to improve content understanding, teaching pedagogy and curriculum delivery. Although this new PD program provides the teachers with more practice, this extension to INSPIRES project has a significant associated cost. Prior to attending the PD program, the teachers were videotaped teaching a class involving engineering design and they will also be videotaped this coming year while teaching the heart lung curriculum. The pre and post videos will be scored using RTOP (Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol). In addition, the teachers completed pre and post tests covering the curriculum content and fundamental concepts (unit conversions, design process, graphing, etc.). They were also required to complete pre PD, post PD and post curriculum enactment surveys on the Importance, Preparedness and Frequency of seven statements (making connections between science & engineering, engage students in open-ended problems, design exercises using constraints, etc.). The pre/post tests and surveys results are presented and are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the new INSPIRES PD program.