Goals and Activities
Goals
- Create a partnership of university engineers and scientists, teacher educators, school teachers, school administrators, and community partners to improve science education in grades 3-6 through the integration of engineering design in science teaching and learning.
- Enhance the quality, quantity, and diversity of in-service and pre-service teachers prepared to utilize engineering design as a means to teach science through authentic, inquiry-based, multi-disciplinary, design projects.
- Adapt, refine, and test existing project- and design-based curricular materials/tasks, and where necessary develop new ones, to support the teaching of elementary science through authentic, inquiry-based, multi-disciplinary, design projects.
- Generate evidence-based outcomes that con-tribute to our understanding of how teachers teach science through the engineering design process and how young students effectively learn science concepts through design-based activities.
Implementation Activities
In-service teacher professional development and support
- Summer Institute and follow-up professional development
- Work with disciplinary faculty
- SLEDhub online community and resource repository (sledhub.org)
Pre-service teacher preparation
- Special elementary science methods course focused on design
- Pre-service teachers linked with SLED participating schools and teachers
- Pre-service teachers assist with Summer Institute
Adaptation and/or development of engineering design activities for grades 3-6 by teams of faculty with disciplinary expertise in engineering and science.
Research and dissemination
- Research addresses three key aspects of the project: the partnership, teacher implementation, and student learning.
- Dissemination includes presentations at professional meetings, writings about the project, media exposure, and use of the SLEDhub online community and resource repository.
2011 SLED Summer Institute