Merging Engineering and Physics
for K-12 Teachers
Dr. Dan MacIsaac, Kathleen Stadler, Sam Cirpila, Bradley Gearhart, & Alyssa Cederman
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu>
Background
The Integrated Science and Engineering Partnership (ISEP) is a $10 million
dollar National Science Foundation Math Science Partnership project involving
thirteen high needs schools from Buffalo Public Schools who are working
together with SUNY Buffalo, Buffalo State College, the Buffalo Museum of
Science, Praxair and other partners to improve classroom Science,
Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) instruction in K-12 classrooms.
This poster focuses on the creation of specific courses combining Engineering
Design, Technology and Physics content addressing NGSS standards for K-12
teachers. These courses are offered as part of the SUNY Buffalo State
Summer Physics Teachers’ Academy.
As a core partner in ISEP, SUNY Buffalo State has committed to institutional
change via the development of two new interdisciplinary professional
development graduate credit summer workshop courses for K-12 teachers in
Physics and Engineering. This new collaboration is both across departments
(Physics and Technology) and across schools (School of Natural and Social
Sciences and School of Professions) at Buffalo State. To develop such
courses, Physics and Technology first offered two courses in Summers 2012
and 2013, with the intent of developing a merged curriculum after piloting
suitable activities during summers 1 and 2 of grant activity, working with K-12
master STEM teachers.
In Summer 2012 the first pilot course was taught in Physics at Buffalo State as
part of the established Buffalo State Summer Physics Teachers Academy, and
15 Buffalo Public Schools teachers completed a course largely based on the
Physics and Everyday Thinking curriculum for K-12 teachers (Goldberg et al).
In Summer 2013, the second pilot course was taught in Technology Education
largely centered upon Technology and the Engineering Design Process for K12 teachers, and 12 BPS teachers and 3 non-BPS teachers completed this
class. Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), the recently finalized
curriculum guidelines expected to drive future NYSED STEM teaching reform
also played a prominent role in 2013 summer workshop class activity.
Courses’ Activities and Qualitative Teacher Data
PET Curriculum
Initial Beliefs
PHY 594 participants worked through the Energy, Optics,
and Magnetism units in the Physics of Everyday Thinking
(PET) curriculum by Goldberg, Otero, and Robinson
(2010). Throughout the curriculum, participants
experienced reformed pedagogy through:
• Hands-on activities throughout curriculum
• Group whiteboard presentations and class discourse to
build conceptual models and deepen understanding of
content
Daily reflective journals indicated the wide variety of
reflection levels.
Initial opinions expressed by the participants of both courses demonstrated a
wide range of expectations, levels of confidence, and perspectives. Some
participants were eager for the hands-on STEM experience while others felt
out of their comfort zone. Many participants hoped to learn how to integrate
STEM into their curriculum.
Journals pointed towards an increasing level of confidence with increasing
grade level taught. High school teachers, overall, expressed more
confidence than their peers teaching at the elementary level. Also, teachers
of science and technology expressed far greater levels of self efficacy and
comfort related to STEM education.
PHY/TED 594: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers Goals:
Content Goals – to learn about the engineering design process as a unifying STEM
construct, especially in the domains of mechanics and energy, with project extensions
to biology, earth science, and chemistry.
Pedagogical Knowledge – to practice cooperative group learning, practice using
white-boarding to support small and whole group discourse, to experience pedagogical
framework through the student lens, and practice the use of reflective journals and
projects to learn and teach both science content and engineering design process.
Other Goals – to foster membership in a professional learning community associated
with ISEP, to establish and develop trust with colleagues and ISEP staff.
TED 594 participants experienced the engineering design process through two separate challenges:
Participants of the skimmer car design challenge built skimmer cars and used the activity as a vehicle to walk through the engineering and design
process by:
• Whiteboard presentations about how the skimmer cars could be used to teach grade-specific NGSS content
• Class discourse about science and engineering practices that relate to the activity
• Building the cars, conducting initial tests, making measurements and organizing data
• Used relevant concepts in science and engineering to analyze results and revise their car design
• Connected activity to performance expectation contained within the NGSS
Participants of the mousetrap car design challenge designed and built mouse trap powered cars
• Initial design, assembly, and testing of cars
• Formal instruction on conservation of energy as related to the mousetrap cars
• instructors modeled highly effective pedagogy to define different types of
energy and energy conversions between one
type to another
• Image 1 shows a handout used to
facilitate class discourse
• Revisions and retesting of cars
• Competitions for speed, distance, and accuracy.
Quantitative Teacher Data
The PHY 594 course was assessed with the PET Diagnostic. The PET
Diagnostic is a nine item extended response instrument scored via a
rubric from a total of twenty-eight possible points. The instrument item
domains include Newton’s laws, force, motion and friction, elementary
optics and circuit concepts and energy conservation
www.POSTERPRESENTATIONS.com
Table 1
Graph 1: PET Diagnostic Gains (Energy and Optics)
Selected Items from PET Diagnostic
Pre
0.80
Post
0.70
gain
0.60
0.50
The PET Diagnostic was administered pre and post instruction.
However, only items 4,5 and 9 were used in the analysis since course
instruction was focused on Energy, Magnetism and Optics, which
correspond to item 4,5 and 9 on the Diagnostic. There is no item
assessing magnetism.
6.50 ±2.93
0.47 ±0.42**
0.40
Gain
Summer 2012 (Total 4,5,9) 3.29 ±2.87
Question 4,5 (Optics)
1.64 ±1.55
3.60 ±1.65
0.48 ±0.53**
0.30
0.20
0.10
Question 9 (Energy)
Participants showed a statistically significant gain in their scores for
questions 4,5 and 9 from the PET diagnostic (see Table 1 and graph 1).
These gains indicate that students increased in conceptual
understanding of optics and energy transfer from course instruction.
1.64 ±1.69
3.13 ±1.96
0.32 ±0.58*
0.00
-0.10
* p < 0.05. **p < 0.01
0
-0.20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
Student
Table 1
Conclusions
Content Goals – The PET Diagnostics results show that content understanding
grew over the course PHY 594. Final posters of TED 594 demonstrated
effective application of the engineering and design process into their individual
STEM content and grade levels. Posters also demonstrated growth in
translating the NGSS into appropriate activities for each teacher’s content and
grade level classrooms.
Pedagogical Knowledge – By placing teacher participants in the role of
students, participants began to question their own instructional practices and
started to think about instructional pedagogy in addition to STEM content.
Presentations from both classes demonstrated a shift towards hands-on,
student centered activities associated with reformed methods of teaching.
POSTER TEMPLATES BY:
Both courses required a final presentation. In PHY 594
(2012), participants presented an activity or concept that
they planned to incorporate into their instruction. In TED
594 (2013), participants were required to create and
present a poster on an activity to incorporate the
engineering design process into their instruction. The
integration of STEM activities into the various classes,
and grade levels, demonstrated a greatly enhanced
understanding of the engineering and design process as
it applied to each individual classroom population, as
well as a high level of confidence to teach the process.
The diverse inclusion of cross-curricular components in
the final posters, indicated a conceptual understanding
of the interconnectedness of the content areas though
the lens of the engineering and design process.
Engineering Design Challenge Projects
The Courses
• Each course is two weeks, four hours per day; all BPS teacher expenses plus stipend
paid
• Elementary teachers as well as middle and high school teachers of science,
special education, and technology education
• PHY 594 (2012): Focus on PET Energy, Magnetism and Optics
• Energy as a unifying topic among different science
• Magnetism for Nature of Science
• Optics as a physical science topic that would interest Living Environment
instructors.
• TED 594 (2013): Focus on Engineering Design Process as related to NGSS
• Learning how to navigate through and understand the Next Generation
Science Standards document
• Exploration of content and practice development K-12
• Taking two specific engineering design challenges and relating both content
and practices to grade level and/or subject
• Using experiences in the course to design lessons/activities that meet
performance expectations of NGSS
• Time devoted to teaching physics content, including forces, energy and
simple machines as unifying principles among different science disciplines
and applications
Final Poster Project
Other Goals – Supplies were given to several schools which included
whiteboards, markers and a variety of technology design kits. Every participant
received a trebuchet kit and was offered funding for professional development
opportunities related to STEM education. ISEP is creating both topical and
local Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in various disciplines and we
intend to start a Physics and Engineering community specifically at PS#31 and
across all previous teacher attendees of TED594 in summer 2013 and PHY596
in summer 2012.
Outcome and Disclaimer
Formal Course Proposal – We are currently writing formal proposals for two
new cross-listed 3cr workshop laboratory courses
PHY/TED 503: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers I, and
PHY/TED 504: Integrated Physics and Engineering for Teachers II
to the Buffalo State College Senate Curriculum Committee. These proposed
courses will feature greater fluidity between Physics and Engineering design
than has previously been offered.
This activity was sponsored by the Integrated Science and Engineering Partnership
(ISEP), NSF-MSP project DUE-1102998. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or
recommendations presented are only those of the presenter grantee/researcher,
author, or agency employee; and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National
Science Foundation.
This poster is available at
http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/pubs/AAPTmtgs/AAPT2014Jan/