Data Saves the Whales! was developed as part of the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integr... more Data Saves the Whales! was developed as part of the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project, funded by the National Science Foundation through its Math and Science Partnership program. A central outcome of the AMP-IT-UP project was the development of 1-week modules for core middle school math and science courses that were aligned with best practices as put forth in the Next Generation Science Standards and Standards of Mathematical Practice. Data Saves the Whales! is a middle school mathematics module that is set within a marine ecosystem. It focuses on independent and dependent variables and Cartesian coordinate graphing, and on math practices related to data representation—i.e. how data can be represented in different ways to communicate various messages to an audience. Students engage in a simulated investigation to collect oceanographic data, meant to mimic the experimental procedures used by marine scientists when collecting samples, and learn different methods of graphing the data to effectively communicate their findings. This module features work conducted by the research team of Dr. Ellery Ingall, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science at Georgia Tech, and integrates math skills with marine science and the concepts of food webs and the interdependence of organisms.
This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to tr... more This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems' analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers' work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.
Her research focuses on improving K-12 STEM education through research on curriculum development,... more Her research focuses on improving K-12 STEM education through research on curriculum development, teacher professional development, and student learning in integrated STEM environments. Dr. Alemdar is currently co-PI for research on various NSF funded projects. In addition, she has been external evaluator for various NSF Projects over the past nine years. Her expertise includes program evaluation, social network analysis and quantitative methods such as Hierarchical Linear Modeling, and Structure Equation Modeling. As part of an NSF funded project, she directed a longitudinal study that focused on measuring engineering curriculum impact on student learning and 21st Century skills. She also has directed a large multi-year multi-institutional social network analysis study to measure changing collaboration patterns among program investigators as a part of a NIH funded grant. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy, with a concentration in Research, Measurement, and Statistics, from Georgia State University.
This study explores student agency in the context of a culturally authentic computer science (CS)... more This study explores student agency in the context of a culturally authentic computer science (CS) curriculum implemented in an introductory CS course in two high schools. Drawing on focus group and interview data, the study utilizes qualitative research methods to examine how students exercise critical agency as they engage in the course and how the curriculum supports student agency. Findings suggest three ways in which the curriculum served as a context for student agency: (1) gaining CS knowledge and skills that students then apply to address real-world needs and problems, (2) creating opportunities to “try-on” or improvise new identities and/or envision “future selves” in CS, and (3) engaging in personally relevant project work that leverages assets students brought to their experience with the curriculum. Implications for CS education research and practice are discussed.
This innovative practice work in progress paper presents the Biologically Inspired Design for Eng... more This innovative practice work in progress paper presents the Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) project, to create socially relevant, accessible, highly-contextualized biologically inspired design experiences that can be disseminated to high school audiences engineering audiences in Georgia and nationally. Curriculum units are 6–10 weeks in duration and will meet many standards for high school engineering courses in Georgia. There will be three curriculum units (one for each engineering course in the 3-course pathway), each building skills in engineering design and specific skills for BID. Currently in its second year, BIRDEE has developed its first unit of curriculum and has hosted its first professional development with 4 pilot teachers in the summer of 2020. The BIRDEE curriculum situates challenges within socially relevant contexts and provides cutting-edge biological scenarios to ignite creative and humanistic engineering experiences to 1) drive greater engagement in engineering, particularly among women, 2) improve student engineering skills, especially problem definition and ideation skills, and 3) increase students awareness of the connection and impacts between the engineered and living worlds. This paper describes the motivation for the BIRDEE project, the learning goals for the curriculum, and a description of the first unit. We provide reflections and feedback from teacher work and focus groups during our summer professional development and highlight the challenges associated with building BID competency across biology and engineering to equip teachers with the skills they need to teach the BIRDEE units. These lessons can be applied to teaching BID more broadly, as its multidisciplinary nature creates challenges (and opportunities) for teaching and learning engineering design.
Volume 6: 33rd International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM), 2021
In this case study we report on the use of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned for... more In this case study we report on the use of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned form of Structure-Behavior-Function, called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM), to teach four high school engineering teachers an approach for Biologically Inspired Design (BID). Functional theories of design describe a natural way in which designers solve design problems. They provide support for case-based and analogical-based reasoning systems and have been used successfully to teach BID to undergraduate students. We found that teachers instructed on BID practice and pedagogy using our modified theory were able to grasp the structural concepts and looked for clear markers separating mechanism (behavior) and function. Because of the systems-of-systems nature of most biological entities, these boundaries were often subjective, presenting unique challenge to teachers. As high school engineering teachers look for methods to enhance their pedagogy and to understand multidisciplinary content, ...
Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, 2020
In January 2016, Georgia Tech launched a campus-wide academic initiative (“Center for Serve-Learn... more In January 2016, Georgia Tech launched a campus-wide academic initiative (“Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain”) aimed at preparing undergraduate students in all majors to use their disciplinary knowledge and skills to contribute to the major societal challenge of creating sustainable communities. The initiative calls for faculty members from all six Georgia Tech colleges to develop courses and co-curricular opportunities that will help students learn about sustainability and community engagement and hone their skills by engaging in real-world projects with nonprofit, community, government, and business partners. Affiliated courses address various aspects of the Center’s sustainable communities framework, which presents sustainability as an integrated system connecting environment, economy, and society. This chapter reports on one engineering instructor’s ongoing efforts that bring sustainability into the engineering classroom through sociotechnical project-based learning. This cornerstone design course is one of more than 100 Center-affiliated courses currently offered; the full set of Center-affiliated courses enrolls over 5,000 students per year across all six colleges. The sustainability activities introduced in the freshman design course pertain particularly to the Center’s vision that all graduates of the institute, a majority of whom will graduate with engineering degrees, are able to contribute to the creation of sustainable communities and to understand the impact of their professional practice on the communities in which they work. A situated knowledge and learning pedagogical theory is used in the Center-affiliated course, where concept, activity, and context are involved in student learning to produce useable robust knowledge. The sociotechnical project-based teaching model with contextualized design problems is used to engage students throughout the course by utilizing computer-aided-design problems that incorporate sustainability within both individual and team projects. In this chapter, the authors present the pedagogical approaches to learning, strategies, and challenges for implementation and assessment of intervention activities, and data analyses of both student reflection data and pre- and post-survey data.
STEM teacher leadership represents the intersection of two important educational foci in the U.S.... more STEM teacher leadership represents the intersection of two important educational foci in the U.S.: STEM education and teacher leadership. This paper set includes studies that explore a conceptual framework for STEM teacher leadership both theoretically and empirically. Within that set we will describe how the conceptual framework has evolved, as well as what we have learned about the impact of that framework on the teacher and leadership development of a group of 32 teaching fellows (TFs) and master teaching fellows (MTFs) in the Noyce-funded I-IMPACT project. Paper 1 will describe the development of the framework and initial insights concerning the internalization of key principles from it by the MTFs. Paper 2 will describe how used social network analysis has been used to examine the MTFs participation in various communities of practice. Paper 3 looks at how the EQUIP observation protocol has been utilized to examine MTF-TF mentoring interactions. Paper 4 explores how the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire can be utilized to trace the leadership development of both the TFs and MTFs. Finally, paper 5 considers how both utilization-focused and theory-driven evaluation frameworks can be used to examine identity development and teacher leadership capacity of project participants
2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2021
Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creat... more Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creating a computationally literate workforce capable of recognizing and eliminating algorithmic discrimination requires diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Diversity within computing is a persistent problem; in 2014, several large tech companies released diversity reports and made commitments to improvement. As of 2020, improvements have been minor, especially for Black employees. Compared to US demographics, the percentage of Black and Latinx students pursuing degrees in computing remains low, even as numbers improve in STEM more broadly. It is more important than ever to prioritize a diverse computing workforce and a computationally literate workforce, more broadly, whose interests reside with equitable outcomes.
The Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project is ... more The Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project is an NSF-sponsored Math and Science Partnership between the Griffin-Spalding County School System and Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC). The AMP-IT-UP curriculum consists of engineering coursework for middle and high schools and 1-week modules that integrate STEM practices for middle school science and mathematics classrooms. Three modules have been designed for each core math and science class across grades 6-8 and integrate the Georgia Standards of Excellence and the Next Generation Science Standards. Each module focuses on one of the practices of Experimental Design, Data Visualization and Data-Driven Decision Making, integrates math and science content, and uses grade level core ideas as a backstory to engage students. Middle school math and science teachers will experience hands-on activities associated with the modules, learn how to implement them, and receive access to all curriculum materials
Evidence-centered design (ECD) is an assessment framework tailored to provide structure and rigor... more Evidence-centered design (ECD) is an assessment framework tailored to provide structure and rigor to the assessment development process, and also to generate evidence of assessment validity by tightly coupling assessment tasks with focal knowledge, skills, and abilities (FKSAs). This framework is particularly well-suited to FKSAs that are complex and multi-part (Mislevy and Haertel, 2006), as is the case with much of the focal content within the computer science (CS) domain. This paper presents an applied case of ECD used to guide assessment development in the context of a redesigned introductory CS curriculum. In order to measure student learning of CS skills and content taught through the curriculum, knowledge assessments were written and piloted. The use of ECD provided an organizational framework for assessment development efforts, offering assessment developers a clear set of steps with accompanying documentation and decision points, as well as providing robust validity evidenc...
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2021
for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding mod... more for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
There is growing enthusiasm for STEAM education in preparing students for an increasingly complex... more There is growing enthusiasm for STEAM education in preparing students for an increasingly complex world. However, implementing STEAM in the classroom can be challenging for educators, as it may require collaboration across disciplines, increased workload, and understanding the nature of STEAM integration. This paper details a mixed-methods evaluation of a year-long STEAM teacher training program, in which a STEM teacher and an arts teacher collaborated to design and implement integrated STEAM lessons at each of the nine participating schools (n = 17). The training program consisted of a 5-week summer professional development experience, followed by ongoing financial, material, and pedagogical support during the school year, made possible by the partnership of the schools, a university, and community organizations. Findings from surveys, focus groups, and written reflections suggest that, despite certain challenges, aspects of the training program supported teacher implementation of ...
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
The maker movements, a general term for the rise of inventing, designing, and tinkering, and the ... more The maker movements, a general term for the rise of inventing, designing, and tinkering, and the addition of engineering standards to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have spawned a major evolution in technology classes throughout the country. At Georgia Institute of Technology, a new curriculum attempts to bring the maker movement to high school audiences through both curricular and extra-curricular channels. The curriculum is structured around engineering standards and learning goals that reflect design and advanced manufacturing content, along with employability skills, while borrowing best practices from 'wood shop' and 'technology education' classes. The hope is that this course will bolster many of the 'Attributes of Engineers in 2020' described by the National Academy of Engineering and 21 st Century Skills-these skills and attributes can be beneficial to any college or career path, not just one in engineering. The course incorporates design-build activities into entrepreneurial and business contexts, providing relevance to foundational math skills and science practices while integrating problem solving and cutting-edge technology. The course requires that students draw and render design concepts, communicate design concepts to their peers and clients, fabricate design artifacts, and document their requirements and decisions while engaging in the engineering design process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the results from the first and second year implementation of a maker-infused Advanced Manufacturing (AM) course for high school students in a low income, rural-fringe school system. Results from a portfolio assessment and 21 st Century Skills surveys will be discussed in terms of course effectiveness and challenges to implementation. Similarities and differences between learning goals for this new AM course and the more traditional wood shop and technology education classes will be highlighted. Implications for engineering education, theory, and practice are discussed.
states that "…mathematics is said to be used almost everywhere. However, these uses are not gener... more states that "…mathematics is said to be used almost everywhere. However, these uses are not generally visible except to specialists." The GIFT program is one whose goal is to bridge this gap through substantive projects which bring practicing math teachers into industrial ("real world") projects during the summer, have them integrate their new experiences back into their classroom, and add flexibility (Section 1.1 of DD) to the thinking of their students. The point of this evaluation research is to see, using Success Case Methodology, whether the goals of the program that we see informally being achieved are supported by data. We will use any "unanticipated consequences" from this analysis to improve the GIFT program, expand the analysis to science projects, and, motivated by DD, lay the groundwork for future GIFT-related projects.
Background The Noyce Scholarship Program was created to attract and retain science, technology, e... more Background The Noyce Scholarship Program was created to attract and retain science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers in high-need schools. Teacher support networks, and specifically mentorship support, have been linked to increased retention of high-quality teachers in the classroom. Using a sample of Noyce teachers, we used a multilevel model to explore how the characteristics and composition of novice teachers’ support networks are related to the likelihood that they receive mentorship support, and further, how characteristics common among Noyce programs are related to mentorship support. Results Findings suggest that the characteristics and composition of a teacher’s network, as well as certain Noyce program characteristics, contribute to the likelihood that teachers receive mentorship support from their larger support network. Implications The results of this study highlight the importance of considering how the design of teacher preparation programs may ...
Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National S... more Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded K-12 Math & Science Partnership (MSP) project with a goal of promoting math, science, and engineering learning through STEM integration-focused curricula. As part of this project, curriculum writers developed one-week modules providing instruction on a set of STEM practices within the context of the appropriate grade-level content. These STEM practices are Experimental Design, Data Visualization, and Data-Driven Decision Making; the emphasis of each of these practices is, respectively, the collection of data, the representation of data, and the use of data to support complex decision-making. Nine of these one-week modules were created in the science domain, one focused on each practice at grade levels 6, 7, and 8. A parallel set of nine modules in the math domain were also created. In this paper, we will focus on our assessment of the implementation of thes...
Data Saves the Whales! was developed as part of the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integr... more Data Saves the Whales! was developed as part of the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project, funded by the National Science Foundation through its Math and Science Partnership program. A central outcome of the AMP-IT-UP project was the development of 1-week modules for core middle school math and science courses that were aligned with best practices as put forth in the Next Generation Science Standards and Standards of Mathematical Practice. Data Saves the Whales! is a middle school mathematics module that is set within a marine ecosystem. It focuses on independent and dependent variables and Cartesian coordinate graphing, and on math practices related to data representation—i.e. how data can be represented in different ways to communicate various messages to an audience. Students engage in a simulated investigation to collect oceanographic data, meant to mimic the experimental procedures used by marine scientists when collecting samples, and learn different methods of graphing the data to effectively communicate their findings. This module features work conducted by the research team of Dr. Ellery Ingall, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Science at Georgia Tech, and integrates math skills with marine science and the concepts of food webs and the interdependence of organisms.
This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to tr... more This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems' analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers' work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.
Her research focuses on improving K-12 STEM education through research on curriculum development,... more Her research focuses on improving K-12 STEM education through research on curriculum development, teacher professional development, and student learning in integrated STEM environments. Dr. Alemdar is currently co-PI for research on various NSF funded projects. In addition, she has been external evaluator for various NSF Projects over the past nine years. Her expertise includes program evaluation, social network analysis and quantitative methods such as Hierarchical Linear Modeling, and Structure Equation Modeling. As part of an NSF funded project, she directed a longitudinal study that focused on measuring engineering curriculum impact on student learning and 21st Century skills. She also has directed a large multi-year multi-institutional social network analysis study to measure changing collaboration patterns among program investigators as a part of a NIH funded grant. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy, with a concentration in Research, Measurement, and Statistics, from Georgia State University.
This study explores student agency in the context of a culturally authentic computer science (CS)... more This study explores student agency in the context of a culturally authentic computer science (CS) curriculum implemented in an introductory CS course in two high schools. Drawing on focus group and interview data, the study utilizes qualitative research methods to examine how students exercise critical agency as they engage in the course and how the curriculum supports student agency. Findings suggest three ways in which the curriculum served as a context for student agency: (1) gaining CS knowledge and skills that students then apply to address real-world needs and problems, (2) creating opportunities to “try-on” or improvise new identities and/or envision “future selves” in CS, and (3) engaging in personally relevant project work that leverages assets students brought to their experience with the curriculum. Implications for CS education research and practice are discussed.
This innovative practice work in progress paper presents the Biologically Inspired Design for Eng... more This innovative practice work in progress paper presents the Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) project, to create socially relevant, accessible, highly-contextualized biologically inspired design experiences that can be disseminated to high school audiences engineering audiences in Georgia and nationally. Curriculum units are 6–10 weeks in duration and will meet many standards for high school engineering courses in Georgia. There will be three curriculum units (one for each engineering course in the 3-course pathway), each building skills in engineering design and specific skills for BID. Currently in its second year, BIRDEE has developed its first unit of curriculum and has hosted its first professional development with 4 pilot teachers in the summer of 2020. The BIRDEE curriculum situates challenges within socially relevant contexts and provides cutting-edge biological scenarios to ignite creative and humanistic engineering experiences to 1) drive greater engagement in engineering, particularly among women, 2) improve student engineering skills, especially problem definition and ideation skills, and 3) increase students awareness of the connection and impacts between the engineered and living worlds. This paper describes the motivation for the BIRDEE project, the learning goals for the curriculum, and a description of the first unit. We provide reflections and feedback from teacher work and focus groups during our summer professional development and highlight the challenges associated with building BID competency across biology and engineering to equip teachers with the skills they need to teach the BIRDEE units. These lessons can be applied to teaching BID more broadly, as its multidisciplinary nature creates challenges (and opportunities) for teaching and learning engineering design.
Volume 6: 33rd International Conference on Design Theory and Methodology (DTM), 2021
In this case study we report on the use of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned for... more In this case study we report on the use of a Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned form of Structure-Behavior-Function, called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM), to teach four high school engineering teachers an approach for Biologically Inspired Design (BID). Functional theories of design describe a natural way in which designers solve design problems. They provide support for case-based and analogical-based reasoning systems and have been used successfully to teach BID to undergraduate students. We found that teachers instructed on BID practice and pedagogy using our modified theory were able to grasp the structural concepts and looked for clear markers separating mechanism (behavior) and function. Because of the systems-of-systems nature of most biological entities, these boundaries were often subjective, presenting unique challenge to teachers. As high school engineering teachers look for methods to enhance their pedagogy and to understand multidisciplinary content, ...
Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning, 2020
In January 2016, Georgia Tech launched a campus-wide academic initiative (“Center for Serve-Learn... more In January 2016, Georgia Tech launched a campus-wide academic initiative (“Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain”) aimed at preparing undergraduate students in all majors to use their disciplinary knowledge and skills to contribute to the major societal challenge of creating sustainable communities. The initiative calls for faculty members from all six Georgia Tech colleges to develop courses and co-curricular opportunities that will help students learn about sustainability and community engagement and hone their skills by engaging in real-world projects with nonprofit, community, government, and business partners. Affiliated courses address various aspects of the Center’s sustainable communities framework, which presents sustainability as an integrated system connecting environment, economy, and society. This chapter reports on one engineering instructor’s ongoing efforts that bring sustainability into the engineering classroom through sociotechnical project-based learning. This cornerstone design course is one of more than 100 Center-affiliated courses currently offered; the full set of Center-affiliated courses enrolls over 5,000 students per year across all six colleges. The sustainability activities introduced in the freshman design course pertain particularly to the Center’s vision that all graduates of the institute, a majority of whom will graduate with engineering degrees, are able to contribute to the creation of sustainable communities and to understand the impact of their professional practice on the communities in which they work. A situated knowledge and learning pedagogical theory is used in the Center-affiliated course, where concept, activity, and context are involved in student learning to produce useable robust knowledge. The sociotechnical project-based teaching model with contextualized design problems is used to engage students throughout the course by utilizing computer-aided-design problems that incorporate sustainability within both individual and team projects. In this chapter, the authors present the pedagogical approaches to learning, strategies, and challenges for implementation and assessment of intervention activities, and data analyses of both student reflection data and pre- and post-survey data.
STEM teacher leadership represents the intersection of two important educational foci in the U.S.... more STEM teacher leadership represents the intersection of two important educational foci in the U.S.: STEM education and teacher leadership. This paper set includes studies that explore a conceptual framework for STEM teacher leadership both theoretically and empirically. Within that set we will describe how the conceptual framework has evolved, as well as what we have learned about the impact of that framework on the teacher and leadership development of a group of 32 teaching fellows (TFs) and master teaching fellows (MTFs) in the Noyce-funded I-IMPACT project. Paper 1 will describe the development of the framework and initial insights concerning the internalization of key principles from it by the MTFs. Paper 2 will describe how used social network analysis has been used to examine the MTFs participation in various communities of practice. Paper 3 looks at how the EQUIP observation protocol has been utilized to examine MTF-TF mentoring interactions. Paper 4 explores how the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire can be utilized to trace the leadership development of both the TFs and MTFs. Finally, paper 5 considers how both utilization-focused and theory-driven evaluation frameworks can be used to examine identity development and teacher leadership capacity of project participants
2021 Conference on Research in Equitable and Sustained Participation in Engineering, Computing, and Technology (RESPECT), 2021
Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creat... more Computational thinking has become pervasive across many technical and creative disciplines. Creating a computationally literate workforce capable of recognizing and eliminating algorithmic discrimination requires diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Diversity within computing is a persistent problem; in 2014, several large tech companies released diversity reports and made commitments to improvement. As of 2020, improvements have been minor, especially for Black employees. Compared to US demographics, the percentage of Black and Latinx students pursuing degrees in computing remains low, even as numbers improve in STEM more broadly. It is more important than ever to prioritize a diverse computing workforce and a computationally literate workforce, more broadly, whose interests reside with equitable outcomes.
The Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project is ... more The Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project is an NSF-sponsored Math and Science Partnership between the Griffin-Spalding County School System and Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC). The AMP-IT-UP curriculum consists of engineering coursework for middle and high schools and 1-week modules that integrate STEM practices for middle school science and mathematics classrooms. Three modules have been designed for each core math and science class across grades 6-8 and integrate the Georgia Standards of Excellence and the Next Generation Science Standards. Each module focuses on one of the practices of Experimental Design, Data Visualization and Data-Driven Decision Making, integrates math and science content, and uses grade level core ideas as a backstory to engage students. Middle school math and science teachers will experience hands-on activities associated with the modules, learn how to implement them, and receive access to all curriculum materials
Evidence-centered design (ECD) is an assessment framework tailored to provide structure and rigor... more Evidence-centered design (ECD) is an assessment framework tailored to provide structure and rigor to the assessment development process, and also to generate evidence of assessment validity by tightly coupling assessment tasks with focal knowledge, skills, and abilities (FKSAs). This framework is particularly well-suited to FKSAs that are complex and multi-part (Mislevy and Haertel, 2006), as is the case with much of the focal content within the computer science (CS) domain. This paper presents an applied case of ECD used to guide assessment development in the context of a redesigned introductory CS curriculum. In order to measure student learning of CS skills and content taught through the curriculum, knowledge assessments were written and piloted. The use of ECD provided an organizational framework for assessment development efforts, offering assessment developers a clear set of steps with accompanying documentation and decision points, as well as providing robust validity evidenc...
Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2021
for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding mod... more for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
There is growing enthusiasm for STEAM education in preparing students for an increasingly complex... more There is growing enthusiasm for STEAM education in preparing students for an increasingly complex world. However, implementing STEAM in the classroom can be challenging for educators, as it may require collaboration across disciplines, increased workload, and understanding the nature of STEAM integration. This paper details a mixed-methods evaluation of a year-long STEAM teacher training program, in which a STEM teacher and an arts teacher collaborated to design and implement integrated STEAM lessons at each of the nine participating schools (n = 17). The training program consisted of a 5-week summer professional development experience, followed by ongoing financial, material, and pedagogical support during the school year, made possible by the partnership of the schools, a university, and community organizations. Findings from surveys, focus groups, and written reflections suggest that, despite certain challenges, aspects of the training program supported teacher implementation of ...
2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings
The maker movements, a general term for the rise of inventing, designing, and tinkering, and the ... more The maker movements, a general term for the rise of inventing, designing, and tinkering, and the addition of engineering standards to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have spawned a major evolution in technology classes throughout the country. At Georgia Institute of Technology, a new curriculum attempts to bring the maker movement to high school audiences through both curricular and extra-curricular channels. The curriculum is structured around engineering standards and learning goals that reflect design and advanced manufacturing content, along with employability skills, while borrowing best practices from 'wood shop' and 'technology education' classes. The hope is that this course will bolster many of the 'Attributes of Engineers in 2020' described by the National Academy of Engineering and 21 st Century Skills-these skills and attributes can be beneficial to any college or career path, not just one in engineering. The course incorporates design-build activities into entrepreneurial and business contexts, providing relevance to foundational math skills and science practices while integrating problem solving and cutting-edge technology. The course requires that students draw and render design concepts, communicate design concepts to their peers and clients, fabricate design artifacts, and document their requirements and decisions while engaging in the engineering design process. The purpose of this paper is to explore the results from the first and second year implementation of a maker-infused Advanced Manufacturing (AM) course for high school students in a low income, rural-fringe school system. Results from a portfolio assessment and 21 st Century Skills surveys will be discussed in terms of course effectiveness and challenges to implementation. Similarities and differences between learning goals for this new AM course and the more traditional wood shop and technology education classes will be highlighted. Implications for engineering education, theory, and practice are discussed.
states that "…mathematics is said to be used almost everywhere. However, these uses are not gener... more states that "…mathematics is said to be used almost everywhere. However, these uses are not generally visible except to specialists." The GIFT program is one whose goal is to bridge this gap through substantive projects which bring practicing math teachers into industrial ("real world") projects during the summer, have them integrate their new experiences back into their classroom, and add flexibility (Section 1.1 of DD) to the thinking of their students. The point of this evaluation research is to see, using Success Case Methodology, whether the goals of the program that we see informally being achieved are supported by data. We will use any "unanticipated consequences" from this analysis to improve the GIFT program, expand the analysis to science projects, and, motivated by DD, lay the groundwork for future GIFT-related projects.
Background The Noyce Scholarship Program was created to attract and retain science, technology, e... more Background The Noyce Scholarship Program was created to attract and retain science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers in high-need schools. Teacher support networks, and specifically mentorship support, have been linked to increased retention of high-quality teachers in the classroom. Using a sample of Noyce teachers, we used a multilevel model to explore how the characteristics and composition of novice teachers’ support networks are related to the likelihood that they receive mentorship support, and further, how characteristics common among Noyce programs are related to mentorship support. Results Findings suggest that the characteristics and composition of a teacher’s network, as well as certain Noyce program characteristics, contribute to the likelihood that teachers receive mentorship support from their larger support network. Implications The results of this study highlight the importance of considering how the design of teacher preparation programs may ...
Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National S... more Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded K-12 Math & Science Partnership (MSP) project with a goal of promoting math, science, and engineering learning through STEM integration-focused curricula. As part of this project, curriculum writers developed one-week modules providing instruction on a set of STEM practices within the context of the appropriate grade-level content. These STEM practices are Experimental Design, Data Visualization, and Data-Driven Decision Making; the emphasis of each of these practices is, respectively, the collection of data, the representation of data, and the use of data to support complex decision-making. Nine of these one-week modules were created in the science domain, one focused on each practice at grade levels 6, 7, and 8. A parallel set of nine modules in the math domain were also created. In this paper, we will focus on our assessment of the implementation of thes...
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Papers by Meltem Alemdar