Assessing English As A Second Language Middle School Students' Ability To Learn Engineering Concepts

This paper presents evidence that English as a second language (ESL) middle school students can effectively learn engineering concepts through a sequence of one hour, hands-on activities. Electrical and mechanical engineering concepts are introduced through an integrated sequence of one hour modules. These cross-disciplinary modular activities include exploring mechanical potential through flowing water, building electric circuits, and using this knowledge to build a model electric car. These engineering-based activities provide a rich source for enhancing academic language skills through speaking and writing in English. Methods for training undergraduate and graduate Engineering Teaching Fellows to work effectively with ESL students are provided. The process of creating K-12 engineering-based lessons and activities for publication in the TeachEngineering Digital Library, part of the National Science Digital Library, is outlined using the engineering-based curricular unit created in this project. This project was completed by a senior undergraduate student in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science in Engineering Degree. Introduction and Background This paper discusses how meaningful engineering content may be taught in an English as a second language (ESL) class by undergraduate or graduate Engineering Teaching Fellows. It discusses the skills necessary for an Engineering Teaching Fellow to be able to teach effectively in an ESL classroom and examines ways of preparing Engineering Teaching Fellows to work in ESL classrooms. The work of one of the Fellows in the Engineering K-PhD Program at Duke University is used as a case study for effective teaching of engineering content in the ESL classroom. The case study was performed at Sherwood Githens Middle School in Durham, NC. In-class time consisted of seven weekly, one-hour class blocks. The class was composed of eight ESL students including six Hispanic students and two Southeast Asian students, all of whom have been in the United States for less than two years and have a novice level of English proficiency. All were in sixth grade, and their abilities to use the English language were extremely limited. Their teacher described the students’ average English reading capability as below grade level, equivalent to lower elementary. From this case study, methods for training graduate and undergraduate Engineering Teaching Fellows to work with ESL students are presented, and suggested pedagogical methods are provided. Evidence for student learning among case study participants is provided. Finally, the process of publishing these lessons and activities in the TeachEngineering digital library is described. Engineering provides a vehicle to teach middle school students that they can use science and mathematics as tools to creatively design and build solutions to problems. Numerous outreach programs placing graduate and undergraduate engineering students in K-12 classrooms as Engineering Teaching Fellows have demonstrated the ability to positively impact K-12 students through instruction in engineering. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate P ge 12265.3 Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program has funded such Fellows programs at more than 20 engineering schools. These programs primarily utilize graduate students as resource agents to assist with the creation and implementation of project-based engineering curricula to teach math and science concepts in K-12 classrooms. Other educational funding agencies have supported similar engineering teaching Fellows programs. Fellows in many of these programs encounter limited English proficiency (LEP) students. Four Fellows programs have been implemented by the Pratt School of Engineering’s K-PhD Program: Duke-NCSU Engineering Teaching Fellows in Elementary Education sponsored by an NSF GK-12 Track 1 grant, MUSCLE: Math Understanding through the Science of Life sponsored by the GE Foundation Math Excellence Program, MUSIC: Math Understanding through Science Integrated with Curriculum sponsored by an NSF GK-12 Track 2 grant, and Techtronics: Hands-on Exploration of Technology in Everyday Life sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Student Science Enrichment Program. One intention of these programs is that, after participating in the program, students who were initially intimidated by science and mathematics will be more interested in these subjects in high school and ultimately more inclined to pursue engineering at the college level. Student motivation in an ideal middle school engineering program includes encouraging students to “think like engineers” and be creative in their approaches to generating unique solutions to design challenges. This process of inquiry through creative design is most effective when the students have the opportunity to perform meaningful tests of their designs in order to gain understanding from their successes and failures. Goals of these programs include empowering students, especially from at-risk populations, by providing avenues to experience the excitement and potential for innovation through an ageappropriate introduction to engineering. At-risk populations often contain a significant percentage of students for whom English is not their first language. The number of ESL students in the United States is growing. During the 2004-05 school year, Department of Education statistics indicate that 10.5% or just over 5 million public school students nationwide were English language learners. In light of the number of ESL students in the United States, especially in lower income neighborhoods, it is important for school systems to address their needs. ESL students must be provided the same opportunities that regular English speaking students are afforded. Engineering content taught by ESL teachers through a Lego robotics course has been outlined previously. This paper provides another model by which engineering may be introduced into ESL classrooms through the use of Engineering Teaching Fellows. Language and cultural barriers present significant obstacles to teaching ESL students. In standard reading, writing, and mathematics curricula, these students present a greater challenge to teachers than English-speaking students. ESL students live in households where English is not the primary language and many are placed in classes appropriate for their age but inappropriate for their language abilities. Cultural context is also important in working with ESL students. When selecting starting points for lessons, it is important that students can relate to those starting points. For example, an engineering design problem based on building a skyscraper may not have very much meaning for a student who has never been to a big city. Additionally, students may have different expectations for classroom conduct if they are from a different background than the teacher. Page 12265.4 It has been shown that teaching language through content is crucial to the development of ESL students in the public school setting. Earlier approaches have favored teaching language skills prior to full course content or teaching students basic skills that are at the same level as their English language skills. The problem with this approach is that it takes approximately seven years for ESL students to reach the language levels necessary for achievement at the level of their peers. At this point, they are so far behind students for whom English is the primary language that they cannot catch up. Teachers without appropriate training in working with second language students often have trouble teaching them content. Content taught to students utilizing the same methods as first language students at grade level is not likely to be understood by ESL students. On the other hand, content should not be taught at a very low level simply because their language skills are lower since ESL students are capable of learning content at a level higher than their language skills. Therefore, content should be taught in conjunction with language skills. To make this possible, it is critical that content be divided into blocks of “comprehensible input.” Each block of discrete information must build on the preceding one in order to avoid flooding the ESL learner. It is important to provide ESL students with context within which they can learn content vocabulary. A lecture with few pictures would be referred to as context-reduced and is very difficult for an ESL student to understand. Conversely, context-embedded language includes the use of visual clues, gestures, and facial expressions as “scaffolding” to make material less abstract and more comprehensible. An important goal in teaching content and language skills concurrently to ESL students is to develop an embedded and cognitively demanding lesson context. Furthermore, the order in which concepts are taught is important. Concepts requiring less linguistic proficiency such as hands-on activities and demonstrations should precede the development of more abstract ideas requiring significant use of language skills. Demonstrations and hands-on activities that are context-embedded aid in student understanding and serve as a solid foundation for more advanced content and language activities. Research suggests creating opportunities for ESL students to work in cooperative groups fosters communication and learning content. Project-based engineering design activities are ideal opportunities for group work provided that the students have sufficient English proficiency to communicate their design ideas. Students in the following case study lacked sufficient English proficiency to allow cooperative group work. They did, however, successfully complete a number of activities in pairs. As an example, students were partnered to build certain circuits, which allowed them to benefit from shared experiences to solve