Assessing the Need for Professional Development in Engineering Among Rural High School Science Teachers (Fundamental)

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for K-12 science instruction, released in 2013, were developed to address lagging student achievement and to improve scientific and technological literacy in the United States educational system. To accomplish this goal, the NGSS integrate standards on engineering design and application at an equal level with standards on scientific literacy. So far, 18 states have formally adopted these standards, and others have begun to reevaluate existing standards in this light. The widespread adoption of the NGSS means that many science departments and teachers are now expected to develop and present instruction aligned to standards on engineering, a field in which most science teachers have minimal training. To assess the possible need for engineering training in response to the NGSS, a survey was created and distributed to high school science teachers around the country. The first component of the survey asked about teachers’ confidence in delivering engineering content, incorporating engineering applications, and answering students’ engineering related questions in their classrooms. The second part asked how much teachers felt they would benefit from different aspects of professional development related to engineering. Responses from 338 teachers indicated a general need and desire for engineering professional development, but this need was greater among teachers working in rural areas. Rural teachers expressed significantly less confidence in teaching engineering concepts and may perceive a greater benefit from professional development on engineering in the classroom. In addition, rural teachers indicated different priorities for professional development. Though teachers overall saw the greatest benefit from professional development on lesson plans that incorporate engineering, rural teachers indicated an even higher benefit just from having access to an expert teacher in engineering. The lower confidence that we see may be indicative of the limited support, community, and resources available to teachers in rural areas who often have a more limited budget and fewer colleagues to collaborate with. These results make a strong case for the creation of a professional development program that targets science teachers in rural areas, helping them incorporate engineering into their classrooms and providing networking opportunities with trained engineering teachers. Introduction In recent years, there has been an increased national push to incorporate technology and engineering into math and science curricula. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) (2010) recommended that relevant engineering learning goals be embedded within existing standards of other STEM disciplines rather than evolve as separate stand-alone engineering standards. The Framework for K-12 Science Education carefully articulated a framework for the integration called for by the NAE (National Research Council [NRC], 2012), by emphasizing the equal roles of scientific and engineering practices within the K-12 science classroom. Though the framework differentiates between the practice of engineering and that of science, it highlights the many similarities between the two and describes how the integration of both practices best prepares students for real life applications. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), developed between 2010 and 2013 (NGSS Lead States, 2013) built upon the NRC framework by describing specific expectations and competencies for each grade level that were developed to align with the framework. In the standards, engineering and technology are considered one of the four core ideas that the standards aim to cover. This means that engineering design is woven throughout the ensemble of standards on all scientific topics. So far, 18 states have formally adopted the NGSS into their educational system, and others have adopted new standards heavily based on the NGSS (National Association of State Boards of Education, 2016). This inclusion of engineering into the standard science curriculum represents a new body of knowledge that has not typically been included in traditional K-12 education. Science educators in states that have adopted the NGSS now hold the responsibility of teaching their students to meet objectives in engineering design, while they themselves may have little to no training in the field. This creates a significant gap in content knowledge that concerns many science educators (Bybee, 2014). This knowledge gap creates an opportunity for professional development to aid teachers in building new expertise and curriculum that incorporates engineering concepts. Many programs have been designed to provide this kind of professional development in the response to the new standards. For example, Custer, Ross and Daugherty (2014) worked with 21 science teachers to incorporate engineering concepts into science lessons. Moorhead, et. al. (2016) developed robotics activities aligned with the NGSS, and worked with math and science teachers to implement them in classrooms. Berry and DeRosa (2015) provided professional development in which teachers learned about engineering education and developed their own engineering curriculum aligned with the NGSS. Bowen (2014) described teacher internships that provide experience with the engineering design process, so that teachers bring more engineering knowledge to their science classrooms. These cases are just a sample of the programs that have been developed to help teachers integrate engineering into K-12 classrooms. These programs have many positive effects, however there is a tendency to provide training primarily based on the need as subjectively perceived by academia or the researchers, rather than a thorough assessment of the need. Given the lack of clear standards for K-12 engineering education, Moore et al. (2009) developed a framework and set of principles for quality engineering education through extensive research. This framework is an important foundation, however as programs design training for educators, it is important to also assess the current abilities, confidence, and needs of potential participants in order to provide relevant and effective professional development. Ames (2014) conducted research along these lines within the state of Utah to assess teacher preparedness for integrating engineering design into science curricula in response to the NGSS. This research found that science teachers did not feel prepared to teach engineering concepts, although they could easily recognize and differentiate science and engineering processes. Unfortunately, the implications for this work are limited since it only surveyed teachers within Utah, a state that did not adopt science standards with engineering concepts until 2015, after Ames’ publication (Utah State Board of Education, 2015). Not only is it important to directly understand the needs of educators, it is also important to recognize that professional development needs may significantly vary between teachers in different demographics. One such characteristic that has long influenced educational practice and research is the distinction between rural and urban schools. Rural schools face unique challenges because of their position within small and sometimes limited communities (Arnold, 2005). This has been a concern of educational researchers for decades as evidenced by the body of literature and practice focused on rural education (Sher, 1977), and continues to be a relevant consideration today. This paper seeks to expand on the work done by Ames by presenting results from a similar study, while focusing on a particular demographic: secondary science teachers serving in rural communities. The authors surveyed over 300 secondary science educators across the country to assess their current confidence in presenting and addressing engineering related topics in their classroom, and the benefit they would anticipate from professional development in a variety of specific topics and categories. Responses were categorized by the population of the community around the respondent’s school, and the responses of teachers in rural areas were compared with those in each other population category. This research aims to contribute to the creation of targeted professional development programs that meet the expressed needs of secondary science educators as they prepare to implement engineering standards into their classrooms. Methods To better understand the need for professional development in engineering among science teachers, a survey was created based on the survey developed by Ames (2014), and made available to 2520 science teachers from 20 states around the US, including 7 states that have already adopted the NGSS. From this participant pool, 338 completed responses were received and analyzed. Aside from a few introductory questions at the beginning and demographic questions at the end, the survey can be divided into 4 major sections. The first section (9 questions) asked about participants’ confidence in delivering engineering related content in their science classrooms (e.g. "I feel confident being able to answer most of my student's engineering focused questions in a science class.") Participants responded on a 7-point Likert scale for 6 questions, and a 5-point Likert scale for the remaining 3 questions. Both scales ranged from “Disagree a great deal” to “Agree a great deal”, which was coded numerically as 1 through 7 respectively. Since the responses on the 5-point scale were embedded in the 7-point scale, the same numerical coding was used. The second set of questions (9 questions) asked participants to rate aspects of professional development that they felt would benefit their ability to teach engineering concepts. This included aspects like “Training on the engineering design process” and “Content knowledge about engineering disciplines and the types of work they engage in.” Participants