Integrating STEM and Literacy through Engineering Design: Evaluation of Professional Development for Middle School Math and Science Teachers (Program/Curriculum Evaluation)

We describe a professional development program that supports integration of STEM and Literacy through Engineering Design for 24 in-service middle school math and science teachers in rural Appalachia. Through this program, teachers experience Engineering Design as learners, develop lesson plans utilizing engineering design to teach specific relevant math and science content standards and objectives, and receive formative feedback and content knowledge coaching as they deliver and fine-tune those lessons. Project TESAL (Teachers Engaged in STEM and Literacy) is a three-year professional development program that includes annual two-week summer face-to-face intensive workshops followed by classroom observations with supportive feedback and four additional day-long trainings throughout the school year. We describe the program in detail, as well as evaluation findings from the first year of implementation. Project TESAL has been successful recruiting a diverse group of mathematics, science, and special educators, and at engaging them in professional development they find valuable. The TSTEM survey revealed that professional development successfully increased participating teachers’ confidence to teach engineering design, their confidence that they can influence their students’ STEM performance, and their knowledge of STEM careers, as well as the amount they expect to utilize technology and instruction following STEM best educational practices. Participating teachers identified several strengths of Project TESAL. Participants particularly valued being active participants in learning, opportunities for collaborating with peers and outside experts around the work of teaching, focusing on subject matter content across mathematics and science and students’ learning of that content, and the sustained ongoing nature of Project TESAL where the work teachers did in professional development was fully relevant to their work as classroom teachers. These strengths align directly with best practices for professional development and for overcoming the challenges of professional development specifically on math-science integration and engineering design instruction.