Carol B. Brandt

Managing the Complexity of Design Problems through Studio-based Learning

Abstract The ill-structured nature of design problems makes them particularly challenging for problem-based learning. Studio-based learning (SBL), however, has much in common with problem-based learning and indeed has a long history of use in teaching students to solve design problems. The purpose of this ethnographic study of an industrial design class, an architecture class, and three human-computer-interaction classes was to develop a cross-disciplinary understanding of the goals and expectations for students in a SBL environment and the ways in which experienced facilitators assist students in solving complex design problems. The expectations that students are to iteratively generate and refine design solutions, communicate effectively, and collaborate with others establishes the studio as a dynamic place where students learn to experiment on their own, to teach and to use all studio members as resources in that search. Instructors support students as they grapple with complexity of design problem-solving through pedagogical practices that include assignments, associated meta-discussions, explicit prompts, reminders, modeling, and coaching. Using sample illustrations from our cross-case analysis, we present the studio method as a legitimate constituent of problem-based learning methods.

Promoting creativity in the computer science design studio

Revolutionary advances in technologies will require computer science professionals who are able to develop innovative software solutions. In order to identify techniques that can lead students to creative insights in their work, we have conducted an ethnographic study of the studio method as enacted in architecture, industrial design (ID), and human-computer interaction (HCI) classes. Our analysis of the activities conducted during studio critiques revealed that while the ID and architecture studios had a primary focus on experimentation, the primary emphasis of the HCI studios was on idea refinement. In this paper, we describe four barriers to creative thought observed in the HCI classrooms and identify ways that the architecture and ID instructors helped students to overcome similar challenges.

Ethnographies of science education: situated practices of science learning for social/political transformation

Transforming science education has been cited as a global imperative in terms of: producing technological innovation to maintain economic security (Bybee and Fuchs 2006; Tytler 2007); creating critical consumers of scientific knowledge (Osborne and Dillon 2008) and fostering a more environmentally sustainable and equitable world (Calabrese Barton 2001; Carter 2008). In light of these agendas, viewing science as a cultural process has significantly contributed to our understanding of the interplay between local micro-level contexts and macro-level political influences in the science classroom. Moreover, ethnography has chronicled the experiences of ethnically and linguistically diverse populations who have been historically excluded from participation in science. Cultural studies of science education speak directly to issues of economics, sustainability and inclusion but also address theoretical and empirical gaps in our understanding of science education and its context: ‘What precisely is the nature of science, of nature, of culture, and of the relationship among them?’ (Weinstein 1998, 486). Researchers who conduct ethnography in science education tend to have a deep commitment for transforming science to become an agentic tool, one that improves the lives of people in underserved communities (Hammond and Brandt 2004). In this light, identity and agency the human capacity for making choices and the ability to act upon these intentions is viewed as being both important in terms of learning science, as well as understanding social change in schools and the broader society. Yet, by taking up this stance, the ethnographer in science education is often at odds with the very practices that distinguish the sciences as a process of inquiry separate from other disciplines. Ethnographers of science education have opened up the science classroom to describe cultural practices surrounding the teaching and learning of science in the same way that sociologists have studied the construction of knowledge in the science laboratory (Collins 1982; Latour and Woolgar 1979/ 1986) and the socialisation of scientists-in-the-making (Knorr-Cetina and Mulkay 1983). Through their research, ethnographers of science education challenge the ‘culture of no culture’ (Subramaniam and Wyer 1998; Traweek 1988) and the prevalent myth of objectivism in science. As ethnographers examine the ways science is given meaning in schools, they ask: What is science education? Whose purposes does it support? This special journal issue explores how contemporary ethnographers in science education study the local production of scientific knowledge and how this meaningmaking is implicated in larger social and political struggles. The articles in this issue have a two-fold purpose. First, these articles offer examples of the socially and politically situated practices of science learning (inand out-of-school contexts). Second, these articles highlight the tensions in critically examining science as a social Ethnography and Education Vol. 7, No. 2, June 2012, 143 150

Students’ evaluations about climate change

ABSTRACT Scientists regularly evaluate alternative explanations of phenomena and solutions to problems. Students should similarly engage in critical evaluation when learning about scientific and engineering topics. However, students do not often demonstrate sophisticated evaluation skills in the classroom. The purpose of the present study was to investigate middle school students’ evaluations when confronted with alternative explanations of the complex and controversial topic of climate change. Through a qualitative analysis, we determined that students demonstrated four distinct categories of evaluation when writing about the connections between evidence and alternative explanations of climate change: (a) erroneous evaluation, (b) descriptive evaluation, (c) relational evaluation, and (d) critical evaluation. These categories represent different types of evaluation quality. A quantitative analysis revealed that types of evaluation, along with plausibility perceptions about the alternative explanations, were significant predictors of postinstructional knowledge about scientific principles underlying the climate change phenomenon. Specifically, more robust evaluations and greater plausibility toward the scientifically accepted model of human-induced climate change predicted greater knowledge. These findings demonstrate that instruction promoting critical evaluation and plausibility appraisal may promote greater understanding of socio-scientific topics and increased use of scientific thinking when considering alternative explanations, as is called for by recent science education reform efforts.

Studio STEM: A Model to Enhance Integrative STEM Literacy Through Engineering Design

Developing and implementing integrative curricula that enhances STEM literacy by providing meaningful connections to the lives of youth is challenging. Equally demanding is to invoke the desired cognitive, social, and affective changes that could positively influence motivation in STEM learning (Katehi, L., Pearson, G., & Feder, M. (Eds.). Engineering in K-12 education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2009). In this chapter, we present the Studio STEM model, which is comprised of theory, curricula, training, implementation, and assessment that attempts to overcome known barriers. Studio STEM is an out-of-school, design-based science and engineering program intended to engage middle school youth in critical STEM concepts and practices. The design principles that frame the model include: curricula based on science inquiry, engineering design, studio-based learning, technology-enhanced experiences and opportunities, and a focus on community connections through service organizations and businesses. The Studio STEM model addresses several issues identified by recent reports that highlight potential hindrance of full adoption of integrative STEM programming. We offer the framework by which Studio STEM was intentionally designed to be a practical program based on current theory and research. We also discuss details of what constitutes an engineering design-based science learning environment, a description of the program curricula and training, assessment measures used, and results from several implementations of Studio STEM in varying informal learning contexts (Evans et al. International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, 3(2), 1–31, 2014; Schnittka, C. G., Brandt, C. B., Jones, B. D., & Evans, M. A. Advances in Engineering Education, 3(2), 1–31, 2012; Schnittka et al. Looking for learning in afterschool spaces: Studio STEM (2015). Preliminary results suggest positive changes in youth engagement toward and interest in STEM as a result of participating in Studio STEM. As a result, we highlight the connections among theory and research, practical implementations of the program, and positive student and teacher outcomes related to motivation and STEM literacy driven by a focus on engineering design practices as core to these efforts.

Reimagining Science Education in Neoliberal Global Contexts: Sociocultural Accounts of Science Learning in Underserved Communities

This special issue brings together researchers grappling with the production of sociocultural and anthropological accounts of science education in an era marked by complex and contradictory policy frameworks for science education and the divergent ways these policies are informed by neoliberalism. The special issue engages with and aims to “desettle” the current focus on canonical science grounded in a market-driven educational system with high academic standards, predetermined outcomes, and continuous high-stakes assessments. This issue also questions state control of science education, driven by a convenient uniformity that narrowly defines science for a successful few while legitimizing the exclusion of difference (Ambrosio, 2013; Bencze & Carter, 2011; Calabrese Barton, 2001; Smith, 2011; Tan & Calabrese-Barton, 2012). The market-driven education system, grounded in global economies, has led to the misrepresentation of professional science—as a science that contributes to markets, but not to the wellbeing of individuals, societies, and the environment—and a discourse that centers on the individualization of learning in ways that limit students’ sense of contribution (Bencze & Carter, 2011). This market-driven science is “shaped by” the invisible hand of neoliberal ideology, which is complex and uncertain; it sneaks up on us, and education as a whole, in ways hard to pin down and name. Yet seriously engaging in, moving away from, and resisting the market-driven privatization of education, the disposability of youth, and the “nearpathological disdain for community, public values, and the public good” (Giroux, 2012, p. 46; see also Ambrosio, 2013; Harvey, 2005; McGregor, 2009) is crucial to reforming science education. Education has been transformed radically in the last 10 years to reflect a corporate model of market competition. In this model, evaluation is measured through tests in the form of quantitative assessments to evaluate the performance of students, teachers, schools, and entire districts. Hursh (2015) argued that the alignment among government programs to reform education is not an accidental development: “Educators cannot leave economic theories, policies, and practices to economists, but must understand economic theory and policies so as to demystify them and the role they play in creating the world in which we live” (p. 3). Similarly, Smith (2011) contended that increasingly, the justification for teaching science continues to serve the needs of industry in science and technology. We continually hear about the need for a diverse workforce in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and the demand for scientists with the creativity and the ability to innovate solutions to social and environmental problems. Although this call seems to focus on community and social welfare, it nevertheless is driven by corporate agendas. As Smith (2011) pointed out, these arguments for reform in science education highlight the tensions between the relationships of the individual to their communities whereby “marketization has come to be seen as the natural order of things” (p. 1276).