Senay Yasar

University Students' Conceptualization and Interpretation of Topographic Maps.

This study investigates the strategies and assumptions that college students entering an introductory physical geology laboratory use to interpret topographic maps, and follows the progress of the students during the laboratory to analyze changes in those strategies and assumptions. To elicit students’ strategies and assumptions, we created and refined a topographic visualization test that was administered before and after instruction to 26 students during the first semester of the study and to 92 students during the second semester. To more deeply understand how students think about and conceptualize topographic maps, we focused on eight individual students who were interviewed about their pretest and posttest answers as well as videotaped during three laboratory sessions. We found that even students who claim never to have worked with topographic maps often perform impressively on their pretests by making useful assumptions about symbolic topographic information. Some students, however, begin with less productive assumptions that may be unfamiliar to some instructors (e.g., thinking that the spacing of contour lines indicates elevation instead of slope). Initial success should not be misinterpreted, however, as an integrated understanding of topographic maps. Only in posttest interviews do most students express explanations integrating multiple normative assumptions. In addition to highlighting the strategies and assumptions that college students use to interpret topographic maps, we outline the implications of these findings for the design of learning objectives, curricular activities, and assessments for topographic lessons in introductory college geology courses and the training of future geoscientists.

A Mixed-Grade Engineering Course for High School Students: Student Interactions and Understanding of Engineering Design

Understanding of the engineering design process was examined for mixed grade (9-12) high school introductory engineering classes. The classes consisted of videos on engineering, guest speakers, internet research on engineering careers, and hands-on design projects. Student interactions were analyzed with classroom observations, video recordings, and interviews and showed there was a significant effect of maturity on learning. Change in understanding of the design process was measured by an open-ended pre and post class test with a 40 point scale rubric. It evaluated solution generation and selection, design reports, teamwork, project management, and ethics. A pre-post t-test indicated a significant increase in understanding (p < .00). Students in grade 10 had the largest gain of 6.82 points, grade 12 the smallest with 1.14 points while grades 9 and 11 had moderate gains of 4.2 and 4.3 points, respectively. The limited gains were due, at least in part, to enrollment and student interaction issues in the mixed-grade, large enrollment classes. Recommendations for positive change are discussed

Navigating rugged terrain: barriers and benefits to implementing an elective engineering design course in a high school setting

A team of engineering and education faculty and science education graduate students partnered with a local high school to implement an engineering design course. Course objectives included: learning to apply the engineering design methodology, acquiring and using basic engineering skills and tools, and understanding and valuing engineering as a career and a profession. The objectives were generally not achieved due to a variety of barriers related to the class. These included: varying maturity levels of students due to mixed age groups; lack of diversity; need for enhanced structuring of classes; inappropriate placement of students in engineering classes by guidance counselors; issues of materials management; inadequate application of science and math in design and problem solving; and the level of difficulty of course books. The nature of these barriers is discussed along with implications for teaching engineering design in high school. Recommendations for improvements to fulfil course objectives and achieve learning outcomes are presented

Not just for nerds: embedding science activities within a design, engineering, and technology (DET) environment

Design, engineering, and technology (DET) holds the promise of interesting students in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers and developing a better understanding of STEM in their own lives. However, the current K-12 curriculum devotes little time to DET concepts despite their being addressed in the National Science Education Standards. This paper presents data from a DET course developed for science education graduate students which uses the existing curriculum for introducing DET into the classroom. Data from lesson plans, weekly reflections on readings, trial activities in K-12 classrooms, and focus groups tracked changes in understanding DET and the ability to embed DET into existing science activities. Data was coded using qualitative techniques and a rubric with six categories (engineering as a design process, gender and diversity, social relevance of engineering, technical self-efficacy, tinkering self-efficacy, and transfer to the classroom) that measured achievement of course goals. Understanding and progression of metacognition was linked to instructional activities and readings.