Engineering for Students with Extensive Support Needs

Although noteworthy growth in research on mathematics and science content instruction for students with extensive support needs (e.g., students with moderate/severe intellectual disability, and autism; ESN) has occurred over the past two decades, research on engineering practices with this student population is significantly lacking. By addressing the relevance of engineering to help people in meaningful contexts, engineering instruction may provide a unique way to engage students with ESN. With increased focus on STEM education for students with ESN, engineering practices highlight the importance of problem-solving skills (e.g., systems thinking, creativity). Further, for students with ESN, engineering lessons/units may provide a viable format for systematically planned math and science instruction, that naturally embeds opportunities to teach students skills promoting increased self-regulated learning. Due to lack of prior experience teaching engineering, little is known about how teachers of students with ESN scaffold instruction to build their students’ engineering practices. Thus, this project focuses on teachers’ development of engineering practices, including how teachers support their students’ development of engineering-focused behaviors and mindsets through instruction. This project involves four strands of work: (a) empirically investigating teachers’ engineering instruction, (b) developing a framework of conceptual understanding of engineering education for students with ESN, (c) conducting design-based implementation research to support universally designed engineering instruction and instructional materials, and (d) producing and disseminating the instructional support framework and materials. First, the team will develop a framework of conceptual and epistemic understanding of engineering education for students with ESN. Data will then be collected across multiple mixed methods studies using (a) teacher interviews and focus groups; (b) evaluation of professional learning; (c) classroom observations and behavior coding; (d) fidelity of implementation of engineering curriculum; and (e) assessment of student engineering-focused behaviors and mindsets. Finally, after several rounds of iterative design for each component of the curriculum, the teacher participants will pilot implementation with students. Feedback obtained from this process, as well as unit enactments and data analysis, will be used to further refine the universally designed for learning engineering unit. Additionally, insights from project research will be used to further refine professional learning materials to better support teachers' ability to support engineering focused behaviors of students with ESN. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.