Exploring Culturally relevant Engineering Education Design

A team of UND researchers is partnering with the Northeast Education Services Cooperative (NESC) to support North Dakota elementary and middle school teachers with designing and implementing culturally relevant engineering design tasks in their classrooms.  Frank Bowman, associate professor and Chair of Chemical Engineering in UND’s College of Engineering & Mines, Julie Robinson, assistant professor of Teaching & Leadership in UND’s College of Education & Human Development, and Bethany Klemetsrud, assistant professor of Chemical Engineering are collaborating on this three-year, $450,000 project funded by the National Science Foundation’s DRK12 program.  The project team also includes Erin Lacina, Director of Professional Learning and Operations at the NESC, one of seven regional education associations in North Dakota.

Through Project ExCEED, teachers from the Devils Lake, Mount Pleasant-Rolla, Rolette, and Tate Topa school districts will participate in a new series of professional development workshops beginning in Summer 2021. In these workshops, teachers will gain hands-on experience and understanding of the engineering design process, how it aligns with the ND Science Standards, and how to incorporate engineering design into their classrooms whether they are teaching science and math or English and history. During the school year and with guidance from the project team, teachers will develop lesson plans and materials for engineering design tasks tailored to their individual classrooms, curriculum requirements, and community culture.  Cultural relevancy is a key focus of the project. The goal is for teachers to create engineering design tasks and use teaching practices that are relevant to and support students across a breadth of cultural communities and groups, with a special focus on Native American tribes.

Throughout the project, the research team will be studying the effectiveness of the professional development program, exploring growth in teachers’ confidence and ability to implement culturally relevant engineering design into their teaching. As the initial cohort of teachers become more comfortable with the skills they are learning, they will take on a mentorship role, guiding a second group of teachers through the program in the following year.  This is a key goal of the project - to foster a collaborative network of teachers within and across school districts that can continue to support one another.  To reach an even broader audience, the classroom engineering tasks created through this project, especially those developed to be specifically relevant to Native American and rural student populations, will be promoted and made available to other teachers across the state and nation.

National Science Foundation Award #2010169