This work in progress paper describes a two-session instructional module on equitable engineering talk, which explicitly addressed the role of discourse in engineering practice as well as the importance of inclusive and equitable discourse in a first-year engineering course. In the module, students audio recorded themselves as they worked in small groups to plan an initial solution to an engineering design problem. After listening to their recorded discourse, they participated in scaffolded reflection about engineering group work interactions. The module provided students with the opportunity to assess and evaluate their own discussions for equity and inclusion as well as those of experienced engineers. Data were obtained in the form of student written work and post-intervention in-class video of student group interactions.

In most middle schools, learning is segregated by discipline. Yet interdisciplinary approaches have been shown to cultivate creative thinking, support problem solving, and develop interest while supporting knowledge gains (NAE & NRC in STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research. National Academies Press, Washington, 2014). The Designing Biomimetic Robots project emphasizes problem-based learning to integrate engineering, science, and computational thinking (CT). During a 3 to 4-week unit, students study the natural world to learn how animals accomplish different tasks, then design a robot inspired by what they learned. The project engages students in science, engineering, and CT practices. Over the course of a 3-year project, we used a design-based research approach to: (1) identify and describe strategies and challenges that emerge from integrated curriculum design, (2) explicate how a balance of integrated disciplines can provide opportunities for student participation in science, engineering, and CT practices, and (3) explore how a technology design task can support students’ participation in integrated learning. Data from three focal groups (one from each year of the project) suggest that a focused design task, supported by explicit and targeted supports for science, CT, and engineering practices, led to a student technology design process that was driven by disciplinary understanding. This work highlights the importance of drawing out and prioritizing alignments between disciplines (Barber in Educ Des, 2(8), 2015), to enable integrated learning. Additionally, this work demonstrates how a technology design task can support student learning across disciplines, and how engaging in CT practices can further help students draw these connections.

In this WIP-Innovation Practice, the authors present a shared Collaborative Online Robotics platform embedded in Google Slides application for students from primary grades to University to enhance the learning and teaching process in online and blended/hybrid environments. This Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) system is intended to facilitate an immersive experience in a collaborative virtual environment by combining physical digital artifacts with remote STEM-based instruction. Particularly relevant during COVID-19, it also helps connect students potentially isolated by other factors (geographic, economic, environmental, health limitations, etc.). In this paper we present a first approach to the performance, acceptance, and adherence to a novel remote collaborative platform that facilitates STEM and Social Emotional Learning (SEL) enhanced by the interaction of a multiple-users with a LEGO MINDSTORM EV3 Robotic platform based on the Positive Technological Development (PTD) framework.

In this paper we introduce a novel integrated educational learning development web-based environment intended for learning and teaching, CORP (Collaborative Online Robotics Platform). CORP combines the potential of the Google web-based platform with the educational robot technology of the LEGO Mindstorms EV3 Kit. Designed for students in primary and high school, CORP allows students from different locations to collaboratively interact through a shared Google Slide document with a custom add-on developed to connect to the EV3 robot. In addition to their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills, students also work on their social emotional learning (SEL) skills. Moreover, teachers can analyse log files generated by the platform for insights into student learning.

This research documents our investigation of alternative forms of written instructions for robotics education. Currently, instructions that accompany educational robotics kits often provide students with step-by-step directions leading them to one “correct” solution. This research explores alternative forms of written instructions called placemat instructions. Placemat instructions are a one-page (double-sided) representation of an open-ended robotics challenge. They give students a few images of example builds and some code snippets to get them started, but they do not provide step-by-step instructions or dictate the creation of a single solution. The goal of this study is to investigate what type of learning experiences unfold when placemat instructions are used to facilitate open-ended robotics challenges in K–12 classrooms, and how these learning experiences differ from those when no placemat instructions are used. We analyzed classroom video data to look for ways students did or did not use the placemats, where students became stuck or required the assistance of a peer or instructor, and the time it took each group to reach an initial testable prototype. Based on these data, we found that the use of placemat instructions to support open-ended robotics challenges in an 8th grade science classroom was successful in: (1) helping students quickly and easily get started with open-ended design challenges, (2) supporting students and teachers when questions arose during the activity, and (3) inspiring a diverse set of student-generated solutions to a problem.

As states are adopting NGSS, engineering is increasingly being integrated in K-12 science education. While middle schools have typically segregated learning by discipline, educators are recognizing the importance of making connections across STEM disciplines. This paper presents robot artifacts built by students in an interdisciplinary middle school curriculum that combines biology, engineering, and computational thinking. In this curriculum, students analyze animals and use them as inspiration to build biomimetic robots - robots inspired by animals. We characterized and classified these artifacts based on their robots' mechanical structure and biomimetic structure and motion.

There is broad belief that preparing all students in preK-12 for a future in STEM involves integrating computational thinking (CT) tools and practices. Through creating and examining rich “STEM+CT” learning environments, researchers are defining what CT means in STEM disciplinary settings. This interactive session brings together a diverse spectrum of leading STEM researchers to share how they operationalize CT, what integrated CT and STEM learning looks like in their curriculum, and how this learning is measured. It will serve as a rich opportunity for discussion to help advance the state of the field of STEM and CT integration. Motivation and objectives Few argue with the need for integrating computing and computational thinking (CT) as a tool to drive innovation in STEM. The learning sciences community also acknowledges that K-12 STEM learning must become more authentic in the 21st century through the integration of coding and CT. Efforts for “STEM+CT” learning in the US received a fillip with CT listed as a disciplinary practice in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS; NGSS Lead States, 2013) and modeling emphasized in the NGSS and Common Core Mathematics Standards as a means to critically interrogate phenomena and understand simplifying assumptions. Although past efforts provide exemplars for the productive integration of math and science with computing (diSessa, 2001; Papert, 1980), developing integrated STEM+CT curricula and measuring such learning is seen as challenging, in part because the broader community does not have a unified definition of CT (Grover & Pea, 2013). There is thus a ICLS 2020 Proceedings 1479 © ISLS need to better understand how to achieve productive integration and learning of STEM and CT, how to best involve STEM teachers, and how to assess learning in such integrated contexts. The current landscape of STEM & computing/CT education affords ideal opportunities to convene leading researchers in the field to critically discuss current approaches for integrating STEM & CT. This symposium brings together researchers with a diverse set of approaches tackling this challenge head-on, from a variety of perspectives and pedagogical strategies at all levels of PK-12. In particular, symposium presenters will provide curricular details, examples, and insights into 1) how they operationalize CT, what CT definitions and frameworks guide their work, and how the integration of disciplinary STEM ideas with CT is engendered in their research and curricular approaches; and 2) the methods and measures they use to evaluate changes in students’ STEM & CT learning. Themes include: computational modeling in science and math (Grover et al.; Dickes, Farris & Sengupta; Metcalf et al.); co-design with teachers to modify STEM curricula to integrate CT (Irgens et al., Dominguez et al., Yadav et al.) and designing teacher PD (Lee et al.); CT and systems thinking to understand complex phenomena (Covitt et al., Damelin et al.); and design activities that integrate CT & STEM (Puttick et al.). The symposium serves to showcase similarities in CT operationalization and assessment, curricular approaches (such as modeling), and methods for design and implementation (e.g., co-design with teachers) while also highlighting the diversity of perspectives that comprise a growing landscape of PK-12 STEM+CT integration.

This research paper describes a solution diversity analysis of the final projects completed in an undergraduate engineering computing course.The course was taught by four different professors using three distinct instructional approaches.One professor used a distributed-expertise model, and the other three used traditional content-delivery methods.A distributed expertise model is a pedagogical approach where students specialize in different topic areas within the broader course subject.In the traditional sections, students were free to choose any application of computational thinking in which they were interested for their final project.Based on an analysis of the final projects submitted by students, these projects had a high diversity of applications but the computational tools that students selected for their analyses were very similar across all projects.In the distributed-expertise section, students were given a very scaffolded design problem as their final project.Each group of four students completed the same challenge; however, the ways they pieced together their distributed knowledge to solve the problem varied widely between groups.In other words, there was low solution diversity in application and a high diversity of processes used to solve the problem.This case study explores how the solution diversity of students' final project submissions varied across both the distributed-expertise section and the lecture-based and problem-based sections, and the ways in which the instructional models and final project prompts did or did not afford solution diversity in the final projects.

We investigate in-service teachers’ scientific engagement in a blended online science inquiry course. We analyze a shift from teachers following instructions to doing science themselves, and we characterize it at two levels: first, in how teachers engaged in individual sense-making; and second, in how they oriented to the online community as a space for collaboration and collective knowledge building. This progress, we show, was made possible by a shift in how the teachers framed the course—how they understood and interpreted the purpose of the activities—a shift that entailed both epistemological and affective dynamics. This shift in framing was supported by the instructors’ efforts to attend to and address participants’ epistemology and affect, both in face-to-face and in online interactions. A key implication of this study is the importance of instructional attention to epistemology and affect to create online learning environments that promote productive framings of scientific inquiry.

This innovative practice full research paper offers insight into a course instructor’s use of three varied projects within a first-year engineering course and the students’ self-reported learning surrounding these projects. First-year courses are designed to both excite students about engineering and increase retention and thus have become a staple at many engineering institutions. However, there is space to gain a deeper understanding of how students perceive their own learning as gained from these first-year projects and how they could be impacted by different problem contexts.

The Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) outlines eight practices to represent the diverse ways scientists construct and evaluate knowledge. Engaging students in these practices is a key instructional target in the science classroom. This target, however, creates particular challenges for online instruction, which has predominantly focused on delivering content. This study shows the possibility of addressing disciplinary practices online, here in the context of a professional development course for in-service science teachers, which we designed based on previous work in responsive teaching. We examine an episode of the participants' engagement in an online text-based message board and identify evidence of disciplinary practices in their work. We discuss design elements and instructional choices that supported disciplinary engagement: building instruction around learners' ideas, developing online spaces in interaction with learners, and privileging learners' engagement in disciplinary practices as an objective.

Educational research relies on a labor intensive analysis of qualitative data. Many times, data takes the form of transcribed conversations between students and teachers. These transcripts are analyzed, annotated, and coded to help uncover patterns and ideas. An education researcher will comb through the documents, line by line, classifying each line or paragraph into a pre-described category. This paper presents the framework of a new tool that has the potential to greatly aid education researchers as they analyze qualitative data. By utilizing statistical machine intelligence techniques for Natural Language Processing (NLP), and leveraging existing Deep Learning language models, the tool completes much of the grunt work of transcript coding, letting the researcher focus his or her attention on the areas that are important.

Systems engineering activities provide an opportunity for pre-college students to engage in sophisticated engineering design practices beyond commonly-accepted limits of their capability. This research qualitatively investigates how pre-college students engaged in a systems engineering activity using LEGO EV3 robotics with three learning objectives: 1) a system can be decomposed into subsystems, 2) designers coordinate activities by communicating requirements and interfaces, and 3) testing reveals problems and changes propagate to other components. The analysis was based on methods of qualitative content analysis and employed video data produced by students to describe their robot designs as well as video data collected by the researchers. While students did not use the language of systems engineering, examples show students productively engaging in systems engineering methods that relate to each learning objective. Results suggest pre-college students are capable of understanding and implementing basic systems engineering concepts representing a more sophisticated approach to engineering design.

Background Survivors of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) experience unhealthy weight gain early in treatment, and increases in weight are maintained throughout treatment and beyond. Unhealthy weight gain has been associated with inferior survival rates in ALL and places survivors at higher risk for chronic health issues associated with obesity. Parents and pediatric oncology professionals play central roles in preventing unhealthy weight gain in pediatric ALL survivors by promoting healthy lifestyles and can therefore offer important insights into integrating weight management into cancer care. Methods We conducted a mixed‐methods study that included a survey with 46 parents of pediatric ALL survivors (mean age of survivors = 6.5 years) and four focus groups with 19 pediatric oncology professionals to assess their perceptions on weight management in pediatric ALL survivors. The survey inquired about parents’ perceptions of their children's weight status and the time points at which they would be interested in participating in a weight management program. In focus groups, pediatric oncology professionals shared their thoughts about weight status of pediatric ALL survivors during and after treatment, their perceived roles in helping pediatric ALL survivors maintain a healthy weight, and their opinions regarding recommended specific topics/educational needs, preferred timing, route of delivery, and potential obstacles for a weight management program. Focus groups’ input was transcribed and analyzed by a multi‐disciplinary research team for common themes. Results Based on parental reports of children's heights and weights, 21% of the pediatric ALL survivors were overweight (BMI =85–94.9 th percentile) and 26% were obese (BMI ≥95 th percentile). The majority of the parents (76%) indicated that they would like to help their child maintain a healthy weight. Parents indicated that the preferred time for their child to participate in a weight management program would be within 3 months after the start of the remission maintenance chemotherapy (47%), followed by within 12 months after completion of all cancer treatments (40%). Pediatric oncology professionals also considered the maintenance phase an appropriate time to introduce weight management and suggested that a remotely‐delivered program would be most feasible to implement. They indicated that parents’ time constraints and literacy levels were potential barriers to participation, and access to technology was a barrier to web‐based programs. They also specified that their most appropriate role would involve promoting and supporting weight management rather than delivering the education due to their own time constraints in providing lifestyle counseling. Conclusions Parents and pediatric oncology professionals are interested in and supportive of early weight management in pediatric ALL survivors. Future research is needed to identify strategies to integrate weight management into the care of pediatric cancer patients and to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of weight management strategies. Support or Funding Information This study was supported by Tufts Collaborates Grant and NIH/NCI 1R03CA199516‐01

InterLACE (Interactive Learning and Collaboration Environment), is a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) tool that was developed at Tufts University to support active learning in high school Physics education. Usability testing yielded positive results, but usability did not translate to usage in a learning environment. In classroom testing, peer-to-peer interactions among student users did not live up to expectations. Gamification, or the use of design elements characteristic for games in non-game contexts, was identified as a possible means to encourage more interaction among users. A study was conducted to examine the influence of gamification on the number of interactions and selforganization that occurs in InterLACE users during a high school Physics learning activity. University students in the Boston area (N = 48) between the ages of 18 and 31 were recruited and randomly assigned in groups of 4-6 to two conditions: gamified and control. Gamifying elements were introduced in the experimental condition, such as rules for earning points, a leaderboard, badges and time constraints. The leaderboard provided immediate feedback on individual scores and rank in relation to other players. Results indicate an increase in interparticipant collaboration indicated by a greater number of interactions (15.37 vs. 4.81 average per person). Participation also increased, as indicated by the count of words posted (303.14 vs 205.99 average per person). The number of self-organized groups formed were also higher (4 vs 1.6), but the difference between the two conditions was not statistically significant.