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Elementary
engineering education is implemented in a wide variety of ways, from after-school
programs to student-led outreach to fully integrated, standards-based classroom
instruction. In all of these, students are expected to perform complex practices of
engineering while (usually) working in collaborative teams, which presents a slew of
challenges to novice learners. To explore the sources ... read moreof and potential tools for
navigating these challenges, we designed a teaching experiment to support students in
decision-making and groupwork. In this thesis I 1) describe the theory and instructional
reasoning that informed the design of the teaching experiment and 2) present a
comparative case study analysis of two groups in the fourth-grade classroom. I found
three student strategies that facilitated collaborative disciplinary decision making
during the engineering design challenge: talking about plans, responsive discussion, and
naming. These strategies further characterize the ways elementary students engage in
engineering and reinforce the importance of argumentation as a skill and a practice for
young engineering learners.
Thesis (M.S.)--Tufts
University, 2019.
Submitted to the Dept. of
Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Kristen
Wendell.
Committee: Chris Rogers, and David
Hammer.
Keywords: Engineering, Education, and
Elementary education.read less
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