This research full paper utilizes qualitative methods to explore middle school engineering teachers' facilitation of the engineering design process as they implement STEM-integrated curricula. Engineering teachers face the challenge of guiding students through a multi-phase, iterative process to design, prototype, and test solutions to engineering problems. In our research exploring middle school teachers' implementation of the semester-long STEM-ID curricula, we have found considerable variation in the degree to which teachers successfully work with students to navigate the engineering design process (EDP). Some teachers have been able to guide students through the EDP to complete STEM-ID challenges efficiently, whereas other teachers have struggled to do so. To better understand the problem of practice evidenced by such variations in the efficiency of EDP facilitation, this qualitative study synthesizes observation and interview data to identify tendencies characterizing efficient facilitation of the EDP among teachers implementing the STEM-ID curricula. In the current study, which focused on curricula implementation by six engineering teachers, four teachers demonstrated efficient facilitation of EDP, successfully guiding students through the vast majority of the curricula's design challenges, while two teachers struggled to do so. Our qualitative data suggest three major tendencies that may account for variations in the efficiency with which teachers guided students through the various stages of the EDP: 1) adept management of student groups working at multiple stages of EDP, 2)explicit discussion of EDP progress and documentation in engineering design process logs, and 3) engaging students in discussions about the purpose of engineering and the engineering design process, including beyond the design challenges they complete as part of the STEM-ID curricula. By identifying tendencies we observed among teachers who efficiently implemented the EDP, we hope to advance the field's understanding of strategies that support student engagement in the EDP while also informing future engineering curricula and professional development projects.

This Research paper explores the activities within the biologically inspired design-focused engineering curriculum to determine if they fostered students' engagement in learning. This work builds on concurrent research exploring students' application of BID in engineering and teachers' implementation of BID within their respective engineering classrooms. Participants comprised ninth-grade high school students$(n=12)$enrolled in the first-year engineering course across two high schools. Qualitative content analysis was conducted on classroom observation field notes, student focus groups, teacher curriculum enactment surveys, and teacher interviews. The finding revealed that student engagement varied across the seven-week-long unit. In the initial week, engagement was relatively low since the activities were static and required learning to be scaffolded via worksheets. However, during weeks three through six, engagement positively shifted due to the activities being more dynamic, requiring students to engage in inquiry and design learning. Furthermore, students' academic engagement was fostered due to hands-on experiences and work-based authentic problems presented in the unit, which encouraged collaboration.

Objectives. The goal of this paper is to introduce and describe a new introductory computer science course. Research results from the implementation of this curriculum will be presented to demonstrate the nature of teachers’ experiences with the curriculum. Participants. Participants are teachers implementing the new curriculum at two schools in the metro Atlanta area. Study Method. This paper is partly descriptive, presenting the theory underlying the newly developed curriculum as well as its various features. An organizing framework, the Teacher Accessibility, Equity, and Content (TEC) rubric from Weintrop et al. (2019) [ 1 ], is used to structure the curriculum description. Teacher perceptions were gathered via both structured interviews and short online enactment surveys. These perceptions are summarized and presented thematically, corresponding to the features of the curriculum. Findings. A newly developed introductory computer science (CS) curriculum, Student-Centered Computing (SCC), utilizes project-based learning (PBL) and culturally authentic practices (CAPs) to help promote a sense of belonging and intent to persist within computer science among all students. Teachers successfully implemented the curriculum and generally found it to be beneficial for their students, though they struggled with some of the pedagogical demands of project-based learning as well as some of the most advanced technical content associated with the music coding and app development platforms. Conclusions. This paper provides a detailed overview of a year-long introductory computer science curriculum focused on the creation of culturally relevant digital artifacts. The curriculum represents a strong effort to make CS content relevant and appealing to the full range of students by relating it to their lives and experiences. Teacher surveys and interviews revealed that both teachers and students had positive views of the course. However, teaching using inclusive PBL pedagogy and culturally authentic practices takes skill and practice by teachers, supporting the need for CS teachers to have good pedagogical training as well as a strong knowledge of computer science to create a classroom environment that promotes success for all students.

This innovative practice work in progress paper presents the Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) project, to create socially relevant, accessible, highly-contextualized biologically inspired design experiences that can be disseminated to high school audiences engineering audiences in Georgia and nationally. Curriculum units are 6–10 weeks in duration and will meet many standards for high school engineering courses in Georgia. There will be three curriculum units (one for each engineering course in the 3-course pathway), each building skills in engineering design and specific skills for BID. Currently in its second year, BIRDEE has developed its first unit of curriculum and has hosted its first professional development with 4 pilot teachers in the summer of 2020. The BIRDEE curriculum situates challenges within socially relevant contexts and provides cutting-edge biological scenarios to ignite creative and humanistic engineering experiences to 1) drive greater engagement in engineering, particularly among women, 2) improve student engineering skills, especially problem definition and ideation skills, and 3) increase students awareness of the connection and impacts between the engineered and living worlds. This paper describes the motivation for the BIRDEE project, the learning goals for the curriculum, and a description of the first unit. We provide reflections and feedback from teacher work and focus groups during our summer professional development and highlight the challenges associated with building BID competency across biology and engineering to equip teachers with the skills they need to teach the BIRDEE units. These lessons can be applied to teaching BID more broadly, as its multidisciplinary nature creates challenges (and opportunities) for teaching and learning engineering design.

This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems' analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers' work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.