Elementary teachers' verbal supports of science and engineering practices in an NGSS-aligned science, engineering, and computational thinking unit

Abstract

Contemporary science education frameworks identify computational thinking as an essential science and engineering practice that supports scientific sense-making and engineering design. Despite national emphasis on teaching science, engineering, and computational thinking (NGSS Lead States, 2013), little research has investigated the ways that elementary teachers support students to engage in science and engineering practices (SEPs) within integrated science, engineering, and computational thinking curricula. This study explores how teachers provide verbal support of SEPs to upper elementary students during a 4-week NGSS-aligned curricular unit that challenged students to redesign their school to reduce water runoff. Students conducted hands-on investigations of water runoff and created computational models to test their designs. Teacher audio data during the classroom implementation was collected and qualitatively coded for different purposes of verbal support, such as to understand how (pragmatic), when, and why (epistemic) to use SEPs, in three focal lessons. Results show that teachers provided a range of pragmatic and epistemic supports for many different SEPs in science-focused and engineering-focused lessons, but support for a more limited variety of SEPs in the lesson focused on computational thinking. Across the lessons, the majority of teacher support aimed to help students engage pragmatically with the SEPs through sense making and engaging prior knowledge. In addition, teachers provided epistemic support more frequently in the science-focused lesson than in the engineering- or computational thinking-focused lessons. Results also demonstrate differences within the quality of the verbal support across lessons. This study provides insight into how teachers may differentially support SEPs in elementary classrooms and the kinds of learning experiences and educative materials teachers may need to provide equitable supports for students across SEPs.