Teaching the Engineering Design Process: Preservice Teachers’ Professional Development in a Community of Practice

Abstract

This chapter describes the reflections of the current practices of a group of teachers on a process of planning and exploring engineering design lessons while working during their preservice years for an after-school and summer bridging program called Design It that ran from 2009 to 2019. The chapter first describes the process used in Design It to plan and explore pedagogy in engineering education with young children and explains how the preservice teachers became a community of practice who collaborated on the design and implementation of a variety of design-based challenges. In addition, they explored effective teaching practices using a collaborative inquiry process. The chapter then examines the reflections of these preservice teachers, who are now teachers, on how their participation in Design It impacted their current classroom practices. The findings support previous research that has shown that creating a community of practice, focused on engineering design, between university faculty and elementary teachers can positively impact teacher beliefs and confidence. The research described here provides insights into how a community of practice composed primarily of preservice teachers teaching the design process to inner-city youth can have long lasting impacts.