2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

While there is increased attention to the inclusion of engineering in informal contexts, we have not come across any research or training materials that focus on how informal educators do or should plan and handle ongoing, just-in-time support - particularly during moments of failure. Therefore, through this NSF funded project, we addressed this need by adapting, implementing, and refining a professional development program for productively attending, interpreting, and responding to youths’ experiences with failure while engaged in engineering design challenges in informal learning contexts through video-based reflections. In this presentation, we highlight the potential impact of the professional development on informal educators as we sought to answer the research question: How did a reflective, video-based professional development impact informal educators’ pedagogical practices and perspectives around youths’ experiences with failures during engineering design challenges? To answer this question, we utilized multiple data sources from 19 partnering museum sites that spanned multiple regions of the United States: post-interviews with museum sites, final reports or presentations from museum sites, and evaluation reports. Five patterns emerged that highlight museum educators’ professional growth around visitors’ experiences with failures from across the data: (a) shifts in educators’ perspectives on failure, (b) gain new instructional practices, (c) foster a collaborative community of educators, (d) investment in their own self growth, and (e) sustainability of the professional development as part of their organization. We contend that the significance of this study lies in the potential for a video-based professional development cycle to positively shift how educators support youth through failure experiences in engineering design challenges, as well as build a community of practice - with a focus on failure - among educators.