2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Exploring engineering activities with early learners has been an area of increasing focus for engineering educators over the past decade (English & Moore, 2018; NASEM, 2021). While a number of studies have explored various aspects of engineering within the preschool classroom, few have focused specifically on the professional development of early childhood educators (Brenneman et al., 2019; Eckhoff, 2021; McWayne et al., 2022), particularly when implementing new engineering curriculum materials or activities (Ata-Aturk & Demirican, 2021; Bagiati & Evangelou, 2015).

In this paper, we present a study exploring how early childhood educators adapt and implement three bilingual engineering activities - originally developed for family home use as part of a design-based research (DBR) study - within their own family-focused classrooms. Specifically, we seek to address the following research questions: 1) How do the early childhood educators use and modify DBR-developed activities for their own classroom contexts? 2) What professional development activities, approaches, and resources did the educators find most helpful in supporting their implementation of these engineering activities within their classrooms?

We present data from the year-long study, which included 19 participants from a community-based early childhood program that included weekly opportunities for parent-child interaction sessions. Three participants, also listed as authors on the paper, held administrative roles with the program and were part of the project leadership team along with four researchers. The remaining 16 participants were early childhood educators interfacing with families through the program. During the year, the four researchers delivered one in-person and two virtual professional development sessions, which typically focused on both advancing engineering understanding as well as introducing the DBR-developed engineering activities. After each session, a four- to six-week Implementation period followed, and the participants were asked to use and adapt the activities as much or as little as they desired. Surveys were collected at the end of each implementation period, and interviews were conducted at the end of the year. Site visits were also made to to observe implementation in several classrooms.

Survey responses indicate that nearly all of the early childhood educators in the program felt confident in using activities from the DBR research project in their classroom, indicating a wide range of approaches to integrating the activities within their existing classroom structures and activities. Common adaptations over the course of the year included adding supplementary materials to the standard activity kits and modifying elements of the design context that deepened engagement and relevance for families in their classrooms. Interviews with the educators suggested that they found the professional development sequence and programmatic supports (e.g., activity guides) effective, not only in empowering them to use the original activities from the DBR study, but also in brainstorming and creating their own engineering activities for their families. This work can make a number of contributions to the pre-college engineering education community, including advancing the field’s understanding of engineering activities within programs intended for early learners and their families, effective professional development in engineering for early childhood educators, and collaborative and equity-focused engineering education research approaches with community partners.