Pre-Service Teachers’ Experiences Teaching Engineering to Elementary Students During the Time of COVID (Work in Progress)

This study follows two elementary education pre-service educators as they complete their practicum field experience while supporting their cooperating teachers during the implementation of engineering curriculum during fall 2020. This work is part of a larger NSF funded project focused on increasing awareness and preparedness of rural and indigenous youth to pursue engineering and engineering related careers. The first portion of the research project concentrated on working with elementary pre and in-service teachers in rural and reservation communities to connect local funds of knowledge with classroom curriculum. Participating pre- and in-service teachers attended a summer professional development workshop focused on how to use ethnographic practices, photo journaling, and micro-computers to enhance engineering instruction in elementary classrooms. At the end to the summer professional development, each pre-service teacher was paired with an in-service teacher who would serve as their fall semester practicum placement cooperating teacher. Together the pair planned how to implement the summer experiences into their classroom the following fall. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic resurged in late summer, classroom implementation plans had to drastically change due to shifts to hybrid and fully online instruction. Each participating school took a different approach to teaching students during the pandemic, resulting in very diverse methods of implementing the summer professional development activities into classroom practice. This portraiture comparative study documents the experiences of the pre-service teachers working in two of these diverse settings – one in a completely virtual classroom and the other in a face to face classroom implementing social distancing protocols. Our research questions include: (1) What strategies do elementary pre-service teachers use when teaching engineering while practicing social distancing? and (2) How do these strategies compare across different teaching modalities?