Uncovering Student Ideas about Engineering and Technology: 32 New Formative Assessment Probes

Have you been wondering how well your students understand engineering and technology concepts? Have you been wishing for formative assessment tools in both English and Spanish? If so, this is the book for you.

Like the other 11 books in the bestselling Uncovering Student Ideas series, Uncovering Student Ideas About Engineering and Technology does the following:

• Brings you engaging questions, also known as formative assessment probes. The book’s 32 probes are designed to uncover what students know―or think they know―about what technology and engineering are, how to define related problems, and how to design and test solutions. The probes will help you uncover students’ current thinking about everything from the purpose of technology to who can become an engineer to how an engineering design process works.
• Offers field-tested teacher materials that provide best answers along with distracters designed to reveal preconceptions and misunderstandings that students commonly hold. Since the content is explained in clear, everyday language, even engineering and technology novices can grasp and teach it effectively.
• Is convenient even for time-starved teachers like you. The new probes are short, easy-to-administer activities that come ready to reproduce for speakers of both English and Spanish. In addition to explaining the engineering and technology content, the teacher materials note links to A Framework for K–12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards and suggest grade-appropriate ways to present material so students will learn it accurately.

Uncovering Student Ideas About Engineering and Technology has the potential to help you take an important first step in teaching for understanding―and perhaps transform your teaching about STEM-related topics.

Page Keeley is the senior science program director at the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance (MMSA). She directs projects in the areas of leadership, professional development, standards and research on learning, formative assessment, and mentoring and coaching, and consults with school districts and organizations nationally. She has been the principal investigator on three NSF-funded projects: the Northern New England Co-Mentoring Network, a school-based mentoring program that supported science and mathematics professional learning communities for middle and high school mentors and new teachers; Curriculum Topic Study- A Systematic Approach to Utilizing National Standards and Cognitive Research; and PRISMS- Phenomena and Representations for Instruction of Science in Middle School, a National Digital Library collection of Web resources aligned to standards and reviewed for instructional quality. In addition she is a co-PI on two statewide projects: Science Content, Conceptual Change, and Collaboration (SC4), a state MSP focused on conceptual change teaching in the physical sciences for K-8 teachers and a National SemiConductor Foundation grant on Linking Science, Inquiry, and Language Literacy (L-SILL). Keeley is the author of ten nationally published books, including four books in the Curriculum Topic Study series (Corwin Press), four volumes in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science: 25 Formative Assessment Probes series (NSTA Press), Science Formative Assessment: 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (Corwin and NSTA Press), and Mathematics Formative Assessment: 50 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning (in press). Keeley taught middle and high school science for 15 years. At that time she was an active teacher leader at the state and national level. She received the Presidential Award for excellence in Secondary Science Teaching in 1992 and the Milken National Educator Award in 1993. She has served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Maine, is a Cohort 1 Fellow in the National Academy for Science and Mathematics Education Leadership, served as a science literacy leader for the AAAS/Project 2061 Professional Development Program, and has served on several national advisory boards. She is a frequent speaker at national conferences and served as the 63rd President of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) for the 2008-09 term.

Dr. Cary Sneider is Visiting Scholar at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where he recently retired from teaching research methodology in a MST degree program. He continues to work full time as a curriculum developer, teacher educator, researcher, and consultant to foundations that support STEM education. He contributed to A Framework for K-12 Science Education, and served on the writing team for the Next Generation Science Standards. In 2011 he joined the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as "The Nation's Report Card." Before moving to Oregon Dr. Sneider was Vice President for Programs at the Museum of Science in Boston, and prior to that he served as Director of Astronomy and Physics Education at Lawrence Hall of Science, U.C. Berkeley. Over the years Dr. Sneider has led more than 20 grant projects, including a recent grant from the National Science Foundation, which has resulted in a monograph entitled Opening the Door to Physics Through Formative Assessment, which is available at: - http: //nsela.org/publications. In 2018 Dr. Sneider received the Robert H. Carleton award from the National Science Teachers Association.