STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm PDF

Chapter 1 The STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm Robert M. Capraro Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture Aggie STEM Texas A&M University Behaviorism reminds us that repetitive tasks can elicit behaviors that look like learning and radical constructivism can elicit behaviors that look l...

Chapter 1 The STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm Robert M. Capraro Department of Teaching, Learning & Culture Aggie STEM Texas A&M University Behaviorism reminds us that repetitive tasks can elicit behaviors that look like learning and radical constructivism can elicit behaviors that look like play, but it is the development of a knowledge foundation that separates understanding and performance from memorization and short-term learning. The idea of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics project-based learning arose from a State of Texas challenge to reinvigorate schools from the inside out. Originally, the team that Aggie STEM assembled to meet this challenge consisted of 183 teachers, 45 school administrators, 14 university professors, 11 doctoral students, and 18 business partners. This group was committed to developing the supports and infrastructure teachers needed to allow their teaching to wrap itself in a cocoon and emerge as an elegant butterfly. Each group had a role. The district and school administrators removed barriers to implementation, worked to provide the equipment and materials teachers had committed to using, and purchased the consumables the teachers needed to enact their lessons. This was a massive undertaking across an entire district. The university professors committed to helping align the innovation with state and national standards and to state minimal skills testing. They also were primarily responsible for infusing the types of activities valued in the post-secondary world. The doctoral students were primality responsible for understanding the needs, wants, and hopes of the teachers, building a model for what was happening in the classrooms, and developing a clear understanding of student performance for the two prior years. The business partners were the glue that held the team together; they provided necessary resources, attended meetings, and ensured that the team was working in an authentic business-focused space building the skills valued by employers. We quickly learned that we did not know what the innovation would be or how we would start. After attending several meetings and listening to many prominent national pundits and educational authorities, the teachers proclaimed probably the most important idea: “We are tired of listening to what needs to happen. We already know! We want to do something that STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 1 makes a difference.” “No More Lectures – None – No Way,” read the sign they posted on the auditorium wall. A small group of university faculty and administrators were looking at the posting when two business leaders walked up, and one said, “Sounds like we have a new agenda, how about we build circuits today!!” We revised our agenda, he brought in the necessary equipment, and the master electrician started teaching teachers how to build circuits. University faculty and teachers started thinking about and aligning the learning objectives, unpacking the process, and figuring out the mathematics and science. One administrator suggested that the cost was very high, and another suggested having the students keep a budget and identifying the group with the most economical build as having the more efficient product, providing yet another link to learning standards. The rest of that day was not focused on planning, naming the innovation, or trying to figure out what we were going to do. We were committed to building a circuit with two shutoff switches with two bulbs scaled to fit a 20ft hallway. We learned how different switches work, by trial and error mostly, and we learned to calculate current, voltage, resistance, and power and about Ohm’s Law. We learned about potentiometers. When we questioned the master electrician, he was more than happy to give us the right vocabulary word and encouraged us to check the internet. At the end of the day, the teachers said they learned more things in that one day than all the previous days and that this was the kind of learning they wanted for their students. Some were still confused about how this learning would be able to be enacted in the classroom or how we would connect learning outcomes, but the light bulb was lit and it was glowing brightly above the heads of everyone in the room. We discovered STEM Project-Based Learning. We typed up the activity, classified everything we did that day, and set out to codify the best of our experiences. For the next three working meetings, heterogeneous groups of teachers, university faculty, administrators, business leaders, and graduate students unpacked the activity, writing objectives, developing names, and refining our process, creating a recipe that we could follow to build new engaging activities that had meaningful connections to real-world learning and measurable state and national learning outcomes. Eventually, a name was needed. Some suggested “problem-based learning,” others liked “project-based learning,” some preferred “inquiry,” while others opted for naming it after the school district where the team was based. After a lot of discussion, the teachers and administrators came to the conclusion that what they were doing was not really a problem or project; it was different. The components were different, the expected outcomes were different, and it was not inquiry because everything was inquiry. We settled on “STEM Project-Based Learning,” a mixture of several subjects designed in a purposeful way to maximize learning and provide the best possible chance to have students remember what they learned. 2 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) integrates engineering design principles with the K–16 curriculum. Chapter 13 discusses the interdisciplinary STEM connections and mindsets. The infusion of design principles enhances real-world applicability and helps prepare students for post-secondary education, with an emphasis on making connections to what STEM professionals actually do in their jobs. Our view of STEM learning is one in which the fields are all supportive and integrated, where applicable, with the design principles undergirding the problem-solving processes. In this book we discuss the history of STEM PBL (Chapter 2), establish a set of expectations for implementing STEM PBL (Chapter 3), and discuss specifically how to design a STEM PBL lesson (Chapter 4), whether in informal settings (Chapter 5) or in classrooms (Chapter 6). A variety of assessments to implement during STEM PBL lessons are explained (Chapter 7). You may want to skim some chapters, reading only those chapters that hold promise to answer questions you already have while reserving some chapters for when you encounter questions as you implement STEM PBL in your own classrooms with at-risk students (Chapter 8), female students (Chapter 9), and English-language learners (Chapter 10). Technology (Chapter 11) and open-source hardware and software (Chapter 12) can enhance the development of STEM PBL lessons. Chapter 14 emphasizes the importance of the specific language of STEM, and, finally, Chapter 15 demonstrates how social studies can enhance STEM content. Chapter 1 will outline some specific STEM PBL vocabulary, discuss the basic tenets of STEM PBL, and familiarize the reader with what to expect from implementing STEM PBL in their schools. STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 3  Chapter Outcomes When you complete this chapter, you should better understand and be able to explain the basic tenets of STEM PBL the differences between STEM PBL instruction and non-STEM PBL instruction When you complete this chapter, you should be able to discuss STEM PBL concepts and terminology communicate using STEM PBL terms make informed decisions about which chapters to read first Chapter Overview This chapter will introduce you to STEM PBL and the concepts explored in this book. It begins by discussing the development of STEM PBL and its core parts. It then describes important considerations when implementing STEM PBL, including unique vocabulary, one’s own entitlement, and where to begin in implementing this instructional style in the classroom. The chapter concludes with definitions of important STEM PBL terms. Overview of STEM PBL Project-based learning is often shortened to PBL, but the acronym is often confused with problem- based learning. The two terms are not synonymous. In this book, we endeavor to keep problem- based learning in lower case and spelled out to help you, the reader, differentiate the two when it is necessary for us to discuss problem-based learning. We also distinguish STEM PBL from typical PBL by always including “STEM” in the term. Why PBL? PBL has been around for many years, and it has been undertaken in many fields, including engineering, education, economics, and business. Therefore, there are many incarnations and many versions. PBL is broad and often encompasses several problems that students will need to solve. It is our belief that PBL provides the contextualized, authentic experiences necessary for students to scaffold learning and build meaningfully powerful STEM concepts supported by language arts, social studies, and art. PBL is both challenging and motivating. It requires students to think critically and analytically and enhances higher order thinking skills. It requires collaboration, peer communication, problem solving, and self-directed learning while incorporating rigor for all students. However, PBL does not build on engineering design, and its cornerstone is the driving question. In its many variations, PBL has the potential to help teachers and students achieve some amazing outcomes. However, in today’s knowledge economy, PBL has experienced stagnation, with accepted models failing to keep pace with 4 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm today’s needs, innovations in the field, and modern educational situations. Therefore, we have built on the strong foundation of PBL and added the engineering component and the all potential learning outcomes and affordances it can bring into a synergistic whole. While this is a rather simplified explanation, it will be expanded as chapters progress. It is the core essential component in the revised STEM PBL model. Why STEM? The idea of STEM is not new and has been around with different names. Before the use of STEM in education, there were other acronyms employed to meet the needs of the evolving fields of mathematics and science. Science, engineering, and technology (SET) and mathematics, science, and technology (MST) were other variants of STEM before its official implementation (Wong et al., 2016). In the 1990s, science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) was the first attempt to bridge all four disciplines together by the National Science Foundation (Sanders, 2008). However, SMET quickly evolved to STEM because of the negative connotation associated with the original acronym (Breiner et al., 2012; Sanders, 2008; Wong et al., 2016). Since the inception of STEM, other variations have cropped up (i.e., STEAM, STEMM, etc.), which adds to the confusion of determining what is STEM education. However, what is new is the emphasis on STEM education and linking secondary education with post-secondary practices through a project-based method. It is common in post-secondary institutions for students to be required to work in groups to solve conceptual problems situated within larger projects. While problems and projects do not necessitate convergent solutions, students are required to explain their solutions and to be able to justify the suitability of a proposed solution to the specifications of the PBL lesson. Commonly, this process has been termed “problem solving” and is often expected to be taught in mathematics classes. However, STEM professionals engage in complex problem solving, and, in most cases, there are multiple possible solutions, each with its strengths and limitations. Therefore, it is important for all students, but essential for secondary students, to develop broad knowledge that allows them to be successful on high-stakes tests but also to develop the depth of knowledge to allow them to reflect on the strengths and limitations of their solutions. Thus, just adding another modification and complicating the PBL landscape even more did not seem reasonable for educators. So, we developed STEM PBL in collaboration with teachers, administrators, higher education STEM professionals, and middle and secondary students. Our primary goal was to make the process easy for teachers to enact, easy for administrators to evaluate, and easy for students to transition into. We believe that developing a new model that draws a clear line between PBL and STEM PBL provides the framework to retain the benefits of PBL while developing a flexible model that accommodates changes in today’s educational landscape and the need to align to post-secondary practices and standards. STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 5 STEM PBL The STEM PBL process develops critical thinkers who will be more likely to succeed in post- secondary institutions where these skills are essential. The focus on STEM in this book is different than most definitions that continue to consider STEM as four discrete subjects. STEM PBL acknowledges that learning and job success is interdependent and that expertise is built iteratively across all subjects, even when one has a particular focus on one subject more than others. Therefore, job success is dependent on the interaction of knowledge from within each and also across STEM disciplines. So, student learning settings and expectations should mimic this very complex learning design—at least in part. Therefore, we define STEM as educating diverse people in ways that allow them to be aware of, responsible to, and tolerant of curricular diversity where groups of individuals work collaboratively to address societal needs in work that transcends any one STEM field in isolation. STEM PBL builds on and uses the same language one would encounter in the STEM job market and post-secondary STEM courses. It is clearly distinguishable by replacing the driving question with the project brief that contains both the ill-defined task and well-defined outcome. These two ideas are essential in post-secondary STEM education and the STEM job market. Imagine for a moment you were part of the team working on the first electric transportation project. There are capabilities and standards that are out of reach and current potential options that were just too costly to achieve. If the team focuses on all the potential features, one of three things can happen: they may (1) never get the project finished or (2) the cost of the design is so prohibitive people will not be able to afford to purchase it. Then there is the (3) “sweet spot” when the project meets all the constraints and is both affordable and meets a need. While this may sound convergent, and it may seem that everyone gets to exactly the same place with the exact same design, think about the state of the current cell phone market. Some may argue that Apple is the innovator and others are copying, and some may argue that Samsung is the innovator and others are copying. Regardless, even within the Samsung and Apple phone products, there are different model designs that meet design constraints. Some models are more elaborate and colorful, and some contain leading-edge capabilities that may not be fully realized yet, but those at the highest cost often have capabilities not yet fully achieved. Consider also the electric car market. The first Tesla model was not self- driving, and while the news makes us aware that Tesla still does not make an autonomous self- driving car, the company continues to pursue this goal. Currently, Models 3 and Y have the greatest potential for autonomous driving. Tesla clearly defines what they mean by self-driving and autonomous on the company’s webpage: Autopilot and Full Self-Driving Capability are intended for use with a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment. While these features are designed to become more capable over time, the currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous. (https://www.tesla.com/support/autopilot#:~:text=Model%20S%20and%20Model%20 X,and%20Full%20Self%2DDriving%20Capability, June 1, 2021) 6 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm However, people are still willing to pay more for a car that has the potential to be fully autonomous even if today it is not yet fully autonomous. This differential in payment is really about meeting design constraints. Each model meets the basic requirements while some target a different audience willing to spend more for added features. One might ask if there are designs that did not make it to production. To this I would say, the next model of almost every hit consumer product is already being perfected when the current model is going to market. An additional advantage to integrating STEM and PBL is the inclusion of authentic tasks (often the construction of an artifact) and task-specific vocabulary through the inclusion of design briefs. Authentic tasks have been defined as real-world tasks, or, in other words, the activity can occur in one’s real, lived experience. However, all too often we see these real-world experiences as remote to students and their worlds. For a task to be authentic in STEM PBL, it must be real to the learner and accessible to their world. For example, examining the design of tennis racquet grips may be completely foreign for inner city youth who have never seen a tennis court and never played tennis. My favorite example is the scene from the movie What Women Want. Mel Gibson is tasked to develop a marketing campaign for a women’s running shoe. This real-world task is completely foreign to him, so he takes home products for women to try them out in an attempt to understand the real-world task. If students have to do this much to understand the real-world task, then it is not an authentic STEM PBL task. Once the authentic task is described and explained, we define STEM PBL as an ill-defined task within a well-defined outcome situated within a contextually rich, authentic real-world environment requiring students to solve several problems, which, when considered in their entirety, showcase student mastery of several concepts of various STEM subjects. Well-defined outcomes include clear expectations for learning connected to local, state, and national standards and clearly defined expectations and constraints for the completion of the task. The ill-defined task allows students the freedom to interpret the problem, constraints, and criteria informed by their subject area knowledge to formulate diverse solutions that will meet the well-defined outcome. Those outcomes include several components such as, for example, what the final product must be able to do, evidence of design and or redesign, documentation of learning, evidence of individual and group contributions, and a presentation of the final product that includes how the final artifact meets the design criteria and constraints (use Appendix Y [Rubric for Well- Defined Outcome and Ill-Defined Task (WDO-IDT)] as a resource when developing this important aspect of a STEM PBL activity). After identifying the learning goals, the teacher develops expectations for the authentic task to be completed or the artifact to be constructed along with the necessary constraints to establish boundaries for learning. The constraints are often included in the design brief and are the most STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 7 basic of requirements and often considered essential. Therefore, not meeting the constraints would indicate an inadmissible attempt. The design brief contains both the constraints and the criteria informed by knowing exactly which objectives or standards students will be expected to master. The criteria are measurable. These criteria help students know how they are progressing on the tasks, and it is these criteria that inform assessment. In fact, it is the criteria that form the basis of all assessments used throughout the PBL lesson (see Appendix G [Crossing the Abyss: Popsicle Stick Bridge: WDO/IDT] for an example of a complete design brief and how to establish a well-defined outcome and ill-defined task). STEM PBL relies on engineering as the cornerstone and as the foundation on which students bring their compartmentalized knowledge of science, technology, and mathematics to bear on solving and engineering meaningful authentic problems. It affords students the opportunity to build new powerful knowledge on top of their foundational knowledge, constructing a deeper understanding of the concepts and linking concepts across subject areas. Ever wonder why significant digits and units are emphasized in chemistry and physics but in mathematics not so much? Subjects are interconnected and linked with everything else. It was only in chemistry that I learned that a number raised to a power of two represented a special two-dimensional shape (a square) and a number raised to a power of three represented a regular three- dimensional shape (a cube). I should have learned this relationship in mathematics, but my courses were focused on computational proficiency and lacked any connection to the sciences where they were so very important. In physics, I learned that my answer of “five” was wrong not because the calculation was incorrect but because I had converted to ERGS without a unit, and thus the teacher was not sure that I knew the measurement of work was in the centimeter, gram, second world. STEM PBL provides the rich context to integrate learning and to make learning and the process of knowledge accumulation visible. Why Now? As pressure from external constituents forces schools to relegate good teaching to the back burner while putting testing for accountability front and center, there must be an instructional model that provides students with high-value tasks that foster rigorous subject matter engagement. STEM PBL lessons engage students in authentic tasks that result in specific learning essential in the current standards-based educational model while connecting K–12 and post-secondary education and addressing future workplace learning needs. Combine this with the recent health and social pandemic and it will take a monumental effort to set children back on the educational path. The social pandemic has highlighted the huge disparity with which Black Americans are treated by police, and that treatment has an impact on students in U.S. schools. The health pandemic dislocated education, families, and threatened a precariously balanced system and perhaps set students back a year or more educationally. STEM PBL is one 8 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm means teachers have for making thinking and learning visible and to scaffold learning while activating prior knowledge. So, we believe there is no time like the present. Building a Common Language It is important to understand what is meant by somewhat common terms in relation to STEM PBL. For example, brainstorming is commonly used to mean “generating ideas and not engaging in the evaluation of any particular one.” In contrast, in PBL, brainstorming is used as a pedagogical technique to establish teams and encourage a common focus. It is during brainstorming sessions that teams develop shared knowledge and a group dynamic that will serve as the incubator for their work together and eventually will lead to their unique solution. The term relevance has to have many meanings: the usefulness of education to life-long learning, meaningfulness to self, importance to society, real-world applicability, and finally the formation of moral decision making. In STEM PBL, relevance is not an oversimplification of these ideas, just a prioritization that is used to align learning with formal standards or student expectations. So, in STEM PBL we talk about if something educationally relevant, and it is this educational relevance that facilitates the development of rigorous and challenging experiences for students. An important consideration when deciding to adopt STEM PBL is that of the interdependent nexus of learning objectives, assessment, and student learning. It is common to refer to student objectives. The phrase student objective has come to be interpreted in behavioristic terms. STEM PBL would be considered the polar opposite of behavioristic paradigms of teaching and learning; therefore, we use the term student expectation (SE). We feel the term SE is not laden with prior notions but still conveys the message that teachers must use some form of objective, national or state standard, learning goal, or performance expectation in order to align teaching, learning, and assessment in this era of accountability. So, rather than be stereotyped into a specific paradigm, the perspective of this book is to accommodate many views, and, regardless of personal perspective, one can fit those views for describing what students will learn in STEM PBL. Given the importance of establishing SEs, it is essential to also use some form of assessment to determine the extent to which students master learning goals. PBL is well suited to assessments using rubrics but NOT to the exclusion of other forms of assessment. It is important to have a mix of assessments and to build student experience with as many forms of assessment as possible. Many schools that adopt STEM PBL also establish a professional learning community (PLC). A PLC can be an important and very productive school-based initiative that provides for and STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 9 sustains STEM PBL. The formation of a PLC facilitates teacher discussions about roles and responsibilities, establishes group norms, and sets expectations for everyone involved in the PLC. PLCs provide time for teachers to plan together. Often, PLCs contain stakeholders from across the continuum, but it is just as common for school-based PLCs to have representation from a more limited set of stakeholders. Equity, Entitlement, and Legacy in STEM The ideas of equity, entitlement, and legacy are paramount issues for STEM education. Once one earns credentials or diplomas, or certificates in any STEM-related field, one is bestowed with the greatest of benefits and endowed with a mystique that can be greater than the sum of all the parts that helped forge that credential. Earning a degree in any STEM field receives the same level of prominence. However, this awesome power should not ever devolve into a program of systemic entitlement and legacy. It is the responsibility of the smallest person who might be blessed with great power and influence to use that power to confront entitlement and legacy, providing a consequence of equity that transcends socio-political structures, cultural and religious lines, and languages. Entitlement is one of those things that we cannot often recognize when we possess it. It does not come on a card you can put in your wallet or purse and is not a piece of jewelry you can wear or an article of clothing that can be computer-selected for you. However, we can be doggedly protective of it and not even know we have it. We can wield it with laser-like precision or like a nuclear weapon and create broad and irreparable devastation. Entitlement structures come in many forms—they can be the color of our skin, the language we speak, our gender, our religion or sect within our religion, the university we graduated from, or our field of education. Perhaps the most damaging entitlement is entitlement based on invisible structures. Knowledge was intended to be the great equalizer that would transcend all superficial entitlement structures. However, we are still slaves to base instincts to differentiate, to seek out the miniscule uniqueness that exists within subgroups and then attach artificial distinctions on those that create a legacy that leads to privilege for one group and that leads to neglect, at best, and failure, at worst, for the other. The distinctions are either good or bad—to which one we subscribe depends on how we interpret the distinction’s effect on our standing within a community. As more of the world seeks equity through education, discourse around traditional differences is lost. It is substituted for more insidious and vile forms of transparent entitlement and legacy. These can be so ingrained that those who may feel that they challenge the construction of these structures fail to recognize them or, even worse, provide the raw materials for their construction. 10 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm “Being” a STEM educator or STEM professional comes with lucrative capital. This truly intoxicating concoction of recognition for what one knows and intimidation for what others do not is potentially a very dangerous condition. Therefore, one must surround oneself with others who are immune to this concoction to ensure measures are in place to keep those privileges in check. In the book Die Empty: Unleash Your Best Work Every Day, Todd Henry espouses a philosophy that the most valuable land in the world is the cemetery because it is where all the unrealized hopes, dreams, and good intentions are buried. It contains all the greatest dreams that were never enacted, the apologies never given, and the regrets never redressed. It is the repository of friendships lost and the greatest discoveries forgone that we must be certain to share. I encourage you to consume the information carefully, enact it a little each day, and in the end to Die Empty. What Is Engineering Design and Why in K–12? Engineering design has many forms with varying numbers of steps. There is no single foundational model broadly accepted across all engineering schools or practicing engineers. Some engineering design models have as few as three steps, while others can have 10 or more. Some engineering designs are partially Figure 1. The Engineering Design Process linear with iterative portions, but some are completely iterative while others are hierarchical and linear. The steps are often formulated to meet specific needs. Our model depends heavily on its intended purpose, teaching and learning, which in turn relies heavily on problem solving and internalizing or learning new content. This is different from many other models, which have the intended purpose of being quality control, parsimonious of resources, elegant, or applicable. One possible engineering design model is contained in Figure 1; also consider reading Chapter 4 for more information. STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 11 How to Start? STEM PBL requires a professional teaching force empowered with the skills necessary for designing powerful learning experiences that maximize student potential. Therefore, effective STEM PBL requires teachers to experience high-quality professional development to learn how to design high-quality experiential learning activities. Not all professional development activities are created equal (Desimone et al., 2001), and not all enactments meet the expectations of high-quality professional development (Capraro et al., 2011; Capraro & Avery, 2011; Han et al., 2012). The Flow of the Book This book is designed to provide a modern STEM approach to PBL that is informed by research. It covers the typical major topics but also includes a historical perspective (Chapter 2), a modern perspective on assessment that works in symbiosis with high-stakes testing (Chapter 7), and insights into the formation of PLCs and their impact on sustaining school change (Chapters 5 & 7). It is not written as a prescription or novel; we hope readers select chapters as they journey from dabbling in STEM PBL to mastery. This new edition is in a new format that allows duplication of the worksheet pages, lessons, rubrics, and an observation instrument located in the Appendices. We hope the new format is helpful to both teachers and workshop providers. Vocabulary for Reading the Book Authentic. A setting that is both real world and directly applicable to the students who will be experiencing the activity. It is carefully matched to their prior experiences and clearly links to the necessary knowledge that is the focus of the STEM PBL lesson. Constraint. Parameters established as part of the project to structure the deliverables of a PBL event. Constraints are placed on the design process and the product. Constraint is not synonymous with criteria. Examples of some constraints could be the following: a presentation must include research and contain a marketing component that lasts no more than three minutes, no two puzzle pieces can be the same, the boat must float for two minutes, or materials cannot be cut. All constraints must be met to have an admissible project. Criterion/Criteria. Item(s) written to support specificity that can be ranked or may demonstrate the continuum between expert and novice knowledge of the learning outcome. Generally, it is these criteria that function as part of the assessment component. Designer-defined criteria are used to select among plausible designs and may address wow factor, personal insights, complexity, novelty, or cost. Some examples of criteria are the following: the overall strongest design at the lowest cost scores higher and the most unique design from among all the designs presented will earn bonus points. 12 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm Design Brief. Establishes parameters for a PBL lesson. The design brief contains the constraints, establishes criteria, may establish evaluation standards, clearly communicates the deliverables, and outlines the conditions under which the PBL inquiry occurs. Problem-based learning. The use of a problem statement that both guides the learning and any resultant activities to explore the topic. Generally, problem-based learning is context rich but textually and informationally impoverished. The focus of learning is on individual and groups to (a) clearly identify what information they need to solve the problem and (b) identify suitable resources and sources of information to solve the problem. Professional Learning Community. Communities of practitioners, students, administrators, community stakeholders, and district personnel whose mission is to facilitate the teaching and learning process where the goals are to establish common language, expectations, and standards and to facilitate increased student outcomes. It provides time for teachers to come together to plan educationally sound activities for students. STEM PBL. An ill-defined task with a well-defined outcome situated within a contextually rich task requiring students to solve several problems, which, when considered in their entirety, showcase student mastery of several concepts of various STEM subjects. PBL here is the use of a project that often results in the emergence of various learning outcomes in addition to the ones anticipated. The learning is dynamic as students use various processes and methods to explore the project. The project is generally information rich, but directions are kept to a minimum. The richness of the information is often directly related to the quality of the learning and the level of student engagement. The information is often multifaceted and includes background information, graphs, pictures, specifications, generalized and specific outcome expectations, narrative, and in many cases the formative and summative assessments. Relevance. Refers to the real-world connections that should be fostered in each PBL lesson. It is also associated with facilitating student development of a personal connection to the project and fosters a “buy-in” for solving individual problems presented in the project. Rubric. May be co-developed with the students before the project starts and provides clear criteria that rank the extent to which a team or individual meets the expectations. Multiple rubrics can be developed to assess cooperation, collaboration, presentation, content, completeness, language, visual appeal, and marketing. The evaluator(s) can be the individual, peers, teachers, administrators, or external stakeholders. Small Learning Community. These are formed by ensuring that all the content area teachers (mathematics, science, social studies, reading/language arts) teach the same students and have common planning, behavior management plans, and performance expectations. Small learning STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 13 communities afford teachers the opportunity to become better acquainted with students and improve communication among teachers about student progress on common issues. Student Expectations. Specific learning goals where the focus is on the verbs. Clearly defined student expectations facilitate the alignment of teaching, learning, and assessment. Well-Defined Outcome. What students will know and be able to do by the end of the project. The well-defined outcome provides sufficient information to know what the finished product is and provides the constraints by which to judge the final product. It includes the deliverable, constraints, and expected learning outcomes or SEs. Ill-Defined Task. Contains basic information. The ill-defined task provides sufficient information to know how the content (well-defined outcome) comes together but way too little information to ensure that every attempt would look exactly the same and/or the process for getting to the well- defined outcome would be exactly the same. It is important here that teachers provide little specificity and that students can bring their own backgrounds and learning rates so the final deliverables are distinct, show group and individual growth, and foster students to learn at their own rates and depth while mastering the specified SEs. Conclusion STEM PBL was created out of a need identified by teachers, researchers, administrators, and stakeholders to develop an instructional style that is engaging, interdisciplinary, and encourages long-term learning. Specifically, STEM PBL makes use of authentic settings, requiring students to complete an ill-defined task with a well-defined outcome. It makes use of engineering design concepts to encourage problem solving and internalizing learning. STEM PBL also uses a specific set of vocabulary that teachers and students alike must become familiar with. These ideas, and more, are discussed in later chapter of this book. Refer to this chapter’s introduction to review their themes and determine which might be of the most use to you. Reflection Questions and Activities 1. What are the key tenets of STEM PBL instruction? What separates it from PBL instruction? 2. What is an ill-defined task and a well-defined outcome? How important are these to STEM PBL instruction? 3. What is the relationship between engineering and STEM PBL, and what is engineering design? In which chapter can you learn more about this? 4. Think about your familiarity with STEM PBL and the specific needs of your classroom then create a reading strategy for this book, thinking carefully about which chapters will most effectively support your needs. 14 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm  Further Readings Capraro, M. M., Capraro, R. M., & Oner, A. T. (2011, November 10–12). Observations of STEM PBL teachers and their student scores [Paper presentation]. School Science and Mathematics Association 2011 Annual Convention, Colorado Springs, CO, United States. Capraro, R. M., & Avery, R. (2011, April 8–12). The “wicked problems” of urban schools and a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) university-school district-business partnership [Paper presentation]. American Educational Research Association 2011 Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, United States. Desimone, L. M., Porter, A. C., Garet, M. S., Yoon, K. S., & Birman, B. F. (2002). Effects of professional development on teachers’ instruction: Results from a three-year longitudinal study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 81–112. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Collier Books. Garet, M. S., Porter, A. C., Desimone, L., Birman, B. F., & Yoon, K. S. (2001). What makes professional development effective? Results from a national sample of teachers. American Educational Research Journal, 38, 915–945. Han, S. Y., Yalvac, B., Capraro, M. M., & Capraro, R. M. (2012, July 8–15). In-service teachers’ implementation of and understanding from project-based learning (PBL) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields [Paper presentation]. 12th International Congress on Mathematical Education, Seoul, Korea. Kwok, M., Vela, K. N., Rugh, M. S., Lincoln, Y. S., Capraro, R. M., & Capraro, M. M. (2020). STEM words and their multiple meanings: The intricacies of asking a clarifying question. Communication Education, 69(2), 176–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2020.1723803 Rugh, M. S., Williams, A., Lee, Y., & Capraro, R. M. (2019). Comparing STEM schools on algebra performance. Proceedings of the Annual IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 49. Stearns, L. M., Morgan, J., Capraro, M. M., & Capraro, R. M. (2012). The development of a teacher observation instrument for PBL classroom instruction. Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research, 13(3), 25–34. Young, J. L., Young, J. R., & Capraro, R. M. (2020). Advancing black girls in STEM: Implications from advanced placement participation and achievement. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology, 12, 202–222. References Breiner, J. M., Harkness, S. S., Johnson, C. C., & Koehler, C. M. (2012). What is STEM? A discussion about conceptions of STEM in education and partnerships. School Science and Mathematics, 112, 3– 11. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2011.00109 Sanders, M. (2008). STEM, STEM education, STEMmania. Technology Teacher, 68(4), 20–26. Wong, V., Dillon, J., & King, H. (2016). STEM in England: Meanings and motivations in the policy area. International Journal of Science Education, 38(15), 2346–2366. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2016.1242818 STEM Project-Based Learning Paradigm 15