Enriching Science Learning through Simulations and Interdisciplinary Problem-Solving

This “Improving Educator Quality Program” from the KY Council on Postsecondary Education aims at integrating the Next Generation Science Standards and related assessments in a way that assists teachers in providing intervention in content areas for students in need of accelerated learning. The university engineers (College of Engineering at University of Kentucky) and teacher educators (College of Education at Murray State University) collaborate to develop this research-based professional development program for K-12 science educators for improving the student and school performance. The project will be led by PI, Dr. Yuejin Xu, College of Education at Murray State University. Dr. Charles Lu, College of Engineering at University of Kentucky will develop a Simulation and Interdisciplinary Problem-solving course for this project. Computational simulations and physical experiments are the heart of an engineering education; they provide a concrete learning experience for understanding the physical science (PS) and engineering design (ETS). Through this course, teachers will work through hand-on activities on the four physical science contents, i.e., structure and properties of matters, forces and interactions, energy, and wave properties as well as the engineering design (ETS) content, as specified by the Next Generation Science Standards. Teachers can also bring these hand-on activities back to their classrooms for teaching science and engineering concepts.