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BRINGING INVENTION EDUCATION INTO MIDDLE SCHOOL
SCIENCE CLASSROOMS: A CASE STUDY
Helen Zhang1, Leigh Estabrooks2, and Anthony Perry2
1Lynch School of Education, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
2Lemelson-MIT Program, School of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Technology and Innovation, Vol. 20, pp. 235-250, 2019
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 National Academy of Inventors.
ISSN 1949-8241 • E-ISSN 1949-825X
http://dx.doi.org/10.21300/20.3.2019.235
www.technologyandinnovation.org
_____________________
Accepted: November 1, 2018.
Address correspondence to Helen Zhang, Lynch School of Education, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.
Tel: +1 (617) 552-6657. E-mail: zhangzm@bc.edu
235
INTRODUCTION
ere has been a longstanding inequity issue in
the science, technology, engineering, and mathe-
matics (STEM) innovation workforce in the U.S.:
Women represent only 12% of U.S. innovators, while
minorities represent 8% of U.S.-born innovators
(1-4). Research has suggested that the under-rep-
resentation may be related to factors such as family,
community, and neighborhood. White men from
high-income families are more likely to receive pat-
ents and become innovators than the average person
in the population (1). People who were exposed to
is paper reports an exploratory case study on broadening youth participation in invention
education by supporting teachers’ eorts to bring invention education into middle school science
classrooms. Invention education has been suggested to be highly promising for engaging and
empowering youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning;
sustaining their interest; and preparing them to become future inventors and innovators. Students
who are diverse by race, ethnicity, and gender, however, have traditionally been under-repre-
sented among STEM degree holders, which is ultimately reected in who patents technological
inventions. e integration of invention education into STEM coursework in students’ early years
and across their years of schooling may be an eective approach for creating greater diversity
among STEM graduates and patent holders in the U.S. Few studies, however, are available to
inform understandings of this approach to teaching and learning. Greater insights are needed
in eective approaches to teaching young people to think and work as inventors, the design
and development of invention education curriculum, and the unique design considerations
needed when developing invention curriculum for science classes oered during the regular
school day. is study contributes to the literature by analyzing one teacher’s experiences with
modifying and implementing a widely-used aerschool invention curriculum called Junior
Varsity (JV) InvenTeams Chill Out! for 7th grade science classes. e teacher in this study cited
his ability to present information through multiple channels, enrich students’ understanding,
and produce excitement in classrooms as examples of the benets of invention education. e
study also makes visible the challenges he encountered during implementation of the curriculum,
including encouraging students’ creativity, classroom management, and covering the mandated
standards. Findings from this study can inform the design of invention curriculum and teacher
professional development programs that aim to promote invention education in middle school.
Key words: Middle school science; Invention education; In-service science teachers; JV
InvenTeams
innovation through family, neighborhood, and envi-
ronment during childhood are more likely to innovate
than those who were not (1). Innovation, the attempt
to move the rst occurrence of an invention into prac-
tice (5), has been viewed as a central driving force of
economic growth (6,7). Since minorities will continue
to comprise a large proportion of the U.S. population
rise—with nearly 40% of the population projected
to be Black or Latino by 2060 (8)—it is imperative
to provide opportunities for all youth to engage in
technological invention activities that prepare them
to ultimately become innovators.
One promising approach to mitigate the inequity
is to bring invention education into schools — in par-
ticular, middle schools — because the middle school
years are an important time in forming students’
attitudes toward STEM, and exposure to invention
activities could potentially inuence their future
career interest in STEM innovation. Integrating
invention education with science coursework can
ensure that all students are exposed to invention
learning activities in their early adolescence because
science classes are mandatory for middle school stu-
dents. Opportunities for learning to invent, however,
remain scarce in middle school despite the potential
benets to students and eorts by program providers
to support such opportunities in formal and infor-
mal learning environments. More research is needed
to understand barriers that are inhibiting broader
implementation and how to prepare and encour-
age teachers to adopt invention education in their
classrooms. is paper reports ndings from an
exploratory study where 7
th
grade physical science
students learned heat transfer with a hands-on, proj-
ect-based invention curriculum. Over 300 students
from the same school district in the northeastern
region of the U.S. spent three weeks learning inven-
tion, science, and engineering concepts through a
modied version of Junior Varsity (JV) InvenTeams
Chill Out! curriculum. e Chill Out! curriculum was
originally developed for out-of-school time imple-
mentation by the Lemelson-MIT (LMIT) Program,
a sponsored program in the School of Engineering at
MIT. Students learned heat transfer and applied their
understanding to invent lunchboxes in the Chill Out!
unit. e invention activity extended understanding
of the STEM concepts by allowing students to invent
solutions to everyday issues associated with heating
and cooling.
e purpose of this study is to investigate the chal-
lenges teachers faced during the classroom enactment
of the Chill Out! unit. We employed a case study
methodology (9,10), illuminating the case of one
representative teacher (Mr. T) and his experience of
implementing the Chill Out! unit in his four science
classes with a student population diverse by race, eth-
nicity, and gender. To make the unit more accessible
and relevant to students from under-represented
populations (e.g., English learners), we modied
the curriculum by adding visual representations to
explain jargon and reducing the reading load (note
that a detailed description of the curriculum cus-
tomizations can be found in another paper in this
special issue, entitled “Culturally Relevant Science:
Incorporating Visualizations and Home Culture in
an Invention Science Curriculum”).
We chose to focus on Mr. T’s experience because
he attended eight hours of professional develop-
ment with the other 7
th
grade teachers implementing
the in-school invention education curriculum and
because of his knowledge of physical science, which
we perceived as a strength that would support the
classroom implementation. e professional devel-
opment, co-led by the researchers and LMIT sta,
featured an introduction to invention education and
an overview of the curriculum with suggestions for
implementation tactics and hands-on activities.
Printed curriculum guides and all hands-on materials
were provided by the research team during the early
fall of a new school year. Mr. T organized the materi-
als in preparation for implementation in late fall. Two
researchers observed classroom enactments, collected
invention artifacts, conducted interviews before and
aer the implementation, and organized debrieng
meetings with Mr. T periodically throughout the
classroom run. e research questions addressed
were:
• What were Mr. T’s perceptions of the benets
and challenges with regard to teaching inven-
tion in his middle school science classes?
• What modications, if any, did Mr. T make
to the invention curriculum as he implemented
the curriculum in his middle school science
classes?
236 ZHANG ET AL.
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 237
• How did Mr. T’s initial experiences as an
invention educator and science teacher
inuence Mr. T’s thinking about his own teach-
ing practices?
RATIONALE
Potential Benefits and Challenges of Invention
Education
Invention education is a novel approach to
active learning through interdisciplinary thinking
in educational settings. It encompasses the critical
components of both scientic inquiry and engineer-
ing design processes (e.g., formulating a hypothesis,
experimenting, designing, and iterating) and yet dif-
fers from them, largely in how youth identify the
problem they are solving and what they do once the
problem is solved (11). Invention education typically
features an open-ended problem discovery phase
at the beginning of a project to foster the develop-
ment of the mindset of inventors who see the world
as problems waiting for solutions and then select a
problem that they are passionate about. e young
inventors identify a problem, formulate solutions,
iteratively design the solutions, and build prototypes
while keeping the user’s/beneciary’s/customer’s need
central to their decision-making. ey apply their
skills, knowledge, and understanding of the prob-
lem as they consider the next invention problem.
Learning approaches centered around creative,
project-based activities, though not necessarily inven-
tion education, have proliferated with the maker
movement and due to the compatability of proj-
ect-based learning (PBL) with the Next Generation
Science Standards. e maker movement has yielded
numerous maker spaces and labs in museums, librar-
ies, universities, and schools, reecting increased
interest among educators and students in using
familiar materials to deconstruct, reconstruct, and
innovate (12,13). A wealth of research on PBL has
suggested theoretical foundations for this approach
to teaching and learning, which we drew on as we
conceptualized the potential benets of invention
education. First, the strong emphasis on hands-on
activities can lower the barrier to participation,
making invention projects highly accessible to all
students, especially those who are of low academic
levels (14). Second, solving problems from every
-
day lives can be highly appealing to students who are
turned o by traditional paradigms of formal science
education (15). ese youth oen view the practices
performed in science classrooms as too far away from
those conducted in their families and communities.
Invention enables them to witness the close relation-
ship between STEM and their lives, actively sparking
creativity and interest. ird, invention projects typi-
cally are interdisciplinary in nature, providing ample
entry points and solution paths for students with dif-
ferent expertise (16,17), promoting collaboration,
and reinforcing integrated STEM learning (18).
Despite the increasing prevalence of making and
PBL among educators, there still exists an unequal
representation of females participating in inven-
tion activities, as evidenced by one national grants
initiative for high school inventors. Participation
data over the past ten years from the Lemelson-MIT
InvenTeams grants initiative indicate that 35% of the
students are female and 65% are male (n = 2,403),
even with the initiative’s continuous eorts to pro-
mote invention education among female students. A
research study with InvenTeams students found that
factors discouraging female students’ participation
in the invention experience included stereotypes of
inventors, high time commitments, and a lack of prior
knowledge, exposure, understanding, and engage-
ment in invention (19). More strategies and eorts
are needed to promote invention education among
all youth.
Integrating Invention Education with STEM
Coursework
In this study, we brought invention education
into the school day to promote invention education
and broaden participation. Embedding invention
in school coursework, e.g., science and technol-
ogy classes, oers the largest possible audience and
provides early access to students who have been tra-
ditionally under-represented in STEM and invention,
thus precluding them from innovation—the driv-
ing force of economic development. Inclusion in the
school day also directly addresses the issue of stu-
dents self-selecting into or out of the STEM learning
experiences necessary for invention in out-of-school
settings (20,21). Further, this is consistent with recent
238 ZHANG ET AL.
economic ndings that an early exposure to invention
and innovation is critical to including these activi-
ties in students’ adulthood and careers (1).
Getting schools to oer invention education
within the school day, however, is not easy. e
literature on implementing PBL learning in class-
rooms has suggested many challenges teachers face
when teaching such projects in classrooms, includ-
ing shis to a constructivist approach to adopt
student-centered instructional strategies, classroom
management issues, the creation of dierent types of
assessments, and support for student collaboration
(22-24). Teachers need to transition from traditional
instructional methods centered around knowledge
transmission towards the student-centered, construc-
tivist approach. ey need to tolerate the ambiguity
and exibility of the dynamic student-centered learn-
ing environment, recognize and accept the shi of
their role from a lecturer to a facilitator, and promote
student-driven inquiry and learning.
Besides the challenges inherent in PBL noted
above, teachers oen are faced with a dearth of both
invention curriculum for in-school settings and eec-
tive instructional practices. e eld of invention
education is relatively young, and there are not many
invention curricula available in the U.S. One notable
exception is the JV InvenTeams curriculum devel-
oped by the LMIT Program and piloted in 2014. As
previously mentioned, this invention curriculum was
designed to be implemented in out-of-school time
learning spaces. Invention activities oen require
more time than is available during the school day
and may not align with the school district’s man-
dated standards. To successfully integrate invention
education into school coursework, teachers need to
select an invention curriculum that is aligned with
the district curriculum standards and modify it for
their diverse student population; adjust their own
teaching methods; and perhaps even change their
teaching beliefs. It is due to these myriad of obsta-
cles that invention education in schools has been
relatively underexplored.
is study aims to ll in this important gap by
investigating the challenges in-service teachers faced
during the implementation of the aforementioned
JV InvenTeams curriculum in their classes. Four
7th grade science teachers revised and implemented
one JV InvenTeams curriculum called Chill Out! in
their classes. e research explores how the teach-
ers’ ways of thinking of and teaching with invention
curriculum changed and what factors supported
and constrained the classroom implementation.
e ndings reveal teachers’ perceptions of inven-
tion education and oer insights into the design of
invention curriculum and professional development
programs to better t the needs of middle school sci-
ence teachers to broaden students’ participation in
invention education.
CHILL OUT! CURRICULAR UNIT
e Chill Out! unit used in this study was devel-
oped based on the JV InvenTeams activity guides
developed by the LMIT Program. Built upon the
program’s een years of experience of supporting
the work of young inventors, the JV InvenTeams unit
guides were intentionally designed to support the
acquisition of STEM knowledge, skills, and mindsets
that are crucial to preparing young people to begin
their work as inventors. LMIT has provided support,
including professional development, to 148 groups
of middle and high school students since 2015. e
guides have engaged over 2,000 students and 148
educators to develop condence in their hands-on
technical skills and minds-on STEM knowledge
while considering inventing solutions to real-world
problems. e JV InvenTeams guides were designed
to provide experience for middle school and early
high school students to invent solutions and hence
build their condence to carry out more open-ended
inventing eorts in their upper high school years
and beyond. ree of the JV InvenTeams student
groups progressed to the competitive level of receiv-
ing an InvenTeams grant. is was through a national
grant initiative known as InvenTeams that LMIT has
oered for 15 years in which high school students
identify problems in their local communities and
receive $10,000 to conceptualize, design, build, and
test working prototypes of a technological solution
to their problem. Eight of the 243 InvenTeams have
received U.S. patents.
While JV InvenTeams guides have been popular
and successful among youth and educators, they had
previously been used in out-of-school settings. e
teacher in this study, Mr. T, was one of four teachers
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 239
who worked together to modify the Chill Out! unit
by prioritizing the contents and activities that aligned
well with their district’s curriculum standards (see
Table 1). e modications made it more suitable
for inclusion in the middle school science classes.
In total, the teachers planned to spend 10 days (two
school weeks) on the Chill Out! unit. eir modi-
cations included:
• an emphasis on the science concepts involved
in the unit, e.g., heat transfer, thermal energy,
insulation, conduction, convection, and
radiation;
• less focus on the invention extension activities.
In the original curriculum, students are
expected to spend at least two hours on brain-
storming how the newly acquired knowl-
edge and skills can be applied to other every
day examples, using the SCAMPER brain-
storming technique (25,26) and completing
an invention worksheet that required students
to think about the invention plan and benecia-
ries. e modied version only engaged stu-
dents in brainstorming new invention problems
as time permitted;
• a simplied invention challenge at the end
of the unit where students would convert self-
sourced shoeboxes into lunchboxes. is
removed much of the hands-on skill building
of how to create lunchboxes; and
• added homework activities to engage all stu-
dents, especially students from diverse cultural
backgrounds.
Mr. T spent three weeks on this Chill Out! unit
and added activities and formative assessments based
on students’ feedback and responses, e.g., instruc-
tions on how to work with team members and how
to respond to peers’ criticisms (detailed information
can be found in the “Mr. T’s Invention Education
Curriculum Modications” section). All the inven-
tion education activities planned and listed in Table
1 were taught in the same sequence during his
implementation.
METHOD
Research Design
A case study methodology (9,10) was used to
investigate the research questions. e case study
method was especially benecial given the purpose
of this exploratory research and the small sample size
involved in this study. We conducted semi-structured
pre- and post-interviews with Mr. T, soliciting his
opinions on the invention curriculum before and aer
the classroom implementation and held ve debrief-
ing conversations with him to capture the real-time
changes and adjustments during the implementa-
tion. rough the reconstruction and analysis of the
opportunities for learning enacted in the classroom,
we aimed to make visible one teacher’s views of the
modied invention curriculum, his perceptions of
the challenges and benets of implementing the cur-
riculum in a middle school science course, and the
ways his experiences with teaching the curriculum
have impacted his own views of teaching.
Participants
is research project, as noted above, began with a
purposeful sample of four teachers for the exploration
of the research questions. e criteria for selection
of the teachers included the following: 1) teachers
who had no prior experience of implementing an
invention curriculum in classrooms, 2) teachers who
were willing to participate in the study and devote
extra time to the modication and preparation of
the implementation, and 3) teachers of students with
diverse backgrounds. Teachers received a stipend for
their participation. In this paper, we reported nd-
ings from one teacher, Mr. T, a veteran teacher in the
school district, because of his strong background in
physical science. He is a white teacher of 7
th
grade sci-
ence in a public school in the northeastern region of
the U.S. He has taught middle school science for seven
years and had no experience of teaching an inven-
tion curriculum or other PBL projects. e classes he
taught were medium in size, ranging between twenty
to twenty-six students. His school has a diverse stu-
dent population, with 24.2% of students being English
language learners and 46.1% coming from minority
groups.
240 ZHANG ET AL.
Data Collection
We conducted semi-structured interviews with
Mr. T before and aer the implementation of the
Chill Out! unit. e interviews lasted approximately
20 minutes and were conducted during school hours.
e interviews were recorded and transcribed for
data analysis. e interview protocol was pilot tested
prior to data collection.
e pre-interview questions focused on eliciting
Mr. T’s prior teaching experiences, practices, and
views about invention education through a series
of questions: 1) How did you teach heat transfer
previously? 2) Have you used invention curriculum,
project-based learning, or design projects in your
teaching before? and 3) How do you think the Chill
Out! unit is dierent from your regular curriculum?
What do you think are the potential benets? What
learning and teaching diculties might teachers and
students face? e post-interview questions aimed
to engage Mr. T in reecting on the implementa-
tion, by asking: 1) What do you think students have
learned? 2) What are the benets of invention edu-
cation compared to the traditional curriculum? and
3) What challenges or diculties did your students
or you meet during this classroom run?
Table 1. Revised Activities for Students to Perform during Chill Out! in 50-minute Classes
Day 1Invention introduction• Complete invention warm-up activities, Grab Bag Inventing,
and Cell Phone Stand Design Challenge
• Play “Four Corners” game to help students form teams
where the members have diverse experience
• Ask students to bring shoeboxes to school for the later
invention project
Day 2-3Explore science
concepts of heat, heat
transfer, convection,
conduction, and
radiation
• Complete hands-on labs that aim to teach convection,
conduction, and radiation
• Discuss problem solving and invention in the context of
food safety and transportation
Theme Activities
Day 4-5Explore science
concepts of insulation,
insulator, conductor,
and biomimicry
• Explore the thermal properties of various materials
• Explore how the blubber of Emperor penguins minimizes
the amount of heat loss to cool ocean water
• Hands-on lab that teaches insulators
Day 6-8Design work: build a
lunchbox using
shoeboxes
• Design, build, test, and revise a lunchbox using shoeboxes
that will keep cold food from warming up and warm food
from cooling down
Day 9Remove heat using
Peltier tiles
• Learn about evaporation, evaporative cooling, and
thermoelectric effect
• Experiment with Peltier tiles
• Build a Peltier cooling unit that is made of a Peltier tile
sandwiched between two heat sink fans
Day 10Peltier prototyping
and invention
extension
• Brainstorm ways they might use Peltier tiles in their
inventions of lunchboxes
• Design and add a Peltier cooling unit to the lunchbox
invention, test out their lunchboxes, and provide feedback
to other teams
• Extend the invention experience to other everyday examples
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 241
In addition, we conducted debrieng meetings
with Mr. T once every three days, documenting his
thoughts and changes made to the curriculum during
the implementation. All debriengs included the
same four questions: “What worked? What didn’t
work? What modications did you make? What mod-
ications do you plan to make for the next run?” In
total, Mr. T spent 17 instructional days on the Chill
Out! unit. We held ve debrieng meetings with
him, all of which were recorded and transcribed to
capture what happened during the implementation.
e interviews, debriengs, and eld notes consti-
tuted the corpus of data used in our analysis.
Data Analysis
Analysis of the data followed a constant com-
parative method (27). e i nductive process of
data analysis started with the researcher gathering
information through open-ended questions and eld-
notes. ese were put into themes and categories that
became broader through analysis (28). Specically, to
answer the rst research question on teachers’ views
of the invention curriculum, we combined Mr. T’s
responses to the interview questions before and aer
the implementation. The second research question
on
Mr. T’s modifications to the invention
curriculum was
addressed by analyzing his
responses to the debrief-ing questions on the
changes he made and planned to make. The
analysis of the third research question on the
impact on Mr. T’s views of his teaching prac-
tices
focused on his reflection after the classroom
implementation.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Overall Implementation Results
Mr. T implemented the Chill Out! unit in
his
classrooms for 17 days. During interviews with
Mr.
T, he described his experience as a success.
Like
many teachers, Mr. T defined success in
terms of
his students’ behaviors and activities
(35). In the
post-interview, he mentioned that his
students not only reached all the learning goals he
established on science concepts of heat transfer but
also developed
a deep understanding of relevant
ancillary concepts,
including invention and
biomimicry through the
hands-on application of
skills and knowledge, as was
evident in the final
invention project—a lunchbox.
In particular, Mr. T felt that all the hands-on activ-
ities allowed the students to recognize the failure of
their misconceptions, providing opportunities for
him to help correct the wrong ideas: “I think it was
easier for them to see some of their misconceptions
when something didn’t or did work as long as there
was someone there to explain why the material used
wasn’t as eective or was expected.”
Mr. T also noted the high engagement and enthu-
siasm of students, saying, “ey were excited to see
how they did. And they were listening intently to why
things worked or why things didn’t…. And they were
pretty receptive to the lunchbox building assignment.
ey were excited to see who won [the invention
competition] and were looking forward to doing it
again even though we told them, already, that we
were only gonna do one building assignment.” Some
of his students spent their spare time on the lunch-
box invention project: “I was happy to hear that some
of them took their project home and wanted to do
a good job on it. is one, for example, is a picture
[see Figure 1] of one student’s nal project. She put a
lot of time on it. She had the project drawn over the
weekend when I said it was optional for you to do
extra work. She was really excited to get it completed.”
Views of Teaching with Invention Curriculum in
Science Classrooms
Mr. T described himself as a typical science teacher
who liked using visualizations, simulations, and
explanations in his teaching. When teaching heat
transfer, he would start with direct instructions on the
vocabulary or terminology of heat transfer and then
conduct demonstrations of the concept to arouse stu-
dents’ interest. Aerwards, he would engage students
in laboratory explorations of various heat transfer
phenomena and have them explain their observa-
tions. He described his teaching method this way:
When I teach heat transfer, I usually start with
some amount of direct instruction. I like to have
them have the vocabulary words a little bit ahead
of time. Sometimes I’ll start with a demonstration
and ask for them to come up with some type of
explanation that talks about why heat would be
transferred from one place to another… It [the
demonstration] would depend. Sometimes it’s like
242 ZHANG ET AL.
He would try to engage students in scientic
inquiry and scaolded knowledge building activi-
ties to develop a deep understanding of the science
concept. Mr. T indicated that he typically does not
include much hands-on design and no invention
activities in the teaching. His students may dis-
cuss the application of the science concepts but are
not engaged in design or construction work. He
explained, “We talk about why things happen the
way that they saw, not so much the actual applica-
tion of those things in building.”
Mr. T expressed excitement about the invention
curriculum and indicated a belief that invention edu-
cation would benet students more than traditional
science curriculum. His responses to the pre- and
post-interview questions revealed his perceptions of
three types of strengths that he associated with the
invention curriculum:
1.
Presenting information through various
channels to foster a richer understanding of
the concept, e.g., explanation of the science
concepts, laboratory exploration, application
through construction, etc. Mr. T indicated that
this would be especially benecial to students
who have diculties in reading and learning
with traditional class materials since “[the]
information is presented in a bunch of dierent
ways. I think it’s more supportive for students
that maybe direct instruction is a little bit chal-
lenging for them or just focusing class materials
is more confusing.”
2.
Engaging students in applying their ideas
through invention. Mr. T indicated that this
would require students to integrate the science
with existing knowledge and apply their ideas
in an invention. e higher order thinking and
application skills involved in the task would
engage students who are of higher academic lev-
els and who may become bored with traditional
classes. Mr. T elaborated, “Also, there’s denitely
a little bit of students using their own ideas and
applying concepts than just kind of exploring
and kind of thinking about or analyzing the
Figure 1. One student’s lunchbox invention and her poster.
just putting their hand on the table and asking, ‘Why
does the table feel cool? What’s actually happening?’
Where other times, I’ll show them a demonstration at
the front of the room of the movement of uids inside
of like a big clear container. In the movement of the
uid going up and going down, they can kind of see
why is it doing that. What’s going on. ey have to do
a little bit of thinking. Usually, from there, is when I’ll
do vocabulary, and then we’ll take them over to the
lab stations and start doing some of the actual explor-
atory stu for heat transfer.
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 243
situation. at extra step, I think, would be
good for some of our higher-level learners.”
3.
Enriched information on the science concepts.
e Chill Out! unit was designed to foster the
development of minds-on and hands-on skills
that support invention. It included not only
explanations of the science concepts underlying
the invention of lunchboxes that both maintain
heat and cool but also information on related
concepts, such as biomimicry and thermoelec-
tricity. Mr. T indicated that the information
would enrich the curriculum content and
engage students who may be interested in the
relevant information.
Besides these potential benets, Mr. T expressed
ve reservations about introducing invention educa-
tion in science classrooms based on his experience.
ese reservations were:
1. A lack of eective teaching strategies to spark
students’ creativity. He stated that most middle
school aged students are used to the traditional
didactic instruction where they are passive
receivers of knowledge. ey probably do not
have much prior design or invention experi-
ences and may not be able to devise solution
ideas or realize the solution through construc-
tion. Mr. T witnessed that some students needed
to search online for inspirations of drawings
and worried that students might not be able to
come up with their own ideas. He said, “I think
for some, I don’t think they’re used to coming
up with ideas on their own. A lot of times, we
tell them, ‘I just want you to draw something,’
Kids are looking to use their computers for a
picture of something. ey come up with the
idea maybe, but they’re not actually trying to
do it all themselves, so I’m a little bit nervous
that creativity might challenge some a little….
I know it’s exciting for them, but ... it could be
a little bit scary.”
2. Managing students working at dierent paces.
Invention education would engage youth in
creating their own inventions, which inevita-
bly would lead to students working at dierent
paces. Mr. T indicated that this would be a
challenge to any classroom teachers who are
working with over 20 students simultaneously.
He observed, “I’m a little bit nervous they’re
[students are] going to get done really fast, while
other students may take a longer period of time
to get completed. If they’re just sitting around
and kind of not doing anything, I’m a little bit
nervous that there’s not going to be ... there’s
going to be some lag time between dierent
student abilities.”
3. Managing students of dierent reading abil-
ity. e Chill Out! unit, originally designed
with out-of-school education and students at
various levels (ranging from grades 6 to 10) in
mind, included detailed descriptions of lots of
information. Mr. T deleted many readings in
his preparation for implementing the curricu-
lum in his class. He, however, expressed concern
that, even aer these changes, the heavy reading
load would pose great challenges to his students
and his teaching, as there were English lan-
guage learners in almost all of Mr. T’s classes.
e dierences in reading ability could result
in diculties in classroom management. He
noted, “When I was looking through it, I think
there’s quite a few words. It’s a little bit over-
whelming.... I’m not sure sometimes they are
students who struggle because the material’s too
challenging for them, and other times I think
it is some type of language barrier, where they
just may not be able to access the curriculum
as quickly as other students around them.”
4. Balancing between providing scaolded instruc-
tion and allowing for open-ended invention
work to sustain students’ interest and freedom.
Mr. T expressed concerns related to how to best
scaold student inventing and learning through
explicit and direct instructions. Finding a bal-
ance between prioritizing what is important
to students andproviding just enough support
would be critical to ensure the success of inven-
tion education. Mr. T envisioned the problem
before implementation of the curriculum in his
class and had planned some solutions. He said,
“I might ask how they can improve instead of
telling them how to improve. For certain stu-
dents, it’s a really easy x where you just kind
of say, ‘What would you do if for example, the
cell phone stands [an invention warm-up design
activity], what would you do if the speakers
244 ZHANG ET AL.
weren’t loud enough? What could you add to
your cell phone stand that would be better?’ …
at direction, I don’t think, really cheats the
system. It helps them while still gives them a
chance to be creative, just kind of points them
in a new direction, says, ‘What can we add onto
this to make it better?’” Instead of providing
direct instructions on improving their inven-
tions, Mr. T planned to ask questions to prompt
students to recognize the aws in their designs
and engage in autonomous iterative renement
of their inventions.
5. Tension between covering standards and spend
-
ing more time to promote deeper learning. One
challenge Mr. T encountered was that invention
projects typically take more time than regular
curriculum. As mentioned earlier, he ended
up spending 17 days (three and a half weeks)
instead of the planned 10 days on the Chill Out!
unit. Although he was excited about the results
and planned to continue with the unit during
the next school year, he acknowledged this chal-
lenge of brining invention into classrooms: “In
terms of hitting the standards, I think it really
only addressed maybe one, one and a half, two
at most of what we were doing in class. I don’t
think we could do this for every single one, it
would take too much time, however, it would
be a really good idea to continue to do some-
thing like this because I think the kids really
enjoyed hands-on work.”
Mr. T’s statements reected a positive attitude
toward invention education yet also raised some con-
cerns. ree of his ve reservations addressed the
requirement for teachers to shi from the traditional
way of delivering knowledge toward student-centered
teaching, i.e., believing in, facilitating, and promoting
student-driven learning in invention. One reservation
focused on curriculum optimization for all learners.
e nal reservation related to Mr. T’s requirement
to meet the district’s curriculum goals. e need to
meet district curriculum goals presents a challenge
for the implementation of invention education in the
regular school day.
Mr. T’s Invention Education Curriculum
Modifications
Besides the modications the teachers collectively
made in the planning phase of the project, Mr. T
made additional changes throughout the implemen-
tation. We analyzed data, classroom observations, and
debrieng meetings, and we categorized the modi-
cations. ese modications are described below.
Modifications to Existing Activities to Make
Invention More Accessible
A majority of the modications focused on the
curricular activities in the guide spoke to a need,
according to Mr. T, for the guides to be more relevant
for these middle school aged youth with diverse back-
grounds and varied levels of English. For instance,
Mr. T modied one activity that provided a list of
problems that the students could design solutions
for. Instead, Mr. T asked students to create a pool of
problems in the classroom and then they voted on the
problem that they wanted to work on. His students
identied and chose the problem that many students
do not bring pencils to school. As he explained, “We
skipped the portion of the [activity], but I asked them
to nd and solve a specic problem for me, and think
pair share back to me. e specic problem they all
chose was that students don’t bring pencils to class,
what would you design so that students would bring
pencils?”
Mr. T’s students devised various solutions and
shared them with the whole class, indicating high
interest and enthusiasm in their invention problem:
We had everything from crazy magnetic strips that
would always keep the pencils in the classroom to
sirens if the pencils le, to kids that wanted to put
Alexa, the little sound thing back….that Amazon
thing in their locker and it would set a reminder
that would say “Hey, did you take a pencil today?”,
and you would have to say yes and take one o
of the duct taped wall, or something. ey said
the taped wall with the pencils stuck to it. And
we had kids that just said write a name on it, and
other kids that are saying put it in your pocket. So
those are the responses, and I thought that that
was a pretty good idea.
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 245
Aerwards, the whole classes critiqued the fea-
sibility of the solutions, which enabled students to
recognize and understand constraints of invention:
We did go into one of the details to talk about dif-
ferent solutions they have…. like some of these
inventions are really good ideas but they may not
be really feasible. But other inventions are would
be a little bit too obvious and maybe wouldn’t be
all that eective. ….. I think this is more bene-
cial [than the activity] as these are their [students’]
own problems and ideas.
As researchers and as the program developers
(both the guides and the professional develop-
ment), we interpret Mr. T’s modications as being
benecial in multiple ways. First, the modications
provided students with the freedom to identify their
own invention problems and supported the devel-
opment of a sense of ownership of the invention.
Second, the process of nding problems and choosing
one to work on is consistent with the work of inven-
tors in the real world, where they work on problems
they select and that they are passionate about. ird,
choosing a problem that students are familiar with
and have experience with can help develop empathy
and ownership of a problem, two crucial aspects to
ensure the success of inventive work (29-31).
New Activities to Foster the Development of
Relevant Invention Skills
Besides adapting existing activities in Chill Out!
to better engage students, Mr. T created new activ-
ities to embrace the learning of relevant skills and
knowledge. Such activities were oen developed
instantaneously, driven by the implementation results
of previous curricular activities. For instance, upon
the completion of one invention activity, Mr. T real-
ized that many of his students did not know how
to present or critique their inventions. ey were
not receptive to other’s criticism and did not know
what to do. He designed an activity where students
were required to present to other groups and provide
feedback to other groups’ inventions. He provided
instructions on how to present (e.g., being nice) or
critique. As he described:
So I put all of their inventions out on the desks
over here. ey had to walk around, and they
had to choose one that they wanted to present
for. From that they had to provide a glow and a
grow, or a positive and negative. ey had to pres-
ent. I said you have to present something and you
have to be nice because other people are going to
present yours, and why would this [presentation]
be important when you’re inventing. Some of the
kids got kind of the purpose there, so what things
could improve, I think really met some of these
questions and inventions, and a lot of times, kids
had pretty good ideas as to ‘mine had this, and
maybe this one didn’t,’ how could they improve
upon that portion?
He also instructed students on why being recep-
tive to others’ criticism is important, how to deal
with criticism, and how to collaborate with other
team members during inventing:
I was talking about accepting other people’s ideas,
and how it doesn’t always feel good when someone
criticizes your work and you have an explana-
tion for it, but it’s an important part of working
in groups. I thought that was something that’s
really important aer I heard a lot of the kids in
some of the classes who would ask me, ‘Hey, I
just wanna do my own. My group doesn’t want
to do what I wanna do.’ And I was like, well, why.
You need to work with and stu.
Such modications were developed in real time based
on the results of previous activities. is modication
fostered the development of important 21st century
skills, such as presentation and collaboration, that
are critical to invention.
Reuse of Existing Teaching Materials
Our observation demonstrated that Mr. T custom-
ized and repurposed his existing teaching materials
for use with the new curriculum instead of relying
solely on the new guide. One modication Mr. T
made was to convert the lab explorations on heat
transfer in the Chill Out! unit into live demonstra-
tions. e students rst investigated conduction,
radiation, and convection using labs activities pre-
viously designed by Mr. T, which were dierent from
the activities in the Chill Out! unit. en Mr. T con-
ducted the labs in the Chill Out! unit as whole-class
demonstrations and asked his students to observe
246 ZHANG ET AL.
and discuss the dierences between the labs and the
demonstrations. At the end of the activity, students
wrote reection notes in their scientic notebooks,
summarizing the key science concepts addressed in
the labs and demonstrations.
is nding is consistent with the literature
on how teachers adopt new curricular materials.
Integrating the existing materials into the new cur-
riculum may have contributed to Mr. T’s condence
in the curriculum and may have aided his perceived
value of both. Moreover, his condence and valuing
of the revised curriculum may have supported his
adoption and use of the invention curriculum in his
classes.
New Assessment Tools for Teaching Invention
One important aspect of formal education is to
assess student acquisition of skills and knowledge.
e Chill Out! unit included resources for students’
self-assessment of performance. Mr. T found the
self-assessment inadequate for assessing student
science learning and, therefore, utilized four types
of assessment tools to evaluate student learning: 1)
quiz, 2) concept map, 3) worksheet, and 4) poster
design. He adopted the quiz and concept map from
his previous teaching materials, focusing on assess-
ing student understanding of the underlying science
concepts, e.g., conduction, convection, radiation, and
insulation. He designed and utilized the worksheet
and poster presentation to capture students’ inven-
tive thinking and their processes of working like
inventors. In particular, the worksheet required stu-
dents to write an essay upon the completion of the
prototype design, describing their design rationale,
materials used in the lunchbox invention, and rea-
sons for choosing certain materials. e poster design
task asked students to reect on the critiques they
received from other student groups, plan for design
iterations, and document their thoughts. Figure 2
shows an example of the poster made by a student
group called Gleep Glorp. In the poster, students
created a technical drawing of the lunchbox show-
ing the top and side views, labeled materials used in
the invention, and described how heat transfer can
be minimized. Mr. T also designed a rubric for the
posters (Table 2) to score students’ posters. e work-
sheets and posters were used to assess how students
developed and iterated their invention solutions.
Figure 2. An example of a student poster describing their lunchbox invention.
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 247
Changes to Mr. T’s Teaching Practices
Teaching invention requires a shi from tradi-
tional teaching methods focused primarily on the
transmission of knowledge to more open-ended facil-
iation that encourages students to actively acquire
and apply science knowledge to invention activities.
Teachers need to tolerate the ambiguity inherent to
the process of invention while providing skill and aca-
demic support to individual students as needed. One
change Mr. T noted was that he gave more oral direc-
tions instead of asking students to read the textbooks:
“I gave more oral directions, or written directions on
the board more than they actually did in the [guides].
ey can easily follow and would look at the board
if they forgot.”
Another change is that Mr. T frequently asked
students to brainstorm invention ideas and explana-
tions. He recommended having students brainstorm
and write down their thoughts because “they [stu-
dents] love the brainstorming and I can quickly know
what they are thinking and where they struggle….
I feel like the brainstorming session might be more
helpful if they had a space for them to answer [in the
guide].” ese changes in Mr. T’s teaching indicated
that he may have recognized the need to change from
didactic teaching toward a more student-centered
approach, where students are given more exibility
and freedom to work on their own inventions.
e shi in Mr. T’s pedagogical approach aligns
with Guskey’s Model of Teacher Change (35), which
posits that the experience of successful implementa-
tion is more eective in changing teachers’ attitudes
and beliefs than professional development. According
to the model, to promote innovative approaches
in schools, teachers need to rst gain evidence of
improvements in students before they make a change.
In Mr. T’s case, he tried the Chill Out! unit, wit-
nessed students’ engagement and improved learning,
and started to consider more open-ended, hands-on
invention activities for his students. At the end of this
project, he expressed enthusiasm for implementing
the unit again next year, volunteered to serve as a
coach for the aerschool STEM club in his school
that uses other JV invention curricula developed by
the LMIT Program, and admitted that he has “started
thinking about the changes he could make next year.”
Aer two to three rounds of implementation and
customization of the invention education curricu
-
lum, it is highly likely that Chill Out! will become
part of Mr. T’s curriculum.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Curriculum designers, researchers, policy mak-
ers, and teachers are striving to design eective and
useful supports for engaging youth, in particular
those of under-represented groups, in STEM and pre-
paring them to enter the STEM workforce pipeline.
Frequently, this involves the design of an innovative
approach that oers appropriate scaolding, inspir-
ing STEM experiences, and connections to extensive
and diverse resources (32). Invention education is one
of the highly promising approaches. Implementing
it during the school day would greatly broaden
youth’s participation in STEM and help address
the under-representation of women and minorities
among those who ultimately patent technological
inventions and become innovators.
Yet, integrating invention into STEM course-
work is not easy. A variety of factors might inuence
in-service teachers’ willingness to consider novel
approaches, including administrative support, local
relevance to material already being used by the
teacher, and the degree of comfort a teacher feels in
trying new instructional methods and materials as
well as teaching perhaps new content (33). To achieve
practical utility and widespread diusion, it is criti-
cal to understand teachers’ perceptions of invention
education and their needs when using it in class-
rooms in addition to oering responsive support.
is exploratory study analyzed one teacher’s expe-
rience of implementing an invention curriculum in
middle school science classrooms to better under-
stand teachers’ subjective realities—what works, what
is too risky, what does not work, and what changes
or modications are necessary.
e results provided evidence of the benets and
challenges Mr. T encountered when implementing
an invention curriculum among 7
th
grade students
from diverse backgrounds. He valued the hands-on
invention experiences, the varied ways of presenting
information, and, ultimately, the high enthusiasm of
the students. Meanwhile, he faced challenges, such
as managing students with varied levels of academic
achievement, creativity, and reading ability; nding
248 ZHANG ET AL.
a balance to provide appropriate support to students
during invention; and completing the invention
curriculum within limited class time. Mr. T made
instantaneous adjustments to the curriculum during
classroom enactment, including making revisions
to existing activities to make invention education
more accessible and relevant to all students, preparing
students with relevant skills such as teamwork and
presentation, adapting and reusing his existing teach-
ing materials for invention education, and developing
new assessment tools for classroom purposes. He
also noted that he adopted more student-centered
teaching practices, such as encouraging students to
brainstorm and explain their ideas. By the end of
Table 2. Mr. T.’s Scoring Rubric for the Students’ Posters of the Lunchbox* Inventions
*Mr. T refers to the lunchbox invention as a cooler in his rubric.
Scoring
Level
Material
Explanation
Reducing All
Types of Heat
Transfer
Application of
Thermoelectric
Effect
Sketch
5:
Accom-
plished
Lists all
materials and
completely
explains the
reasons why
each was used
and why each
was located in
that position
Clearly
explains the 3
types of heat
transfer and
details ways
that the cooler
reduces each
type
Features the
technology we
explored in
class and gives
explanation of
how it makes
the cooler
more effective
A neat and
accurate
model of the
cooler that
includes color
and labels
furthering the
audience’s
understanding
Shows complete
understanding of
the cooler and
presents major
points clearly.
Includes
extensions to the
content
4:
Compe-
tent
Lists all
materials and
explains some
of the reasons
why each was
used and why
each was
located in that
position
Clearly
explains the 3
types of heat
transfer and
details some
of the ways
that the cooler
reduces each
type
Includes the
technology we
explored in
class and gives
explanation of
how it makes
the cooler
more effective
A neat and
accurate
model of the
cooler that
includes some
color and
labels
Shows complete
understanding of
the cooler and
presents major
points clearly
2 or 3:
Develop-
ing
Lists most of
the materials
and explains
some of the
reasons why
each was used
and why each
was located
in that position
Somewhat
explains the 3
types of heat
transfer and
details some
of the ways
that the cooler
reduces each
type
Handwritten
text is present
that is partially
helpful to the
understanding
of the reader
A messy but
accurate
model of the
cooler that
includes some
color and
labels
Shows some
understanding of
the cooler and
presents most of
the major points
clearly
0 or 1:
Beginning
/Not
Present
Lists some
materials and
poorly explains
some of the
reasons why
each was
used. Does
not explain
location
Poorly
explains the 3
types of heat
transfer and
details few
of the ways
that the cooler
reduces each
type
Handwritten
text is present
that is not
helpful to the
understanding
of the reader.
No text
present
A messy and
inaccurate
model of the
cooler that
includes some
color and
labels
Shows little
understanding of
the cooler and
presents few of
the major points
clearly
Presentation
INVENTION EDUCATION IN MIDDLE SCHOOL SCIENCE 249
the implementation, Mr. T expressed more con-
dence and interest in adopting invention education
in his science classes partially because of the excite-
ment it added to his classes. He planned to further
customize the invention curriculum for his teaching
in anticipation of experiencing big Eureka moments
during the next implementation. He concluded the
rst experience this way:
I think there was a lot of excitement but it maybe
wasn’t a eureka moment. ey [e students]
were excited to get things completed. ey were
excited to see how they did. And they were listen-
ing intently to why things worked or why things
didn’t. But I don’t know if it was something like a
eureka moment. It wasn’t like a ‘Oh, now I’ve got
it.’ Like a complete understanding turnaround. I
think some of the stu that we provided was excit-
ing because it was more hands-on, and so it was
more like a joyful learning moment … [rather]
than something like a eureka moment.
e case of Mr. T resonates with both Guskey’s
Model for Teacher Change (35) as well as Roger’s ve-
stage diusion of innovation process (34), where the
teacher must rst become aware of invention edu-
cation (Stage One: Knowledge), develop an opinion
or attitude towards it with respect to its value and
possible use (Stage Two: Persuasion), and decide
whether to try the new change or reject it (Stage
ree: Decision). Aerwards, the teacher employs
the innovation to a varying degree depending on
the situation to determine the usefulness of inven-
tion education (Stage Four: Implementation) and
nalizes his/her decision to continue using and cus-
tomizing it (Stage Five: Conrmation). rough these
stages, teachers can develop a solid understanding of
the content and structure of invention curriculum,
visualize its t within their current curriculum frame-
work, make and iterate specic plans, and implement
it in their classrooms. Mr. T. moved through all ve
stages of diusion with the invention curriculum in
one year. is ve-stage diusion of the innovation
process and Mr. T’s work can inform professional
development programs and eorts to attract and
support more teachers to implement invention edu-
cation in their science classes.
Further, the results of this study provide valuable
insights to curriculum designers to help alleviate
the under-representation of students from diverse
backgrounds in STEM education by implementing
invention education in schools. Mr. T’s case reects
the needs, challenges, and desires that other teach-
ers may face when adopting invention education in
science classrooms. Developing an understanding
of in-service teachers’ concerns can inform design-
ers’ eorts to lower the barriers to adoption by (re)
designing invention education curricula for class-
room use in ways that are responsive to teachers’
needs.
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