Pathways 2 Chemistry’s Approach to Instructional Design.  Pathways 2 Chemistry’s approach to developing successful educational resources to help teach chemistry includes utilizing participatory design with high school teachers. Participatory design actively engages teachers in the instructional design process in ways that are directly beneficial to them and their students (DiSalvo, Yip, Bonsignore & DiSalvo, 2017). By having teachers participate in the design of resources – in this project, computer designed animations – pertaining to chemistry for high school students, they help ensure that the resources address the student needs, meet the needs of educators, and work within the constraints of traditional classrooms and schools.

This project has adapted and utilized a co-design approach developed by Konings, Brand-Gruwel, & Merrienboer (2010). The approach includes having participants (1) brainstorm chemistry lessons as well as the positive and negative experiences pertaining to these lessons, (2) describe and discuss the most important positive and negative aspects of each lesson’s learning experiences, and (3) discuss possible ideas for improving the negative points. This approach has been utilized with the participating teachers in Year 1 of the project, and will be implemented with the participating teachers and their students in Years 2 and 3.

It is also important to include high school students in this project, as they are often left out of the instructional design process (Konings, Brand-Gruwel, & Merrienboer, 2005) and their perspectives are often difficult for their teachers to predict (Kershner & Pointon, 2000). Therefore, in Year 1, PI Zaleski visited co-design teacher Embry’s high school chemistry classroom to demonstrate chemistry lessons to drive inquiry and develop a list of questions that students have about chemistry. The student questions were then used as guiding questions for the development of the project’s computer designed animations.

Teacher Recruitment.  Three high school science teachers were recruited for the project to be co-design teachers from STEM professional development programs facilitated prior to the project by Key Personnel Scribner (Scribner is the Director of STEM Education Initiatives in the School of Education at IU Bloomington.)  Two of the teachers are from rural school districts and one is from an urban district in Indiana. All three teachers have taught for 10 or more years and all teach, or have taught, chemistry.

Participatory Design Meetings for Project Development.  In fall 2023, the research team planned and implemented a series of participatory design meetings with the co-design teachers to aid project development. The meetings were designed to address the following project timeline deliverables:

• Fall 2023-Spring 2024 Participatory co-design with science teachers, Scribner, and the Zaleski Chemistry Lab to craft topical material for formal and informal learning.
• Spring 2024 Develop scripts for short animations with Key Personnel Kenney’s (IU Media School) narrative scriptwriting course. Students engage with the chemistry team and work with teachers to prepare appropriate level chemistry scripts for animation.

After recruiting the teachers in September and October, 2023, the research team implemented six in-person and online asynchronous meetings with the co-design teachers. The meetings provided an overview of the project as well as discussions about chemistry lessons and resources that would complement and inform the project design.

References

1. DiSalvo, Betsy, et al. “Participatory design for learning.” Participatory Design for Learning. Routledge, 2017. 3-6.
2. Kershner, R., & Pointon, P. (2000). Children’s views of the primary classroom as an environment for working and learning. Research in Education, 64(1), 64-77.
3. Könings, K. D., Brand‐Gruwel, S., & Van Merriënboer, J. J. (2005). Towards more powerful learning environments through combining the perspectives of designers, teachers, and students. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 75(4), 645-660.
4. Konings, K.D.,Brand-Gruwel, S., & Van Merrienboer, J.J. (2010) An approach to participatory instructional design in secondary education: an exploratory study. Educational Research, 52:1, 45-59