In this ethnographic study, we followed seven groups of adolescents (ages 14 to 17)—all of whom spoke Spanish as a first language—over the course of nine months as they selected problems and sought to solve them through engineering. We collected three sources of data to help us identify the participants' information gathering strategies. First, we video- and audio-recorded their bi-monthly group meetings in which they developed solutions to their self-selected problems. Second, we provided the participants with tablets and wireless Internet access to aid their work on their engineering projects, and we tracked the sites they visited in relation to their engineering projects. Third, we interviewed the participants about the sources that they consulted for the project when the research team was not present.
A constant comparative analysis of the data indicated three patterns in the participants' information gathering processes. First, they tended to seek for information via oral communication. Second, they tended to seek for information presented visually rather than in writing. Third, they collected information in fewer and somewhat different categories when compared with the categories of information that professional engineers use. In all, we found that the participants' ability to speak Spanish enabled them to communicate with diverse audiences, including content experts and clients, but they did not often use Spanish to seek for written information.
We argue that, by implication, engineering teachers can acknowledge information obtained through multiple sources--including a variety of oral and visual sources in different languages--while helping students to understand, evaluate, synthesize, and apply this information to their designs. Future studies can determine whether this type of instruction for linguistically diverse students leads to positive outcomes in engineering.
Amy Wilson-Lopez is an associate professor at Utah State University who studies literacy-infused engineering instruction as enacted with linguistically and culturally diverse students.
Michael D. Boatright is Assistant Professor and Director of English Education at Western Carolina University. His current professional interests include adolescent literature, TESOL, and American Pragmatism.
Garret Rose is currently the Secondary English/Language Arts, Secondary Library Media, CE, AP, IB, and Early College Specialist for the Utah State Board of Education. He served briefly as an assistant principal in West Jordan. He was also a teacher in the Uintah School District for five years where he served as a seventh-grade Language Arts and Reading teacher before moving up to Uintah High School where he served as a teacher of tenth-grade English, AP Literature, and twelfth-grade Science-Fiction and Fantasy. During the 2015-16 school year, Garret was named the Uintah High School Teacher of the Year. He has presented at local, state, and national conferences and is in the works to publish academic articles. He has also served on various educational committees and is currently working on a PhD in Literacy Education and Leadership. His life-long educational goal is to get students reading and interacting with a book to gain deeper levels of understanding about the text, their world, and themselves.
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