A paper [1] summarizing the outcomes of the joint COSMOS and EFRI NewLAW summer program for teachers was accepted to American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) Virtual Conference and will be presented in June 2020.

 

The paper describes the efforts towards the development of a teacher professional development (PD) program and a toolkit consisting of a hardware and software system to engage STEM teachers in learning about wireless technology through various hands-on activities and collaborative research. The PD program and the toolkit directly relate to the COSMOS testbed and to the NSF ERFI NewLAW project which focuses on wireless communication. The PD program took place in Summers 2018 and 2019 within the frameworks of Research Experience for Teachers (RET) and Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) programs. Throughout the PD program, researchers and educational experts assisted teachers in co-creating lessons aligned to the K–12 Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Each standard, called Performance Expectations (PE), incorporates ‘three-dimensional learning’ through: Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs), Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCIs), and Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs).