Resumen de Student views of engineering professors technological pedagogical content knowledge for integrating computational simulation tools in nanoscale science and engineering
Alejandra J. Magana, Sean P. Brophy, George M. Bodner
The ability to explore the physical world at the nanoscale has opened up an affluence of technological advances with the potentialto improve human life. Further, it has been complemented with significant advances in simulation-based engineering and science(SBE&S). Having become a crucial part of the present infrastructure, SBE&S is central to the application of advances in theconductance of scientific research and engineering practices. These facts clearly signify the need to integrate the use ofcomputational simulation tools in 21st century engineering education curricula as one way to bridge the gap between schoolengineering and work engineering. The guiding research questions for this study are: (a) What technological pedagogical contentknowledge do professors have for incorporating computational simulation tools to convey nanoscale science and engineering-related concepts and practices? and (b) How do students react to an instructor’s technological pedagogical content knowledge withcomputational simulation tools? This study coupled the methodological framework of a case study with the theoretical frameworkof TPCK. Open-ended interviews, classroom observations, and document analyses were conducted with six engineering professorsteaching undergraduate and graduate courses related to nanoscale science and engineering. Thirty-three students of these courseswere also interviewed. Analyses present detailed descriptions of how instructors integrated computational simulation tools tosupport the learning of nanoscale-related concepts. Findings revealed that computational simulations were perceived by students aseffective learning tools. Also revealed was that students continued to confront difficulties when interacting with these tools.Implications for education and educational research in engineering relate to the development, the research and implementationscaffolds, and the transparency at the physical/conceptual, mathematical, and computational levels to understand and thenovercome student difficulties in learning with computational simulation tools.
