ʻAlohilani Okamura, an assistant professor in the College of Education (COE) School of Teacher Education (STE) Secondary program, is part of a $571,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant project titled Collaborative Research: Changemaker K–12: A Digital Platform for Supporting Elementary Teacher Candidates in Teaching Engineering and Human Centered Design.
In partnership with colleagues from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, University of Louisiana Monroe, and Louisiana Tech University, Okamura will receive $59,000 over the next three years to improve the preparation of undergraduate teacher candidates in the effective teaching of engineering design and human-centered design.
“As one of the ChangeMaker sites, Dr. Brook Chapman and I will implement the project with our candidates as they work with multilingual learner (MLL) students,” Okamura said. “The hope is to bring innovation and engineering design to create new possibilities for our K–12 MLL students.”
An online teaching and learning platform, ChangeMaker K–12 combines and scaffolds high quality learning experiences for teacher candidates in design awareness, engineering design, and human-centered design with intensive clinical experience during their undergraduate education programs.
“Mahalo to Dr. Douglas Williams and Dr. Aimee Barber from the University of Louisiana at LaFayette for the invitation to join the ChangeMaker K–12 project team,” Okamura said.
Earlier this year, Okamura also received a $54,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in support of research that examines the role of technology in shaping current social and cultural issues.
