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Supporting K-12 Teacher Professional Development through the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education

Introduction William Wulf [1], president of the National Academy of Engineering, noted in his summary remarks at the IEEE Engineering and Education Deans’ Summit Conference I, that encouraging engineers and educators to work together to address issues of technological literacy is a brilliant idea. The dialog between engineering educators and technology educators shows great potential for a symbiotic alliance to benefit both. The dialog has been facilitated by the publication of the Standards for Technological Literacy [2] that is national content standards for technology education similar to, and aligned with, the national standards for mathematics education and for science education. The Standards for Technological Literacy (STL) were developed by the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) with funding from NSF and NASA. The STL were reviewed and endorsed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and William Wulf wrote the forward to the document [3]. Salinger describes the breadth of standards for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and concluded that standards should cause cross curricular teaching and learning and that the standards should be geared toward higher levels of achievement. He is not specific regarding what to teach, however, he strongly emphasized the need for curriculum integration among STEM subject areas. The collaboration between engineering and technology educators is an important initiative that has tremendous potential for benefiting both. Therefore, the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) has been established.

Goals and Purpose The ultimate goal of NCETE is to infuse engineering design, problem solving and analytical skills into technology education to increase the quality, quantity, and diversity of engineering and technology educators. This is being accomplished by teaming engineering faculty and technology educators to build capacity and infrastructure including collaborative technology teacher pre-service and professional development, funding for doctoral studies, and research.

Perspective: The Relationship Between Engineering and Technology Education Introducing K-12 students to engineering concepts occurs formally in mathematics classes, science classes and technology classes, and informally through experiences in places such as science museums and discovery centers. NCETE emphasizes introducing engineering design and analysis formally through standards-based instruction in technology classes. One question that should be addressed is: Why did NCETE choose to introduce engineering concepts in technology classes? Why not work with K-12 science or mathematics teachers? The answer most simply stated is that design taught in technology education in K-12 is most closely related to engineering design. NCETE investigators think exposing K-12 students to engineering design will excite young people about the engineering profession. Furthermore, technology education exposes

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Becker, K. (2006, June), Supporting K 12 Teacher Professional Development Through The National Center For Engineering And Technology Education Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--1337