Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation of K-12 Engineering Programs

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Elizabeth Dell, Rochester Institute of Technology; Margaret B. Bailey, Rochester Institute of Technology; Shauna O'Hurley, Rochester Institute of Technology; Robert P. Lillis, Evalumetrics Research; Betsy Khol, Women in Engineering; Robert D. Garrick, Rochester Institute of Technology; Jeanne Christman, Rochester Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy, K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

of the engineering workforce.Margaret B. Bailey, Rochester Institute of Technology (COE) Margaret Bailey is Professor of Mechanical Engineering within the Kate Gleason College of Engineer- ing at RIT and is the Founding Executive Director for the nationally recognized women in engineering program called WE@RIT. She recently accepted the role as Faculty Associate to the Provost for Female Faculty and serves as the co-chair on the President’s Commission on Women. She began her academic career as an Assistant Professor at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, being the first woman civil- ian faculty member in her department. Margaret maintains a research program in the area of advanced thermodynamic analyses and

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation of K-12 Engineering Programs

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tao Hong, Purdue University; Senay Purzer, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Monica E. Cardella, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy, K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

feel about integrating more DET into your curriculum? 0.5623. Was your pre-service curriculum effective in supporting your ability to teach DET at 0.68 the beginning of your career?24. Did your pre-service curriculum include any aspects of DET? 0.6125. I use DET activities in the classroom 0.6926. I know the national science standards related to DET 0.4327. My school supports DET activities 0.43Factor 3: Characteristics of Engineers28. A typical engineer has good verbal skills

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation of K-12 Engineering Programs

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gisele Ragusa, Ph.D., University of Southern California

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy, K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

student learning inSTEM via formation, nurturance and sustaining an important targeted school-university urbaneducational partnership. Our university has partnered with a large urban school district to plan,deliver and sustain a targeted inservice teacher professional development and a middle and highschool STEM curriculum intervention.Teacher Intervention Through our university partnership with local urban public middle and high schools, weengaged in a targeted recruitment of mid career teachers in the sciences. The project’s leadershipteam has worked with teams of two teachers who were placed, based on research interest, in anengineering laboratory that is conducting research using societally relevant engineeringtechnologies. The teacher

Conference Session

Assessment and Evaluation of K-12 Engineering Programs

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Stacy S. Klein-Gardner, Vanderbilt University; Amber C. Spolarich, North Carolina State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy, K-12 & Pre-College Engineering

curriculum unit to real-life. A few RET programs have found successcomparable to that of Vanderbilt University in program implementation, though student levelresults have not been reported. The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Physics RET programsaw similar results: a majority of the teachers claimed the program gave them the ability toencourage students effectively to pursue a major in science or engineering.18 In addition, thePolytechnic Institute of New York University also found that their RET program allowed theirparticipants to conduct inquiry-based teaching successfully while engaging the students inSTEM-related curricula.19 The Texas A&M RET program aims to do the same while alsoimproving teachers’ knowledge about careers in engineering

Conference Session

Public Policy in Engineering Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Maria Dawn Blevins, University of Utah

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy

survey. Thesurvey consisted of three questions to gauge if students felt that public meetings wereimportant and what skills and preparation were necessary for them to be successful.Results of the pre-training surveyPre-Test Question Pre-Test Answers:1. If they thought they would have to - 22 students (every student in the class)conduct public meetings in their civil answered that working with the publicengineering career and why. would be part of their job - The why section of the question was answered because stakeholders in projects need to be

Conference Session

Public Policy in Engineering Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

David A. Koonce, Ohio University; Jie Zhou, Ohio University; Cynthia D. Anderson, Ohio University; Dyah A. Hening; Valerie Martin Conley, Ohio University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy

, there may not be many scholars or universities doing research in food technologies.RamificationsThe ramification of this mismatch is that universities and institutions which focus on educationhave a focus on STEM which differs from those of organizations focusing on workforce needs.This disconnect likely leads to an emphasis on career development which does not match theintent of developing a STEM workforce. The fragmented approach to defining STEM in an adhoc manner to suit the needs of a specific organization should be countered with a unifieddefinition of STEM that best suits the needs of the country. Page 22.1684.8LimitationsThe

Conference Session

Public Policy in Engineering Education

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Martin S. High, Oklahoma State University; Joseph M. Nowakowski, Muskingum University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering and Public Policy

as some other career. Students at the undergraduate level may beable to respond to adverse movements by changing majors, and even graduate students willconsider other options if the costs of becoming a professional engineer grow to outweigh thebenefits. On the other hand, degrees are not earned overnight. Movements in relative wages willlikely lead to changes in the number of qualified job candidates in four to six years at thebachelor’s level, a couple of years at the master’s level and six to seven years at the doctorallevel.13 It would not be surprising if falling relative wages would lead to quicker declines in thenumber of job candidates than rising relative wages would produce more candidates.One final note concerns the entry into the