Langley.All the pre-service teachers enthusiastically participated in the workshop and wereexcited about introducing lessons based on the workshop in their future teaching careersin the K-12 system. This excitement was clearly evidenced in the creative lesson plansdeveloped and the feedback they provided. While most of the students developed lessonplans that integrated mathematics and technology standards with Lego Mindstorm basedactivities one of the institute participants ventured to develop sensor based roboticsactivity that integrated concepts from biology/biological sensor systems. Leaving asidethe “lesson plan development” assignment, the entire workshop was completed in oneafternoon (July 18), so there was little time left to reflect on the
for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition, Chicago, USA.31 Kimmel, H., Burr-Alexander, L.E., and Bloom, J., “Engineering Design Competitions: A Motivating & Learning Experience”, International Conference on Engineering Education, October 16-21, 2004, Gainesville, Florida.32 Somers, L. and Callan, S., “An Examination of Science and Mathematic Competitions”, National Science Foundation Grant Report, June 1999.This paper is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ESI-0554405. Anyopinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and donot necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation
have been developed to-date. Thisdiversity reflects the complexity and breadth of modern engineering. At the same time, it poseschallenges to educators and policy makers seeking to understand how—or whether—engineeringcan become a more regular part of U.S. pre-college education. The noticeably thin presence ofmathematics, as well as of some key engineering concepts, such as modeling and analysis, raisesadditional questions about the difficulty of developing curricula that authentically represent thepractice of engineering.Another important question, not addressed in this paper but to be considered in the largerproject’s final report, is what impact K-12 engineering education has had on such things asstudent engagement and retention
assigned to schools in the area in which they live, the school demographics ofcourse reflect those of the surrounding community. In urban areas, this often results in studentpopulations with high needs. This is the case with Rachel Freeman. The unintended consequencesof such an assignment policy are numerous and daunting. The simultaneous implementation of anengineering curriculum with a predominantly new staff takes a strong administrator and hugesupport. The principal of Freeman is a very experienced administrator who is well regarded by herstaff, colleagues and central office personnel.The biggest challenge was in acclimatizing the students to a disciplined environment with highexpectations for behavior and academics. As stated, the children
," American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 47, pp. 1507-1527, 2004.(22) S. Jeffrey, "Breaking the Ethnographer's Frames: Reflections on the Use of Photo Elicitation in Understanding Sri Lankan Monastic Culture," The American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 47, pp. 1528, 2004.(23) M. J. Mayhew, "Exploring the Essence of Spirituality: A Phenomenological Study of Eight Students with Eight Different Worldviews," NASPA Journal, vol. 41, pp. 647-674, 2004.(24) A. V. Sampson-Cordle, "Exploring the relationship between a small rural school in northeast Georgia and its community: An image-based study using participant-produced photographs." United States -- Georgia: University of Georgia, 2001.(25) M. Besterfield-Sacre, L. J
Psychological Measurement, 55, 1016-1031, Dec. 1995This paper is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ESI-0554405. Anyopinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and donot necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Page 14.1256.11
student success rates (as reflected by criterion referenced testing) in science and math, including the disaggregated performance of underrepresented minority children within the classes of the participating teachers. 4. To help narrow the typical 15-25% gap in middle school student success rates between African American, Hispanic, and Native American students and their Caucasian classmates in the classes of the participating teachers.The SPIRIT Initiative’s MethodologyFrom 2006 through 2008, math and science middle school teachers were recruited from theOmaha Public School (OPS) systems, and several other Omaha-based school districts (to a lesserextent) to participate in the SPIRIT project. OPS served as a strong K-12
. Page 14.583.7 The 94% strong agreement with the networking statements, whether student or faculty, indicate that students felt that these elements had strongly influenced their success in the first semester. In addition, 94% of the students felt that the industry visits helped them to understand engineering. Perhaps most significantly, 88% of the students felt that ESCape had provided them the motivation to succeed in engineering. The survey had three open-ended questions: 1- List all the ways ESCape helped or positively impacted you that you can think of, 2-What was the best thing about ESCape, 3-What would you change for ESCape next year? Some of the answers to these are reflected in the statement/response questions
knowledge required to initiatecreative project/problem based lessons reflecting the modern maker renaissance.Documented use of 3D printing in FabLabs and Makerspaces has provided someinsight,1,2 but these workshops are the first of their kind, so the survey responses providecrucial insight for improving future workshops and informing the maker community onthe use of 3D printers in K-12.RepRap 3D PrintersRepRap (self-replicating rapid prototyper) 3D printers3,4 are open-source 3D printerdesigns available for anyone to build. It is built on structural components that arethemselves produced by another RepRap; they are indeed self-replicating.5,6 Designs areproven and rapidly maturing and given that they are built with readily available parts,they are
26.814.10imposed on the child gender data. On the other hand, reviews gathered from Amazon.com didnot seem to vary by date, as the site has kept its reviewing system largely the same over time.Future ResearchThis research can be considered a good jumping-off point for more intensive statistical analysison the raw data collected. As a largely exploratory study, its aims were merely to provideevidence of surface-level trends and how these reflect the conclusions of other researchers onthis topic, instead of performing rigorous statistical analyses. However, the data gathered is ripefor analysis, provided the researchers are able to mine independent variable data from thereviews collected; while two dependent variables are available in the child’s gender and
inMassachusetts, Maryland, and North Carolina. Members of the EiE project team conductedprofessional development with the assistance of E4 staff and state coordinators. After beingintroduced to the subject of engineering (with which many had not had significant contact),teachers engaged in hands-on training for their assigned engineering unit as well as a second unitin order to increase exposure to the curriculum. Throughout the workshop, professional Page 26.848.9development staff modeled curriculum-specific pedagogy for teachers by placing them in therole of students while engaging in the activities. Staff also helped participants to reflect asteachers
environmentthey were working in. The majority of negative feedback received is related to this theme. Evenwhen students were asked to reflect specifically on the teacher, or the lesson, they often providedcritiques regarding the physical environment. This shows that more care should be taken increating a pleasing environment. Students can be very easily distracted when using computersand the survey shows reducing the environmental distractions should be a higher priority to helpstudents focus on their tasks.There were a wide variety of ethnicities represented in the camp: 17.6% Asian/Pacific Islander;5.9% Hispanic/Latina; 17.6% White/Caucasian; and 41.2% mixed.The percentage of male and female students attending the camp was perfectly split, 41.2
, allowing attendees to try somesimple navigation and resource selections. As a consequence, the small group discussion andreporting task for this session was changed slightly from the previous workshops. Table 4 liststhe top features that CA workshop attendees “liked” about the alpha site they previewed, whileTable 5 lists features the attendees felt were missing. It is important to notice that reflected in thislist are some of the same attributes identified as priorities in the previous two workshops.Table 4. Alpha Site Features/Functionality “Liked” by CA Workshop Participants Alpha Site Feature/Functionality Liked CountExplaining what engineering is and outlining specific fields of
problem. Three additional NGSSperformance expectations are aligned to more than 60 lessons and activities—all within theEngineering Design topic at grades 3-5 and 6-8.It is evident that the lessons and hands-on activities in the TeachEngineering collection,expressly created to teach engineering concepts, provide a wealth of curricular resources toenable students to meet the Engineering Design performance expectations, especially for grades3-8. On the other hand, the collection provides only a handful, on average, of lessons and Page 26.1568.5activities that align to the remaining NGSS performance expectations. Reflecting back that thecollection’s
to their picture between pre and post surveys (SD = 1.96, N = 50).Discussion and AnalysisAlthough no change occurred between surveys on the Likert-type questions, it is interesting tonote the average feelings of the campers on issues of sustainability and their own ability forchange. In general, campers noted that they believed their own actions are important forenvironmental change. They also generally noted that they thought about where their foodcomes from, showing that the younger generation can be environmentally conscious.Due to the nature of the camp, environmentally and academically minded parents are more likelyto pay for their children to attend this type of camp. Therefore, the campers who attended do notnecessarily reflect
KnowledgeFigure 1. The frequency of teachers coded responses to our free-response items associated withteaching the CCSS-Math and NGSS practices.When asked to rate their level of knowledge of the practices of the CCSS-Math and the NGSS(on a 10 point Likert-like Scale), the participants indicated moderate knowledge of the CCSS-Math practices (M = 5.67, DS = 2.22) and relatively low levels of knowledge of the NGSSpractices (M = 2.62, SD = 2.00). When we compared the participants’ answers rating their levelof knowledge of the practices to the their responses to our item asking the participants to explainthe practices, we revealed alignment between their rated knowledge of the NGSS practices, asboth the coded answers and self-report answers were reflective
be sought out to serve asthe basis of comparison for future studies.AcknowledgementsFunding for this study was provided by the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) EngineeringClub. The authors also thank the support from the VMI ASME student chapter. Page 26.249.8Bibliography 1. Bairaktarova, D., Pilotte, M., Evangelou, D., Cox, M.F. (2013) Examining Reflections of Current Engineering Students on Educational Outreach. Proceedings of the 2014 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Atlanta, GA, June 23-26, 2013. 2. Salzman, N., Ricco, G.D., Ohland, M.W. (2014). Pre-College Engineering Participation Among First
-week science apprenticeship program on high school sophomores and juniors. In thisstudy the metrics for success were based on concepts advocated by the National ResearchCouncil in its National Science Education Standards5, which encouraged learning science withinthe context of real-world problems. This concept of learning by doing is the basis for manyapprenticeship programs. However, in the study by Bell, et al., the students were found to havechanged their ideas of science and scientific inquiry very little between the beginning and end ofthe program. The sole student who had a significant positive change in these areas was found tohave done significant reflection on the project throughout the experience.Another example of a high school
. Page 13.499.8SummaryThis paper has summarized images of engineers and engineering in various media (e.g., videogames, television, and radio). It has explored the design of new media products to enhance thepublic’s understanding of engineering; and it has identified a near-term strategy to pursue inroute to this long term goal.AcknowledgementsThis work was partially supported with funds provided under NSF grant HRD-0441207. Theviews expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NationalScience Foundation.Bibliography1. Digital Media and Learning Fact Sheet. [cited Jan. 2008]; Available from: http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C- E807E1B0AE4E}/DL%20FACT
knowledge about what scientists and engineers do in their jobs, and anincrease in interest in STEM careers.Student focus groups were held in four schools. Comments made by students reflected a highdegree of satisfaction with the content and the opportunity to interact with scientists andengineers. Specifically, students noted the benefits of a problem solving approach, saying [It]“shows why you’re learning stuff”, and “you’re having so much fun that sometimes you forgetthat you’re learning.” One student offered to the group that the VDP activities would be “goodto have all over the country…it could change the way people think about things…like pollutionproblems and ways to stop it and fix environmental problems.”During the spring of 2007, the VDP
mathematical simulations. The authors speculate that thisdecrease may reflect a new appreciation for the complexity of engineering design and a healthyreassessment of their expertise after exposure to the curriculum unit. Similar decreases inconfidence in math have been reported in the literature.5 Close attention will be paid to whetherthis trend persists in future trials and modification will be made to the module as necessary toaddress this issue. Finally, students also took a Post Module Questionnaire at the completion of thecurriculum unit. This questionnaire was broken into two sections. The first section askedstudents to indicate whether their interest or skills in certain areas increased, decreased orremained the same as compared to
engineering to help inform students6-9. Unlike many professions, engineers are rarelydepicted in movies and television shows. The engineers in the Dilbert® comic strip may befunny, but they do not reflect the typical engineering workplace and do not persuade students tostudy engineering.Inadequate academic preparation and lack of information about engineering are the most crucialreasons why students do not pursue engineering careers10, but even students with adequatepreparation who pursue engineering studies often do not persist in their programs. Numerousstudies of students who dropped out of engineering programs have determined that poorpreparation and lack of information account for only a part of the reason why students leaveengineering programs
. Page 23.59.8AcknowledgementsThis material is based upon work supported in part by the National Science Foundation underGrant No. (DUE-1038154). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendationsexpressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views ofthe National Science Foundation. Portions of the work were also supported by the Golden LEAFFoundation.References1. National Academy of Engineering. The Grand Challenges for Engineering. 2012. [cited 2012 December 5]; Available from: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/.2. National Academy of Sciences. Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, 2007, Washington, DC: National Academy
school students’ attitudes and beliefs toward computing can provide teachers andresearchers with an understanding of how to encourage more students to pursue these fields. Thestudy presented here was partially support by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (DUE-0512064; DRL- 0737679; DRL- 0623808). The ideas and opinions expressed are that of theauthors and are not necessarily reflective of that of the NSF.Research QuestionThe research question that guided this investigation is: ≠ Are the two intervention programs which target high school students’ computer science and information technology attitudes equally effective for improving students’ attitudes within the two fields
calculate input and output power,and power loss or attenuation. Page 15.670.7Figure 1. Lab activities providing hands-on experience.6. AssessmentAssessment is vital and should reflect to what extent the course meet the learningobjectives; direct and indirect assessment measurements were developed to measure theeffectiveness of the course and whether goals are met.Participating student knowledge and understanding of subject material were directlyevaluated through quizzes and pre-test and post-test that measures competence of thecourse components. Results of the exams were analyzed to determine specific areas ofcognizance of the subject matter, interest in
. They were supported bythe lead teachers and the community college faculty as they prepared to integrate a unit of EiEinto their classrooms over the next two academic years: 2009-2010 and 2010-2011.Description of the Participating Lead TeachersBefore starting the Teacher Educator Institute, each of the lead teachers filled out a participantsurvey. Tables IX and X tabulate the participant survey responses and reflect the number of yearsthe teachers have been employed in education and their educational backgrounds. Table IX: Number of Years Employed in Education Years in Education 3 3.5 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 13 16 17 20 Number of 3 1 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 Teachers Table X
this game. We particularly thank Dayvid Jones and MichaelWatkins and their team in helping us in the design and development of this game. We alsothank Dr. John M. Winters and John Gill for their support in implementing the game at LeeScott Academy School. This project was funded by the National Science Foundation, IIP#1110223. The PI of the project was Steve Lynch from Toolwire Inc. and Co-PI Dr. P. K .Rajufrom Auburn University. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendationsexpressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of theNational Science Foundation.References1. National Science Foundation, (2013). http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2013/nsf13601/nsf13601.htm2. Gattie, D. K., &
reaching young women.References1. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0802505. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.2. National Science Foundation Engineering Task Force. The engineering workforce: current state, issues, and recommendations. 2005. p. 19.3. Thom, J.M., R. E. Thompson and C. Hoy. Understanding the barriers to recruiting women in engineering and technology programs. Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition. 2001. http://www.asee.org/acPapers
period in between the first and third period classes, theteachers, scientists and engineer had time to reflect on the first class, discuss other ideas that theteachers had to further enhance the visit for the students, and identify problems that could beaddressed in the remaining class periods. At the end of the day, the teachers, scientists, andengineer met for an hour to debrief. Some outcomes of this session included: Eight to ten students in each classroom worked directly with a scientist or engineer (78 total students) Page 22.1161.4 Students were very receptive to help from scientists and engineers Passion of the
science and engineering and the marvels of research at the frontiers ofknowledge.AcknowledgmentsThis program is funded by the National Science Foundation (grant 0502327). The views,opinions, and conclusions reported in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF. Weare grateful for the Foundation’s support. We also thank the reviewers for their feedback.References1 Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Engineering and Computer Science: Program Solicitation, NSF 11- 509.” National Science Foundation. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11509/nsf11509.htm2 Sabochik, K. Changing the Equation in STEM Education. The White House Blog: September 16, 2010. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/09/16/changing-equation-stem