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High School Teachers Engineering Education Professional Development: Foundations for Attracting and Engaging Future Engineers

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Conference

2012 ASEE International Forum

Location

San Antonio, Texas

Publication Date

June 9, 2012

Start Date

June 9, 2012

End Date

June 10, 2012

Conference Session

International Forum Poster Session & Welcome Reception: Sponsored by Quanser and Cypress Semiconductors

Tagged Topic

ASEE International Forum

Page Count

15

Page Numbers

17.27.1 - 17.27.15

DOI

10.18260/1-2--17044

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/17044

Download Count

440

Paper Authors

biography

Christina Kay White University of Texas, Austin

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Dr. Christina White completed her Doctoral degree from Teachers College, Columbia University where she studied engineering education. She is the founding director of the National Academy of Engineering Longhorn Grand Challenges Scholars & K12 Partners Program at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. White is also the director of an outreach program called Design, Technology, & Engineering for All Children (DTEACh) which has reached more than 1000 teachers and 85,000 students. She is the lead inventor on a patent for assistive technology. As an international engineering educator, her current research includes innovative design-based pedagogy, humanitarian engineering, and ways to attract and retain traditionally underrepresented groups in engineering education.

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biography

Joules Webb Transformation 2013 Texas STEM Center

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Joules Webb has a passion and expertise for STEM Education gained through over twenty years of experience serving in both education and industry. In education, she has served as a Texas high school science teacher and campus instructional technologist, a science teacher instructional coach, and currently as a STEM Educational Specialist with Transformation 2013 Texas STEM (T-STEM) Center. She is also a doctoral student pursuing a PhD in Integrative STEM Education through Virginia Tech. She served on the Texas Education Agency (TEA) T-STEM Academy Blueprint design committee. She brings a depth and breadth of STEM education knowledge to the community. As an influential member of the T-STEM Network, she leads STEM professional development design teams, campus instructional coaching programs, and provides STEM technical assistance to district leadership. As a STEM specialist, Joules facilitates K-12 mathematics and science educators’ understanding of Design/Engineering/Technology as context for teaching of STEM concepts, including the content required by the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards. Specifically, the design and implementation of innovative interdisciplinary curriculum framed within the National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) identified Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. Curriculum development and implementation is based on scientifically-based models of professional development focusing on best practices, curriculum alignment, project-based learning, design-based learning and instructional coaching support to foster implementation of lessons learned. Equitable access to rigorous content for all students while meeting the mandates of state curriculum standards is a major goal of Joules’ work. She supports the development of regional, state, and national STEM innovation networks to stay current with curriculum trends, instruction, technology, assessment, and school systems. Prior to her educational career, she was employed as a chemist in industry which affords her the opportunity to bring the workforce perspective to the education workplace.

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Abstract

Increasing engineering awareness and STEM literacy in the STATE K-12 community is aregional commitment led by the College of Engineering at XXX. XXX’s annual High SchoolTeacher Engineering Awareness Program (HSTEAP), a one-week intensive professionaldevelopment institute, aims to improve and support high school STEM education. This mixed-methods study measures the impact of this professional development for mathematics andscience teachers’ efficacy in engineering, design-based learning, STEM research and technology,and their ability to teach those principles to their students. Program organizers and curriculaprofessionals developed an innovative curriculum thematically addressing the National Academyof Engineering 21st Century Engineering Grand Challenges, and facilitated the HSTEAPcommunity to: a) create and implement engineering design-based projects, b) identify and frameengineering learning within the STATE Department of Education standards for science andmathematics teaching, and c) thoughtfully incorporate team-building and 21st century skilldevelopment into their curriculum and teaching. In this paper, the constructs of high schoolSTEM teaching and learning are shown, the critical interworking of our multi-disciplinary andinter-institutional team are discussed, results of a successful design curricula and professionaldevelopment are presented, and a model is offered for the future ambitions and visions of pre-engineering education.

White, C. K., & Webb, J. (2012, June), High School Teachers Engineering Education Professional Development: Foundations for Attracting and Engaging Future Engineers Paper presented at 2012 ASEE International Forum, San Antonio, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--17044

ASEE holds the copyright on this document. It may be read by the public free of charge. Authors may archive their work on personal websites or in institutional repositories with the following citation: © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education. Other scholars may excerpt or quote from these materials with the same citation. When excerpting or quoting from Conference Proceedings, authors should, in addition to noting the ASEE copyright, list all the original authors and their institutions and name the host city of the conference. - Last updated April 1, 2015