A Pathway to Engineering Technology Opportunities

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A Pathway to Engineering Technology Opportunities

• NTPN Conference
• Dallas, Texas
• Presented by
• Don Fischer
• ND State Supervisor for Technology Education
• Department of Career Technical Education
• Bismarck, ND

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National Science FoundationAdvanced Technology
Education Program (ATE)

• Engineering Technology Competencies
• Integrating Curriculum and Forging Pathways.

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Goal

• Develop a curricula and implementation model that
  results in increased ability and pursuit of
  careers within the field of engineering.
• Model K-12 students apply critical math,
  science, and technology knowledge while planning,
  designing, testing, revising, and implementing
  engineering activities.
• Challenge Prepare, motivate, and retain students
  in the pursuit of engineering related
  opportunities.

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Objectives

• Objective 1 Online Teacher Education Model
• Design, implement, and document a model of
  effective, interactive, online teacher training
  that results in teacher retention and
  satisfaction.
• Objective 2 Develop and Disseminate Classroom
  Implementable Products
• All participating teachers will develop three
  standards-based products for each of their eight
  course units. These classroom implementable
  products will score at least a 2.5 on the rubric
  and will be shared online.
• Objective 3 Articulated Standards-based
  Engineering Technology Pathway
• Create an articulated standards-based engineering
  technology course series that informs, motivates,
  and prepares middle and high school students for
  progressively more sophisticated competencies.

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Partners

• Bismarck Public Schools (fiscal agent,
  implementation)
• Valley City State (curriculum and teacher
  training)
• Bismarck State College (curriculum, support)
• ND Department of Career and Technical Education
  (curriculum and support)

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Overview

• This project is developing a curricula and an
  implementation model that has provided in
  increased ability and fostered the pursuit of
  higher education in the field of engineering. The
  curricula and model is resulting in middle and
  high school students applying critical math,
  science, and technology knowledge while they
  plan, design, test, revise, and implement
  engineering activities.
• The value added product, as a result of this
  project, is standards-based units of study at the
  7-12 level and an articulated pathway for
  learners to successfully transition to two-year
  engineering technician programs. The units of
  study are assembled into two separate curricula
  for the middle and high school levels and a model
  implementation plan. 

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ETP Timeline
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The Model

• Research-based curriculum
• Standards-based and interdisciplinary
• Comprehensive pathway and articulation plan
  (K-14)
• Instructional model
• Unit design
• Instructional strategies

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Understanding by Design

• Wiggins McTighe (1998) defined essential
  questions in the following way
• Essential Questions call for the students to
  make meaning of more carefully selected
  activities, and they call for teachers to devise
  assessment tasks related to answering the.
• Regardless of which questions the teacher or
  class chooses, such questions render the unit
  design more coherent and make the students role
  more appropriately intellectual.
• Without asking and pursuing such overarching
  questions, the student is confronted with a set
  of disconnected activities, resulting in minimal
  understanding of important ideas.
• Without such questions to focus instruction,
  teaching easily falls into superficial and
  purposeless coverage.
• Wiggins G., McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding
  by design. Alexandria, VA Association for
  Supervision and Curriculum Development.

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Enduring Understanding

• Each of the units deliberately focus on the
  enduring understanding of the unit.
• Readings, lab activities, and assessment work
  together to reinforce these ideas for the
  students.

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Enduring Understanding
Example of enduring knowledge from the first unit
of each course

• High School
• Students will understand the historical
  significance and continued importance of
  engineering as a profession.

• Middle School
• Students will understand how inventions and
  innovations are conceived and the affects they
  have on society.

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Sample Essential Questions from Innovation
Engineering Design

• Are inventions always good?
• Design has the requirements of being both
  creative and systematic. How can a person be
  both creative and systematic?
• Why do major historical events, such as the
  Sputnik, Pearl Harbor and 9-11, impact
  engineering and education?
• What do Legos have to do with engineering design?
  
• How do individual solutions or inventions change
  the whole of society?
• Why do all products require continuous design
  changes or refinement?
• What type of technology have you chosen not to
  use based on the negative impacts it may have?
• How has technology affected your morals or values?

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Sample Essential Questions from Design for
Engineering

• How would you prepare yourself as a K-12 student
  and then as a college student for success as an
  engineering professional?
• How does the creation of individual solutions to
  technological problems lead to a changed world
  and changes in our daily lives?
• Why cant engineering communication be defined as
  a single skill?
• How has technology changed the way we communicate
  design ideas graphically?
• How does modeling and prototyping fit into the
  research and development process?
• What is the connection between ethics and
  inventions?

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Teacher Training

• 10 teachers will enroll in their respective
  online course offered by VCSU.
• The 10 teachers will participate in a hands-on
  lab series spanning both levels (middle and high
  school).
• Teachers will receive feedback on their lessons
  from both internal and external reviewers.

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Teacher Participants

• Phase 2 10 teachers
• Middle School (5)
• High School (5)
• Participating Schools
• Bismarck Public Schools, North Dakota
• Fargo Public Schools, North Dakota
• Hatton Northwood Public School, North Dakota
• Surrey Public School, North Dakota
• Lisbon Public School, North Dakota
• Rogers Public School, North Dakota
• Detour Area Schools, Michigan
• Lake Park Audubon High School, Minnesota

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Courses

• TECH 665 Innovation and Engineering Design
  (middle school)
• Course prepares prospective teachers to teach a
  middle school course emphasizing engineering
  design activities to understand how criteria,
  constraints, and processes affect designs.
  Brainstorming, visualizing, modeling,
  constructing, testing and refining designs will
  be studied.
• TECH 660 Design for Engineering (high school)
• Course provides an orientation and exposure to
  the careers and challenges of engineering. Major
  engineering concepts included are modeling,
  systems, optimization, technology-society
  interaction, design and ethics.

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Online Course Delivery

• Course is delivered through Valley City State
  University
• www.vcsu.edu

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Online Course Delivery

• Valley City State University
• Online Course Homepage

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Online Course Delivery

• Course Overview

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Online Course Delivery

• Unit and Assignment Description

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Unique Success

• The Engineering Technology Pathways project is
  contributing to the field of Technology Education
  nation-wide. The ETP project provides a model
  for distance delivery of a standards-based
  technology education curriculum.
• The ETP project provides professional development
  for a 'cohort' of instructors in gaining
  knowledge, theory, research and pedagogical
  methods.
• The standards-based technology education
  curriculum implements a proven researched-based
  model utilizing Understanding by Design.

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Unique Success Continued

• The work of this grant is significantly
  influencing the format and distance delivery of
  the Technology Education Masters Degree program
  through Valley City State University.
• The development of student-ready materials as
  part of each course and the posting of these
  materials within an online standards-based
  database is significant.
• Many secondary instructors throughout the nation
  are struggling with standards-based curriculum
  design, these courses and the deliverables are
  serving as a model for others.
• The ETP initiative is accelerating the process of
  moving technology education into the world of
  'standards-based.' 

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Website
http//www.ndetp.com/
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Resource Bank

• Middle School
• http//www.ndetp.com/MSPages.htm
• High School
• http//www.ndetp.com/HSPage.htm
• Website includes a listing of Classroom Ready
  Units and Products

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Resource Bank
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NDETP

• Questions