Teachers Make Lousy Students, and What You Can Do About It

A pre-engineering program was included in the College’s Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program to further equip participants with an understanding of engineering. The program described the fields of engineering and engineering technology allowing participants to explore engineering disciplines and design processes. The overall goal of the pre-engineering program was to help teachers better understand engineering and engineering technology so that they could appropriately address engineering and technology related topics in their classrooms. The program content was provided using a variety of means including instructor led presentations and projects. Significant effort was made to develop interactive discussions between participants and the instructor while making use of an item of current interest. This paper describes the evolution of this pre-engineering program based on participant evaluation of the program and instructor observations. Results of participant evaluations indicate that appropriate and significant improvements were made that resulted in better learning experiences for the participants. The lessons learned are directly applicable to other K-12 teacher professional development programs. Background In 2005 the College of Engineering & Appl8ied Science at the University of Cincinnati received funding from the NSF to pilot a Research Experience for Teachers program with 5 teachers. Subsequently, the College has received two RET Site grants, one for 2006-2008 and the second one 2009-2011 1-5 . Each year approximately 12 math and science teachers have participated. The goals of the RET program have been three fold: 1. To educate, cultivate, and facilitate middle and high school science and mathematics teachers by exploring the scientific method of inquiry and the critical research skills that engineers use to solve open-ended real-world problems. 2. To develop the participating teachers into role models for their schools who apply their research experiences in their classrooms and with colleagues. 3. To enable middle and high school students to directly link their education to events and issues occurring within their city and community and encourage them to become effective citizens in a technology-driven society. The basic approach in the program has been discovery through actual construction and experimental testing, field data collection, observing and recording, computer simulations, synthesizing, and generalizations. Each year six research project topics were chosen to provide an overall view on research relevant to urban issues including: 1) availability of safe drinking water, 2) air pollution and waste disposal issues, 3) performance evaluation of civil infrastructure systems (buildings and bridges) under earthquakes, 4) mobility and congestion cost issues of transportation systems, 5) renewable energy systems using fuel and solar cell technologies, and 6) use of robotics for automation. Two teachers worked as a team on a project in one of these six research areas for six weeks during the summer under the mentorship of a faculty member and a dedicated engineering graduate student. In addition, teachers participated in a professional development program taught by education and engineering faculty members and practicing engineers. The professional development program included presentations and discussions on P ge 25237.2 inquiry-based learning and assessment using engineering as a context for teaching as well as interaction with professional engineers (one from each research project area) to reinforce how math and science are used in real-world projects. Beginning in 2008, the professional development program also included a fairly extensive preengineering program. This paper specifically addresses this pre-engineering program and how the RET organizers modified the program in order to be responsive to participant behavior and feedback. Structure and Goals of Pre-Engineering Program The pre-engineering program was introduced to describe the fields of engineering and engineering technology allowing participants to explore engineering disciplines and design processes. The overall goal of the program was to help teachers better understand engineering and engineering technology so that they could appropriately address engineering and technology related topics in their classrooms. A secondary goal was to help teachers understand the connections between science and math taught in schools and the use of these subjects to solve engineering problems. The content of the program included topics that enabled participants to distinguish between engineering disciplines and to be knowledgeable about topics common to all disciplines. While there is no consensus on what content knowledge or pedagogies are required for effective K-12 engineering education 6 our program sought to prepare teachers to integrate engineering into their classroom activities 7-9 . The pre-engineering program was led by a staff member in the college who has experience working with high school teachers on other pre-engineering programs including an introduction to engineering course for high school students 10-11 . The pre-engineering course made use of the same text used in the introduction to engineering program; Engineering Your Future – A Project Based Introduction to Engineering 12 . The RET Pre-engineering program content was provided using a variety of means. A projectbased format was used in conjunction with traditional instructor-led presentations since this format engages the participants and models the type of activity the teachers could lead in their own classrooms 7,9,13,14 . All presentation materials were available to participants before, during and after the sessions via the University’s Blackboard web site. As much as practical, interactive discussions between participants and the instructor were used to engage the participants. These were centered on the topic being presented while making use of an item of current interest. For example, the impact of technology on society was framed around a discussion of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Some topics were presented using web-based audio and video followed by discussions among the participants. Project-based work was used to develop several topics presented and provided opportunities for active learning for the participants. In most cases, participants worked in teams on projects to model the approach that would be used in the schools. The projects typically provided an openended problem centered around a topic (e.g. the engineering design process) and required participants to work together to solve the problem 15, 16 . Participant teams were then asked to provide an informal presentation of the results of their project work. P ge 25237.3 Pre-Engineering Program Implementation and Refinement The pre-engineering program was added to the RET in the summer of 2008. Sessions covering a wide range of topics were developed. The topics were intended to provide the participants sufficient background so that they would be knowledgeable about the variety of engineering disciplines and the significance of the design process, teamwork and the impact of engineering on society. The content was presented by one individual and each teaching session included discussions about the topic as well as didactic material. In a few cases, the content was partially presented using web-based video modules that had been developed for the high school introduction to engineering course. Teaching sessions were 2-3 hours in duration. The 2008 session also included 3 short projects (completed during the teaching sessions). Table 1 lists the topics that were presented in the pre-engineering program as well as information about the nature and duration of the program. The Table also provides commensurate information for the programs conducted in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Table 1 Characteristics of Pre-Engineering Program Topic 2008 2009 201