The Impact Of Introducing Robotics In Middle And High School Science And Mathematics Classrooms

The Center for Pre-College Programs at the New Jersey Institute of Technology was established to provide students with high quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and mentorship activities, in an effort to help students see the rewards of careers in STEM and increase students’ interest in pursuing a career in these fields. Students who participate in the centers’ programs are better prepared to pursue and successfully graduate in STEM majors, especially engineering. The Center also conducts training institutes that provide teachers with pre-engineering curriculum to better prepare students to enter engineering degree programs. The curriculum focuses on pre-engineering skills and teachers are trained to use instructional strategies that support connections between standards-based science, mathematics and real world engineering. The current paper describes 1) a new training program to introduce students and teachers to engineering and information technology through the use of robotics, 2) the curriculum developed to train middle and high school Science and Mathematics teachers to use robotics and 3) results of data collected during the first year including students’ and teachers’ attitudes toward engineering, teachers’ concern about using robotics in their classroom and their preparedness to teach the robotic curriculum. Index Terms – Pre-engineering Curricula, Robotics, Attitudes toward Science, Mathematics and Engineering, Knowledge about engineering careers. The United States currently has a shortage of qualified workers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields that will continue at least into the next decade 1,2 . For the long-term economic health of this country it is important that more students undertake studies and pursue careers in these fields because as evidenced by the U.S. Government’s H1-B visa program, it has become necessary to recruit skilled professionals in these fields from other countries to meet the current needs of the American work force 3 . There are several reasons more students are not interested in pursuing careers in STEM fields. The most crucial reason is a lack of academic preparation in middle and high school 4 . Many students are not exposed to topics in these fields at all during their K-12 studies; for some, particularly those from underrepresented populations in urban school districts, their only interaction with technology is using a personal computer for word processing and other nontechnical tasks. Although students are taught about mathematics and science, most students are relatively uninformed about technology and the field of engineering. Research indicates that most parents, teachers and school counselors do not discuss engineering as a possible career with students because they also do not know much about engineering themselves or what engineers do 5-7 . Many K-12 teachers have not been trained to incorporate engineering and technology topics into their classroom lessons and there is a lack of high-quality curricular materials in these areas. As a result, students are not exposed to the engineering and technology resources used to develop strategies for solving problems in the real world. But research has shown that even students who are adequately prepared and initially choose engineering often do not persist. While proper P ge 14222.2