Profiling Women in Engineering: Vibes & Waves STEM in Action Series

The STEM in Action series is off to a great start at Lowell High School thanks to the initiative and organization by GK-12 fellow Molly Clay. So far we have had three dynamic women, Karen Steele from Lucent/Alcatel, Damaris Sarria from MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Valerie Avila from Draper Laboratory who have talked to the students about their careers and their aspirations when they were young and how they went on to achieve those goals. Coming up in the next few weeks are more talks by women in engineering and science and a few men as well. Read more about them on the Vibes and Waves page. A side note is an interesting article by Sophie Vandebroek, CTO at Xerox Corp. related to the topic of giving girls and minorities more opportunities to experiment and learn about engineering and sciences when they are young and intervening when the system tries to deny them such opportunities as is often the case.

Vibes and Waves Summer Workshop: Day 3

Fellows asked to reflect on past two days and write down any questions, suggestions, comments they may have.

The contents of the lesson plan prescribed yesterday are addressed. (Essential question, content objectives, connection to previous/future lessons, critical thinking questions, key vocabulary, materials needed/safety, launch (engage), investigation (explore), summarization (explain/extend), assessment (evaluate) and homework.

Fellows are asked to rank order four components of the lesson plan that they find are most important. Then they are asked to discuss this with their group.

Presenters ask fellows to share their findings. Fellows identified as top concerns: content objectives, critical thinking questions, launch(engage) ; second item was connection to previous / future lessons, investigation and critical thinking questions; third was summarization, investigation, assessment and critical thinking; fourth was content objectives, connection to lessons, launch , investigation, assessment

Paula: How do you decide where to start? Recommend the backward integration method. Think of what you want to accomplish at the end as the starting point: therefore focus on the objectives first . The other items should fall in place following a good placement of the objectives.

Pat: Remember that objectives are not the activity.

Next: View a case study of a science teacher teaching.

Fellows asked to view the video and identify what they would discuss with the teacher after seeing this.

Paula: What should the climate of a science classroom look like? It certainly should not be a ‘quiet’ zone. There should be an ongoing conversation/discussion or talking taking place. Vocabulary development is particularly important for students in Lowell and Lawrence. Typically, the teacher’s role is to ignite a discussion within a group and walk away so that they can talk about the question on their own.

Tim: Even though continuous talking by the teacher may be a means to control a class or prevent disruption, this is not recommended. Address the one or two groups that are not cooperating using some of the other methods identified yesterday: proximity etc..

After break
Fellows demo a sample classroom activity where they have attempted to integrate as many of the elements of the lesson plan as possible.

Paula wraps up on demos and their effectiveness in the classroom. It has been found that students prefer one or more students involved in the demo rather than the teacher do this solo. Think about setting up your demo if you are planning one, by asking student volunteers to help you set up and conduct the activity. It is recommended not handing out any reading material or tasks during the demo, since they will easily be distracted by this material.

In conclusion, it was a great workshop, where we all learnt how an insightful and fun class can be conducted by paying attention to a few details in preparation.

I have added some other references related to assessment, inquiry-learning and teaching science pertinent to this subject, from a GK-12 programs at Coastal Carolina University- Thanks CCU.

Vibes and Waves Summer Workshop Day 2

July 21, 2010:
Agenda for the day: (i) Sharing of homework; (ii) Lesson planning; (iii)Assessments; (iv) Classroom management scenarios; (v)Homework; (vi) Exit Ticket
Day 2 objective: Fellows will maximize their understanding of inquiry as well as acquire classroom management techniques.

Item 1
Fellows pair up and work together on their approach developed during their homework assignment.

Following on:
The design of a lesson plan: Typical template is handed out. It consists of areas for : Essential question; content objective(s) (Student Friendly); Connection to previous or future lessons; Critical Thinking questions; key vocabulary; materials needed/safety; Active Instruction: (Launch/Engagement); Investigation; Time for Reflection: Summarization (explain and extend), Assessment (Evaluate); Homework

Discussion
Tim: ‘Essential Question’ : What is the ‘essential question’ that you are trying to address in your research? Asking this question before you design your activity is critical. Handout: An extract from ‘Understanding by Design’ . A good discussion follows on how such a question can be phrased, the scope of the question and what other information the fellow needed to know to be able to pose such a question.

Paula: Bringing in key vocabulary words during the classroom activity. Ideally identify these words at the end of the activity so students can identify them with a concept or principle after that has been experimented with.

Moving on to Assessments:
Why do we need to do assessments? Is grading an assessment. Yes, this is a summative assessment. Can a summative assessment be formative?
However, grade on a piece of paper does not do much towards assessment from the student’s own assessment of their work. Need to add some feedback along with the grade. Use visual cues as you progress through the activity to determine students response to what you have talked about. Don’t ask did you understand, this may lead to some instantaneous responses that may not be reflective of the state of the class. Rather other types of visual cues such as fist defined, range from 1 – 5 of understanding etc…

Elaine brought up the idea of the fellows having the students in their classes maintain journals about the work they do when the fellows are conducting their classes. There was a discussion on how to motivate the students to maintain their journals. Many tips and suggestions were given by the presenters on this topic.

Tim: Fellows should do a quick assessment at the beginning of class to determine where the students are with respect to the fellows expectations.

Next Topic: Classroom management:
Tim: Asked fellows to come up with a class room scenario that may have come up and one that they did not know how to deal with.
Fellows identify several scenarios.

Some attention move approaches discussed: Handout from reference: Skillful Teacher

Tim: List for handling such situations:
Desisting or Stopping, Alerting, Enlisting, Acknowledging, Winning (ranging from most forceful to least forceful )

Vibes and Waves : Summer Workshop’10: Day 1

July 20, 2010: Day 1 of workshop for GK-12 fellows:
Presenters:
Tim Piwowar, Paula Bransfield and Pat Nastasi

Tim, Paula and Pat begin with a welcome and discussed the agenda for the day.

Item 1
Fellows take a few minutes to fill out a pre-assessment that had the following questions: (1) What do you think inquiry in the science classroom looks like, and what are the benefits of using it; (2) How do you think you could tell if students are truly engaged in a lesson; (3) What is the purpose(s) for assessment in a learning environment; (4) What might assessment look like in a learning enviornment; (5) In your educational past, what made you want to study science; (6) SCIENCE QUESTION: What causes the seasons?

Following this, fellows were paired and each pair asked to discuss their response to question (1). This led to their definitions of inquiry in the classroom. Some of the comments: Open-ended discussion to get students to think for themselves; to apply material beyond the lesson; State the students are in when they are willing to ask questions; Questions by teachers and answers by students.

These responses initiated a discussion on what the pairs identified as ‘inquiry’ and the commonality in their responses. Fellows then watched a video: Teaching Evolution: Case Studies that demonstrated a teacher conducting a class on evolution that integrated quite a bit of interactive participation by the students and provided an example of a very experienced teacher conducting an inquiry driven class. Fellows were then drawn into a discussion on how this class was conducted, what transpired and how the students learnt in this environment.

Thoughts from video: She did not give them answers, made them think and linked to prior knowledge; answered questions w/questions; guided responses; involved enough to ask questions; engaged and interested; movement in classroom (a lot of it by students); scientific vocabulary: prompting to use science words; learned vocabulary through experience.

Paula identified what may have been a ‘hook’ by the teacher in initiating engagement by the students. In this video, it was the activity where students were asked to each pick up two genetic markers (A, a …) and each student told to ‘mate’ with another student by which it was meant they exchange markers that led to a new pair of markers (progeny: population growth)

Pat also brought out the issue of how the teacher held control of the class as the fairly intensive activity was taking place. ‘Results’ for the activity needed everyone to finish their piece and submit data. This made students keep responding in time to the call for action. It was suggested that students should be given some ‘ownership’ to their own learning.

Paula: How did the teacher handle it when the answer was not quite what she was looking for? Teacher used words: ‘Did you mean that …’, ‘Did I understand you correctly…’, She gave cues to the student to guide them to the right answer or the answer she was looking for. She did not just say , ‘No thats not right, this is the answer’. Teacher in video also made sure that the whole class paid attention when she was talking to one particular student.

Pat: What kind of classroom management class did the teacher have in place prior to this to have done this so well. There must have been some ground rules determined and understood by students prior to this. One rule: Respect what other people are saying, whether you believe that opinion or not.

Paula: Teacher also made sure that answers from questions were backed up by a scientific explanation.

Tim: Issue of the classroom being a ‘safe’ environment or students being emotionally safe. Why is this important? A classroom environment that is safe in allowing students to ask questions without being laughed at or ignored by others, allows every student to be confident in participating in the class. Also, the teachers’ persona in presentation is important.
She was confident and had passion for the subject that was being taught.

Paula: Was there anything missing in the classroom activity and way it was conducted? Perhaps time for students to write down notes?

Tim: Was the lesson designed so that the students would remember the lesson/activity?

Next item:
Fellows were handed a document developed by Paula and others on: ‘An Effective Standards-Based K-12 Science and Technology/Engineering Classroom’. Here workshop addresses how the MA. frameworks/standards play a role in defining: (i) student engagement, (ii)instructional design and delivery, (iii) student expectations; (iv) an environment for learning and (v) documentation and communication of student learning.

Discussion: Tim: What jumped out in the engagement section?

Barbara: Students have an opportunity to choose how they learn (not what they learn) .
Tim: Designing different activities to help address learning styles of different students.
Max: Tackle real-world problems and applications. How does one go about giving students a real problem and expect them to solve it?
Paula: Take the example in the video, where the teacher had the students read an article on Malaria and Sickle cell anemia previously (a real world application) and used the activity in the next class to relate it to this problem. How students absorb the material (cognitive recall) will determine if they remember or recollect the concepts later.
Tim: Also they do not need to ‘solve’ the problem, they have learn to ‘tackle’ the problem. Use the analogy of how you do research in graduate school towards how you get them to ‘tackle’ the problem. Make them into researchers during this engagement.
Paula: Try to relate the topic to something in the real world they have seen or experienced.
Max: My approach in making connections between the lesson and personal experience has often been effective in the classroom.

Coffee Break.

Post Break:

Paula hands each fellow a box with something in it . It is closed. They are asked what’s in the box.

Quick answers: Marble, bearing, cylinder…

Question rephrased:
If you opened the box what would you see?

- Answers were more descriptive. Critical thinking exercise? Slight change in the way questions are asked can elicit a different response and discussion from the students.
Here we are trying to model student activity much as research is done. Make some observations and then draw conjectures based on things you know. As more information becomes available, refine your conjectures and proceed to next level. This can be a hook to engage students.
Fellows can borrow these boxes to use in their classrooms or they can come up with a similar ‘hook’ to engage the students.

How do you deal with students who when they do not get the final answer do not want to move on? Afford them a link to continue their theory and conjectures later, or ask them to do it for a homework or say you will come back to it. It is important that there be a good transition out of the ‘hook’ used to engage the student. Perhaps now is the time to start a topic that may relate to how they can refine their answers to this problem. Whatever it is , do not give them a final answer to the problem. This will likely lead them to completely forget about this problem.

Next Item: Handout of article: ‘Primary Science …. talking the plunge. How to teach primary science more effectively?

Each fellow quickly reads the article.

Pat: Why is this article called ‘taking the plunge’ ?
- moving away from the lecture format and moving towards the investigative, inquiry based.

Which part made you stop and think or you did not agree with, or something that stood out?
Max: Its ok for a teacher to say I do not know.
But how will you follow up with this? What can you say to that student? ‘How can we find out?’ Ask them. This starts a discussion. Asking this question rather than deciding yourself what needs to be done, will give them an open-ended set of opportunities: turning it on them, instead of mandating, can lead to the critical thinking opportunity.

Josh: On asking what if questions: can lead to abstractions that would benefit students’ learning experience.

Paula: Always start with something ‘concrete’ (such as a demo or a video or a set of rules …), then move along to abstractions.

Elaine: Asking students what they think about a particular problem but also ‘timing’ the questions correctly is important.

Barbara: Dealing with ‘reasoning’ questions. Should be designed carefully, so that students do not think they are test related or letting them know its ok if there is not one answer

Next Item: Hand out ‘Quick Flip Questions for the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy’
Tim: On asking the right questions and what can happen when things dont go as expected: A Funny Video (Problem with Nail Gun Funny Video: Youtube)
Handout: Guiding principles: Introductory Physics, High School, Learning standards for a full first-year course.
Tim hands out a pendulum to each fellow. What kind of questions can you pose about the pendulum? What do you want to know? What kind of questions will students ask? Take a look at the learning standards and identify one or two that would relate to the motion of the pendulum.
Discussion on how these physical principles dictate motion of pendulum.

Ayse: The pendulum is too complicated in dynamics and abstract to provide a good example of ‘conservation of energy’ principle. She would use something simpler such as dropping an object from a height to describe this.

Paula: So selection of the ‘concrete’ principle at the beginning is important before you can lead to more abstraction based activity. Recall the video shown where the activity built up the learning of the students and led them to the ‘aha’ moment.
For fellows: Designing your sample presentations: Identify frameworks, integrate the ‘engagement’ method and develop the ‘hook’.

HW for today: Each fellow:
Identifies with their topic: Links to Frameworks; Identify the ‘hook’ (what is the engaging activity that will help draw students into the activity?) ; Identify opportunities for critical thinking; Identify questions you may ask (Refer to Bloom’s taxonomy ).

Final item for the day: Ticket to GO: GK-12 Reflection: (i) The most useful thing I will take from this session is: ; (ii) What really made me think; (iii) I might have gotten more from this session if:

More to blog about tomorrow . Stay cool.

A Chip Design ‘Gurukul’ in Nesargi

Recently, on a trip to India, I had an opportunity to visit Karmic Training Center (KTC), in Nesargi, India. Nesargi is in the southern state of Karnataka and about 500 miles northeast of Bangalore.

An interesting mentoring, education, and training initiative is taking place at KTC in Nesargi. The Center was created by Dr. S. Mahant Shetti, an engineer, scientist, entrepreneur and educator. Dr. Shetti’s thoughts about the education process in general and his vision that led to the creation of KTC can be understood on his blog site.

KTC is home to about thirty young students who are undergoing training in engineering skills with a focus on analog chip design. The center is modeled as a ‘gurukul’, a sanskrit word for a residential school where students live in proximity to the ‘gurus’, the mentors. In addition to learning from the gurus, the students take care of their environs, carrying out day-to-day activities cooperatively much as a family would.

The philosophy behind the center is to provide learning and career opportunities for students in rural areas who may not be able to afford to go to college. At the same time, the intent is to generate an engineering skill base in the area of analog chip design. This field is a rather niche area, with very few programs nationwide here in the USA or across the world, teaching the requisite fundamental principles. There is however considerable demand for expertise in the area.

KTC students start in the program after completing the 10th grade in high school. Initial recruiting of a larger group of potential candidates takes place through the gurus associated with nearby school districts. The successful candidates for the program are selected after a period of evaluation.

Spending the day at Karmic, I could sense the energy and the camaraderie among the students. A number of small houses in the village have been converted to classrooms, laboratories and a library. The students live in the village and help in the construction and restoration of the facilities. Classes, it appears, are fairly flexible in time and structure. They are designed to be discussion oriented with questions being posed by instructors to make students think out loud and arrive at answers by connecting things they know and hypothesizing on things they don’t.

We enjoyed our visit with the students and teachers at Karmic and thank them for their hospitality and graciousness. The day of our visit (January 15, 2010) happened to also be a full solar eclipse: the longest annular solar eclipse of the millennium, next comparable one to be in 3043. But we hope to visit and interact with the students and teachers at Karmic much sooner! Through our Vibes and Waves project, we hope to connect our fellows and other students here at UMASS Lowell to the bright young minds at Karmic.

‘Computational Thinking’ in high school classrooms

Today’s technology section in NYT carries an article on the need to teach our high school students concepts of computing and programming that go beyond introduction to word processing and spread sheets. Many high school students view writing code and computer science programs as the domain of nerds and as not being very cool. However, future careers, be they in health care, manufacturing, science or engineering in general will involve and require some degree of computing skills. The process of casting a problem to be solved into a set of sub-problems or tasks and the design of an approach to solve and link the smaller problems towards the larger solution involves both engineering and computational frame of mind. It is critical that computing be introduced not in isolation, but in concert with the fundamental topics: Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics etc..

The GK-12 Vibes and Waves in Action project has ample opportunity to design and deliver these concepts with our partner teachers in Physics and Math classes. Our fellows should give careful thought to how their presentation of Matlab concepts to the high school students can be better formulated so students begin to think about not just writing a program in a sequence of steps, but more so as a design tool to solve a specified problem. Clearly, this requires that teachers and fellow work closely to design the problem and provide ample time for students to wade through many different scenarios, perhaps tuned to the individual students’ thought process.

Mentors from Industry (Raytheon Corp.) link with Fellows

Our GK-12 fellows, Ayse, Max, Barbara, Elaine, Tim and Mark met with their mentors from Raytheon Corporation at their IDS (Integrated Defense Systems) headquarters in Tewksbury, MA.. The mentor matching was coordinated by Terri Munson, Diane Mahoney and Wendy Barry, all from Raytheon. UML GK-12 Vibes and Waves in Action welcomes mentors:    Vince Delgaudio, Tom Silkina, Mary Herndon, Todor Tchangov, Jeff Wildfeuer, Charles Dicenzo and Javier Alvarado.

L-R: Vince Delgaudio, Charles Dicenzo, Ayse Kalkan-Savoy, Barbara Deschamp, Kavitha Chandra, Tim Ficarra, Jeff Wildfeuer, Javier Alvarado, Tom Silkina, Max Denis, Mary Herndon, Todor Tchangov, Mark Sherman and Elaine Vejar.

Read more »

NSF NCSU Engineering Stakeholder Summit

I am presently attending the NSF NCSU Engineering Gk-12 stakeholder summit (Oct. 8,9, 2009) at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC. The meeting is organized by NCSU Gk-12 project team (Laura Bottomley, Liz Parry etc..) with funding from the NSF Engineering Education directorate, led by Al Soyster. Currently NSF supports about 146 GK-12 programs nationwide and participation from Engineering programs is growing. Out of 143 proposal submissions to NSF this year, about 37 were from the Engineering community.

Al Soyster says that the percentage of students taking SAT tests who identify engineering as their education goal is decreasing drastically. Actual number of engineering students in pipeline is falling. Needs to see a story of the effectiveness of graduate students and faculty connecting with teachers and students in primary and secondary education.

Introductions are done and include faculty and GK-12 PIs and Co-PIs from engineering, teachers, GK-12 fellows and evaluators.

Laura Bottomley (GK-12 PI NCSU) is introducing their program, ‘The Engineering Place’. They work on outreach, recruitment and education as integrated components.

Next up is Jacquelyn Sullivan, Dean College of Engineering & Applied Science at University of Colorado at Boulder. She is talking about Engineering in K-12 education: Understanding the status and improving the prospects. She recommends the two year report from NAE: Changing the conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering. The new NAE report she is talking about is: Engineering in K-12 Education: Improving the Status and Improving the Prospects. Discussion about Engineering in K-12 has been ongoing now for about 10 -15 years. In this context, this is a  a relatively new field.  It is the ‘design process’ that distinguishes engineering from science. So the design issue must be introduced as a formal framework for problem exploration and solving. Analysis and modeling components of engineering design are well supported by scientific inquiry and mathematical computational methods. But, any incorporation of engineering in K-12 must build upon skills and knowledge that are developmentally appropriate to the age group involved. Third, Promoting engineering habits of mind must be a planned outcome for effective engineering in K-12.  This means: promote a systems approach that bring in interconnections in the technological world; creativity – inherent to design process; optimism, collaboration, communications and ethical considerations

What is the evidence of K-12 Engineering Impact? There is little evidence visible and not enough reliable data to provide a basis for unqualified claims of impact of K-12 engineering education on student learning. However, engineering exploration helps science and math become both relevant and connected to youngster’s worlds. So , engineering within iterative design process holds great promise. Therefore there is a need for well designed assessment studies that measure student learning, attitude and self efficacy development. Sound educational policy depends on assessment of impacts…its up to the Gk-12 community to invest in collecting this data. (on enhanced student engagement, honing of technological skills etc.. ). Well designed research needed that looks at: How do design ideas and practices develop in students over time, what classroom conditions best support this development, what works and why, which pathways have the most promise?

Science of Learning: Many advances made in this area, but it is unknown how these advances are influencing how teachers use and interact with K-12 engineering curricula in the classroom; are effective pedagogical approaches being applied …

Community must move beyond modest claims of impact to recommendations of how to optimize the impacts of engineering on student learning throughout K-12 curriculum.

Laura Bottomley: Items for current projects:

What type of data is being collected by programs; Identify stories that may be documentable across projects; how can this group have impact on the national conversation?

Two breakout group assignments:

Group 1: Consider cross-project data collection: what is meaningful, what questions can we ask, what answers are already there from this group?

Group 2: Consider impacting the national conversation: what can we agree to do before we leave; what action items are there and who will be responsible?

Next Talk: On TeachEngineering : (Jackie Sullivan and Mindy Zarske, Univ. of Colorado, Boulder ). Fellows should consider the resources on this sight that can be applied in the lesson plans they are proposing for their classrooms. Not much of high school content presently exists, so there is a potential for fellows who are working in high schools to develop a resource for TeachEngineering. The module will be reviewed and available in open source journal format, that may be considered as a publication for the fellow.

Currently participating in Group I : Cross-Project  Data Collection:

What data is presently being collected?

NCSU RAMP UP Programs: Survey data on students’ confidence on engineering and math, qualitative data, getting at their attitude, views etc.. Washington State Univ: Math Anxiety data, interviews with teachers, projects made available to teachers, asked how their perceptions have changed. Questions on their choice of college majors: About a 1/3 say their choice was positively impacted by the presence of fellows in their classrooms; Anecdotal information from conversations between fellows and students (7th and 8th grade students). Follow up with these students in later years on choice of their college majors.

Colorado : Tracked all former GK-12 fellows since they’ve left the program to get information on how the fellowship has impacted their careers; Questions asked: Do you think the program had real value? Is it worth time you are giving up to participate in the classes?

When focussed on a particular theme: Do teachers pedagogical skills change/improve with the fellows presenting their research in the classrooms? Is it improving teachers content knowledge?

Take projects with common activities (such as after school activities) and find out if there are common questions to be asked.

Ask teachers: If program ended today, what would you do thats different? Is it useful for teachers to be allied to this program?

How many K-12 students do the 37 Engineering programs interact with totally in a year. 3.3 m kids graduate each year from high school. What is the scalability of this approach?

Teachers need to be equipped with skills to explain to students  what is needed to get to engineering , not just math and science and not just a lot of smarts. Teachers efficacy to teach engineering: mental measurements yearbook : Efficacy scale or tool.  How do you define success in engineering? cannot be just get a ph.d and do research. Can you get data on K-12 students who are not involved with GK-12 program? i.e. control data collection or comparison group: for example 7th grade involved in K-12 compared with 7th-grade overall in the district or nationally. Need to get consistent data across all projects

What are stakeholders we should focus on? What kind of data do we collect from stakeholders? Can this be provided as recommended evaluation process to new and existing projects.  Teachers do self-assessment before and after the project.

Oct. 9, 2009:

Day 2 of NSF NCSU Stakeholder summit.

Current and former RAMP UP Fellows give a readout on their experiences in the K-12 classrooms.

Action Items of Breakout Groups:

Impacting the National Conversation:

Create single sheet handout for programs to use: for Guidance counselors, parents, teachers (pre and in service); Engage Industry; Band together to offer sessions for guidance counselors at conferences, also NSTA as GK-12 engineering group; Facebook/blog for engineering messaging; Group with professional societies; Editorials to newspapers etc.; Large scale prof. development for teachers; Best practices publication from engineering GK-12;National engineering day packaged by GK-12 programs with activities; Letter to NAGB

Data Collection:

Prioritize concepts by stakeholder that should be followed to make a decision about impact; Qualitative and quantitative data are necessary; create a brochure with stories that are painted by the data that have already been collected: send out a form to be filled in by each project.

Parents and Community Impact: Track schoolboard recognitions of projects, testimonies from parents to be collected, increase communication about project to parents and community, buy in from parents and community is a huge factor in success, attitudes of parents of students who are interested in pursuing engineering, tracking parents understanding of engineering before and after

K-12 Teachers: Teachers pedagogical content knowledge in science, math, engineering; confidence with use of engineering design in classroom, teacher satisfaction with bonuses they receive, impact on their curriculum in the future, track teachers knowledge of what engineers do and measure success of what and how they bring what engineers do to the classroom, impact of cutting-edge research in classroom, couple (measure)  teacher attitudes to success of their students

K-12 Counselors/Administrators: Measure degree to which they participate in professional development activities , conferences etc.. based on their exposure to the program; measure number of engineering design project teams in their curriculum, measure self-efficacy, survey school principals, need common assessment tools, how many principals attend annual meetings

K-12  Students: Assess content knowledge in science, math including scores on standardized tests; create an assessment item data bank that projects can pull from; track self efficacy, awareness of engineering and feelings towards engineering; Track student participation in activities related to science and engineering (pre-and post project); measure students science literacy as related to public policy and popular science; do longitudinal studies of career pathways; ask students how this program has impacted their desire to pursue engineering; look for proof that engineering experiences has made a difference in their decisions on program choices; measure increased communication between fellows and students and if and how the mentor/mentee relationship has been established or has progressed in the project.

Meetings over. Vibes and Waves at UML has volunteered to work on identifying how industries can interact with GK-12 projects and K-12 community to address aforementioned issues. We will also work on development of facebook pages/blogs to address some of the messaging issues.

Creating Waves: Graduate Course for GK-12 Fellows

The ‘Creating Waves’ 3 credit graduate course is scheduled to be offered in Spring’2010. I would like to start a discussion on the objectives, structure and content of this course.

Class Room Interaction

Hi GK-12 Fellows:

I want to discuss how your individual class room interaction is taking place, now that you all have had a chance to start with one or more of your classes. Please contribute your views on this topic so we can perhaps share some ideas.

Thanks!

kc