Increasing student awareness of and interest in engineering as a career option through design-based learning

Abstract

This paper describes a rigorous summer research experience and curriculum development opportunity for teachers, supported by professional development and classroom support, culminating with a citywide student design competition. The goal of this Research Experience for Teachers program was to bring real world innovative design into several urban, high school classrooms. The 8-week summer program comprised an engineering component and a learning science component. The goal of the engineering component was to provide an authentic research experience. Teams of 2-3 teachers were paired with a researcher in a school of engineering to further ongoing research of a product realization project. The goal of the learning science component was to scaffold teachers to develop a design-based immersion unit that they would implement in their science classrooms. Teams were organized by their content areas and provided professional development at a learning research center around relevant curriculum development strategies. This paper presents results related to common sets of knowledge and skills that teachers learned from both engineering design and learning science from the cohorts of teachers over the last three years. Findings include documentation of implementation success, changes of teachers' and students' beliefs about engineering and increases in student interest in engineering careers. © 2009 TEMPUS Publicatìons