excelling in engineering article series

摘要

Despite the recognition of engineering as an appropriate vehicle to address STEM concerns, there is not yet agreement on standards for P-12 education (National Research Council, 2009) or a framework for guiding pedagogical practice for developmentally appropriate instruction (NAE, 2017; Strimel & Grubbs, 2016; Strimel, Grubbs, & Wells,2016; Grubbs, Strimel, & Huffman, 2018). Moreover, although professional development standards have been created to guide the preparation of P-12 teachers for engineering (Reimers, Farmer, & Klein-Gardner, 2015), the content base has not been fully examined. In turn, the Advancing Excellence in P-12 Engineering Education (AEEE) project has sought to provide direction on better detailing what secondary students should know, and approaches for educators to nurture such learning experiences. Under the umbrella of engineering education, teachers can utilize a framework that can concurrently prepare all students to be better problem solvers, enter a trades/vocational pathway, or pursue postsecondary education/professional engineering. A report on the AEEE project, and the resulting Taxonomy of Concepts for Secondary Engineering and Progression of Learning in Engineering framework for articulating a sequence of knowledge and skills that students are capable to learn as they progress toward engineering literacy will be covered in an upcoming Technology and Engineering Teacher.