Engineering & Education
How To Solve America’s Engineering Deficit
America is experiencing an engineering deficit. Compared to twenty years ago, 20,000 fewer U.S. students now graduate college with engineering degrees. Europe and Asia now graduate 3 to 5 times as many engineers as the U.S. Brent Staples’ recent New York Times editorial identifies a distinct advantage that Japan’s education system has over that of the U.S.: increased collaboration between teachers about what works in the classroom. To reverse this advantage and keep the United States competitive in the global workforce, engineering educators from prominent universities are setting their sights on the K-12 classroom, equipping math and science teachers with tools proven to successfully integrate engineering into their lessons.
One of these resources, the TeachEngineering (TE) digital library (www.teachengineering.com), provides K-12 teachers with hands-on lessons and activities involving science and math concepts in an easily accessible online format. Martha Cyr from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, one of the joint developers of TE, says that
When a teacher goes to the TE site and brings up an activity or lesson, everything is right there. A lot of resource sites for teachers link them to other places where the curriculum looks different and you’re never sure what you’re going to find. With TE, there’s no hop-scotching around.
Learn more about the TeachEngineering digital library in “A Click Away,” an article by Barbara Mathias-Riegel written for ASEE’s award winning PRISM magazine.
Although I agree with you that K-12 students need the math and science, i is not true they need “more” math and science. What they need is better teaching of math and science and better hands on connections (which math and science cannot provide) I agree that K-12 students need to “experience” the connection to engineering (all types); they will not get it in the math and science classes. In every state, math and science teachers are concerned with only one thing, state testing. Good or bad, it is a fact of life and a fact of NCLB. They have very little time to infuse engineering. On the other hand, Technolgy Education teachers (formally industrial technology) working in cooperation with math and science teachers, can make a difference and help kids see the connection to engineering and engineering technology through great hands-on learning. Your organization will make much bigger strides if you go to the state supervisors for Technology Education (some called industrial technology still) and work with them. More math and more science is not the answer for engineering. Helping kids make the connection through Technology Education to math and science will go much further.
Ben Yates
Ben Yates scores a bull’s eye with his comments!!
Recognizing Tech Ed as a curriculum that emphasizes the study of the designed world is a perfect match with infusing engineering into the academic day. This coupled with open-ended, design challenges is a powerful way to communicate what engineering is all about. The trick is to get that recognized as part of NCLB. We humans are much more than our raw ability to remember facts and such; and to apply linear logic for standardized testing. Tech Ed is about process and content, just like engineering. NCLB type testing is not the way to evaluate “process” and integrated thinking that characterizes so much of what engineering is about.