Area middle school and high school math, science and technology
teachers are getting the necessary training to better prepare
students for future careers in engineering.
And Eastern Michigan University faculty is leading the
way.
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LEADING THE WAY: (above, from left) Paul
Dornfeld,
a physics teacher at Grass Lake High School;
Erica
Knoer, a chemistry teacher at Faith Christian
Academy in Arvada, Colo.; and Darrin Wilcoxson,
a
digital electronics Project Lead the Way teacher
at
Crawfordsville High School in Crawfordsville,
Ind.,
trouble-shoot the marble-sorting machine
that they
built. They are three of a number of
high school and
middle school math, science and
engineering
teachers who learned how to teach
the national
Project Lead the Way (PLTW) curriculum
through a
weeklong workshop in Sill Hall. Faculty
from EMU's
College of Technology, who were trained
at the
Rochester Institute of Technology to teach
the
curriculum, oversaw the workshops.
|
During July and August, faculty in EMU's College of Technology
have been teaching the national Project Lead the Way (PLTW)
curriculum to Michigan teachers in Sill Hall. Last year,
EMU was designated as the lone Michigan school to deliver
the PLTW program, aimed at generating earlier interest
in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) from
students and meeting the state's need for more engineers.
"Generally, the teachers are learning a framework for
success for students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math) careers," said Alvin Tessmer, EMU's co-coordinator
for PLTW. "In this country, we need 160,000 engineers a
year. We're getting 78,000 a year and more than half of
those are from overseas."
"Teachers said that the training will help them integrate mathematics
and science with technology; help students to better
understand the concepts and principles; and help to grow
a workforce in Michigan that will be prepared for highly
tecnical careers in engineering and related fields," said
Phil Cardon, an EMU associate professor of technology education
and EMU's co-coordinator for PLTW.
PLTW, a national, nonprofit training program based in
Clifton, N.Y., has developed a four-year sequence of courses
which, when combined with college preparatory mathematics
and science courses in high school, introduces middle and
high school students to engineering and prepares them for
postsecondary engineering studies.
First developed in the 1980s, PLTW is now offered to approximately
200,000 students at 1,763 schools in 46 states and the
District of Columbia.
The purpose of the program is two-fold: one, introduction
of engineering courses at the middle school and high school
levels will attract more students, including underrepresented
groups — to engineering and give those students an
opportunity to determine if engineering is their career
interest. Second, the preparation would significantly cut
the number of students who begin college as engineering
majors, but ultimately drop out of the program to change
majors.
"We're providing a series of activities and projects that
will help kids take ownership of their education," Tessmer
said. "As a result, it will put more rigor in their work
and they will find more relevance in it."
Last summer, four EMU faculty were trained at the Rochester
Institute of Technology to learn the core engineering courses
developed by PLTW. In addition to Tessmer and Cardon, Tony
Shay and Erik Lokensgard, both professors in EMU's School
of Engineering Technology, learned how to teach the following
PLTW courses: "Principles of Engineering," "Introduction
to Engineering Design," "Digital Electronics," "Computer
Integrated Manufacturing" and "Gateway to Technology."
Currently, approximately 40 middle and high schools in
Genesee, Jackson, Macomb, Wayne and Washtenaw counties,
as well as from Indiana and Ohio, are on board to use the
PLTW curriculum, Cardon said.
The middle and high school teachers began two weeks of
training July 9 in a Sill Hall lab. A second group of similar
teachers trained July 23-Aug. 4. To learn the "Principles
of Engineering" course, the educators were paired off and
learned at various stations, including building a vehicle
from Legos and sensors; using trigonometry and linear algebra
to solve real-world problems; learning force and motion
through use of a stress analyzer; and how to create PowerPoint
presentations of their experiments.
The teachers will take the concepts they learn from the
EMU training and apply the lesson in their own classrooms.
Ed Redies, a CAD teacher with the Jackson Area Career
Center, likened the training to what old high school shop
teachers adhered to — learning by doing.
"For hundreds of years, there were apprenticeships, where
you'd learn from someone. They showed you and you passed
it on to someone else," said Redies, who said the career
center receives students from 20 feeder schools in Jackson
County. "This is something industrial folks have known
forever. Education is just now coming around to that approach,
and now in technology."
Eastern Michigan's start-up costs are projected at $250,000
for the first three years of the PLTW project, Cardon said.
To date, EMU has received a $36,000 equipment grant from
the Convergence Education Foundation; $17,500 from the
College of Technology for faculty PLTW training; $10,000
from the Ed Redies Foundation; and an as-yet undetermined
portion of a $5 million Workforce Innovation in Regional
Economic Development (WIRED) grant awarded to Detroit,
he said. After three years, it is hoped the project will
become self-sufficient through teacher in-service training,
high school student tuition, and state and federal grants.
"We want these teachers empowered and the kids they teach
to be empowered," Tessmer said.
