STEM Certification Program

Teaching K-12 teachers industry product development and how to implement project-based STEM curricula.

 

  • Challenge

    There is a huge demand for talent in the engineering industry from product design to manufacturing. Engineering education is also cited as an effective medium to teach interdisciplinary, project-based learning. The challenge is teachers lack training. Understanding engineering concepts, how to integrate it in the classroom, are some examples limitations for teachers

  • Approach

    Create a teacher professional development program that introduces teachers to engineering in education and industry. Designed as a graduate level course, the program was divided into two phases - phase one was the Foundation Phase when they learn engineering, and phase 2 was the Authoring phase when the design engineering-based curricula.

  • Results

    More than a 100 teachers were trained in the New England area. Teachers gave high ratings to the program. As a result of the training, teachers increased their confidence in integrating engineering concepts and improved their practice in building engineering-based STEM curricula.

Foundations Phase - introduction to engineering in education and industry

The first par of the program is the Foundations phase. Teachers are introduced to engineering concepts through the lens of industry product development. The delivery model was hybrid - teachers engaged in face-to-face workshops and online webinars over six months.

The Foundations Phase lectures were organized by the phases of product development phases in industry

  • Concept Development

    In the Concept Development lectures teachers learn about early stage product development including topics such as business planning, product requirements, ideation, and concept modeling.

  • Detailed Design

    In the Detailed Design lectures teachers learned about how products are designed in 3D software, tested with prototypes and simulations, and optimized for manufacturing.

  • Manufacturing

    In the Manufacturing lectures, teachers learn how designs are prepared for factory operations, the types of manufacturing, and the role of logistics and resources in supplying the manufacturing process.

  • Field Support

    In the Field Support lectures, teachers learned how products go to market from sales and marketing activities to service and maintenance of products in the field.

 

1. Industry

The industry section focused on teaching product development methods in industry, historical events, business case studies, industry methodologies, and industry technologies such computer aided design (CAD) and internet of things (IOT).

 
 
 
 
 
 

2. Education

Alongside the industry lectures, teachers dived into related education topics. Topics such as how people learn through the engineering design process, different methodologies for prototyping in the classroom, or how to connect STEM concepts to educational standards.

3. Community

The third section of each product development lecture was a community session. Here teachers would share their stories implementing STEM curricula, and present product artifacts they built for each section of the product development process such as a bridge design challenge or supply chain map for a product.

 

Authoring Phase - empowering teachers to design engineering- based curricula

The second part of the program focuses on authoring engineering-based curricula using the Explore-Create-Share model.

ECS curriculum model

The Explore-Create-Share (ECS) model is an instructional design model that draws best practices from project-based learning, engineering design, and industry product development. It organizes engineering projects into three learning phases. First is the explore phase when students are introduced to the design challenge. Then they dive into the subject-matter to understand the problem, technology features, and related subject-matter concepts. Second is the Create phase when students brainstorm ideas, create concepts, and then build out prototypes using various development methods from simple craft and paper techniques to more advanced approaches like 3D design and robotics kits. Third is the share phase when students create a unique artifact relevant to an industry persona such as blog post (journalist), business proposal (entrepreneur) or marketing flyer (artist). This model was designed, tested, and refined based on the inputs from teachers, curriculum designers, and professional engineers.

“The training not only organized my thinking for my curriculum, it also helped me shape the lesson planning for the rest of the teaching team in the academy.”

— Teacher participant

 

Challenging teachers to be curriculum innnovators

The authoring phase included seven stages. We joked around and compared the process to climbing several mountains as it was a ton of work for teachers. It included identifying the big idea or guiding principle, then outlining the project, followed by creating a marketing grade flyer to advertise the curriculum, and then three deep dives into making lessons plans for each of the ECS phases, and finally a complete curricula with student and teacher guides.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Enabling teachers to succeed with teacher-mentors

Each teacher was assigned a teacher-mentor who were alumni from prior programs. They provided teachers with 1:1 coaching, review sessions of each artifact created, and general support as they navigated each requirement of the course.

Sharing success with an online community

As a way to encourage collaboration beyond the course, teachers can upload and discover all STEM projects created in the program. Teachers created amazing content that enabled students to engage in interdisciplinary learning. On top of this all units were aligned to education standards.

“The opportunity for students to take control of their own learning and creativity is so positive.”

— Teacher participant

 

Artifacts created:

 

  • Graduate level course with teacher PDP credits

  • Foundations phase instructional model

  • Industry, education and community lectures

  • Industry technology assignments (e.g. CAD software)

  • Classroom STEM projects

  • Grading templates

  • Authoring Phase instructional model

  • Authoring guides and templates

  • Teacher-Mentor model

  • Online community