Teaching Teachers To Teach Engineering: The 19th Annual Secme Summer Institute

Abstract NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 0230 Teaching Teachers to Teach Engineering: the 19th Annual SECME Summer Institute Matthew Ohland, Marc Hoit, Mary Kantowski University of Florida, Civil Engineering/Civil Engineering/Mathematics Education Abstract The University of Florida hosted the 19th annual Summer Institute for the SouthEastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME) from June 16th-29th, 1995. K-12 Teachers, counselors, and administrators from the southeast participated in engineering laboratory activities. These activities were designed as part of a freshman Introduction to Engineering laboratory class, and were explicitly designed to be portable to the pre- college level. Two hour “hands-on” laboratories in building bridges using popsicle sticks, exploring manufacturing technology using Legos, simulating aerospace composites subjected to impact loading using string and cement, and removing simulated hazardous pollutants using activated charcoal were the four activities. Education faculty provided teachers with an additional 10 hours of instruction in pedagogical technique in areas compatible with the engineering labs and objectives. Engineering and education faculty efforts were coordinated in early planning using the engineering activities as the focus and through the use of "master teachers" provided by SECME. The master teachers are experienced teachers who were involved in planning and served as facilitators during engineering and education curriculum activities. The teachers participated in the same hands-on laboratories which are part of the Introduction to Engineering class. Through this active learning experience, teachers were able to envision ways in which these laboratories could be exported to their individual classrooms to suit their teaching style. This technique is expected to be more effective than producing a published curriculum, because it provides the flexibility for teachers to customize the activity to their needs. The participants were required to submit lesson plans on how they were going to implement these activities into there courses in order to receive graduate course credit. The implementation of some of these laboratories K-12 classroom is described. The institute was evaluated through an engineering perception and knowledge survey administered before and after the institute, as well as through daily feedback forms. Results of these evaluations are also given and discussed. Introduction The SouthEastern Consortium for Minorities in Engineering (SECME) was founded in 1975 to increase minority appearance in engineering by improving the science and mathematics curriculum for pre-college students. The 1996 ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings