45. Opening the STEM Pipeline

Preschool through high school experiences have a direct impact on the majors and disciplines that students want to study and engage with in college. Designing these experiences to invite underrepresented groups into the discipline early can help to inspire and motivate a new generation of professionals. In this episode, Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner joins us to discuss how engineers are attempting to diversify the field.

Show Notes

Related publications:

  • Parry, EA, PS Lottero-Perdue, SS Klein-Gardner.  Engineering Professional Societies and Pre-university Engineering Education.  In M. deVries, L. Gumaelius, and I.-B Skogh (Eds.) Pre-university Engineering Education.  Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. 2016.
  • Reimers, J. E., Farmer, C. L., & Klein-Gardner, S. S. (2015). An introduction to the standards for preparation and professional development for teachers of engineering. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1), 5.
  • Klein-Gardner, S. S., Johnston, M. E., & Benson, L. (2012). Impact of RET teacher-developed curriculum units on classroom experiences for teachers and students. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2(2), 4.
  • Klein-Gardner, SS, ME Johnston, L Benson. Impact of the RET Teacher-Developed Curriculum on their teaching strategies and student motivation.  Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research. 2(2):21-35. 2012.
  • Faber, C., Hardin, E., Klein-Gardner, S., & Benson, L. (2014). Development of teachers as scientists in research experiences for teachers programs. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 25(7), 785-806.
  • Mckay, M., Klein-Gardner, S. S., Zook, K. A., Yoder, M., Moskal, B. M., Hacker, M., … & Houchens, B. C. (2011). Best Practices in K-12 and University Partnerships Panel Winners ASEE K-12 and Pre-College Engineering Division. In American Society for Engineering Education. American Society for Engineering Education.

Transcript

Rebecca: Preschool through high school experiences have a direct impact on the majors and disciplines that students want to study and engage with in college. Designing these experiences to invite underrepresented groups into the discipline early can help to inspire and motivate a new generation of professionals. In this episode, we explore how engineers are attempting to diversify the field.

[Music]

John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…

John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer.

Rebecca: Together we run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego.

[Music]

John: Our guest today is Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner, the founding director of the Center for STEM Education for Girls, and currently an Adoint Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, and a Senior Professional Development Provider with Engineering is Elementary, at the Museum of Science in Boston. She recently was appointed as a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Welcome, Stacy.

Stacy: Thank you. I’m delighted to be here.

Rebecca: Welcome. Today our teas are…

Stacy: Well, I have to confess that I don’t care for tea. So, I had some lemonade with lunch and I’m good to go now. [LAUGHTER]

John: I’m drinking Tea Forte black currant tea.

Rebecca: …and I’m having Lady Grey today.

John: We’ve invited you to join us because of your very extensive work in improving educational, P to 12 STEM and STEAM education pathways in many ways. First, though, could you talk a little bit about your own pathway to a career in engineering and engineering education?

Stacy: Sure. I’d be happy to. I grew up in the American South…actually went to junior high and high school in Oxford, Mississippi. I wasn’t always satisfied with my educational opportunities there, so I spent every summer possible at the Duke University talent identification program, or Duke TIP. Which is where I made some wonderful lifelong friends that have influenced my personal life and career since then. I did go to Duke University, where I double majored in biomedical and electrical engineering. I spent my summers working at Duke TIP, really falling in love with education and realizing my passion for that. I did a masters and a PhD in biomedical engineering from Drexel and Vanderbilt University, respectively. Then, I always thought I would retire to teach high school one day and realized that was stupid, and if that’s what I really wanted to do, I should go do it. So, in the same Fall, I defended my dissertation, I started teaching high school full time and fell in love with being in the classroom and working with teachers. Since then, I’ve been a high school teacher, full or part-time, for over 20 years now and I’ve been on the Vanderbilt University faculty since 1999…and I’ve done everything from being Associate Dean to research track professor to adjoint professor now…but really have enjoyed creating my own career in engineering education.

Rebecca: You mentioned being the Associate Dean for Outreach at Vanderbilt School of Engineering. Can you describe what your role was like? I think it’s a little unusual, perhaps, to have an outreach dean so I think it’d be interesting to hear about that.

Stacy: Yeah, the title was definitely unusual at the time. You do find more positions now, often maybe at the assistant level. But, I had a really diverse group of things I was in charge of. I worked with our Career Center on setting up appropriate opportunities for the undergraduate and graduate engineers coming out. I managed a big sponsored lecture we had every year. My favorite part was definitely doing K-12 outreach for the School of Engineering and reaching out to local communities and schools and students. Another favorite part, one that maybe surprised me a bit that I ended up really loving, was study abroad for engineers and finding ways to help engineers figure out a way to get abroad. ‘Cause the rumor used to be that engineers couldn’t study abroad, but there’s so many more types of programs that you can go to and so mine was, finding the right kind of programs and aligning those with the degree requirements of Engineers and then helping the engineers know how to plan ahead to actually travel on them.

Rebecca: So, can you talk a little bit more about your work in K-12 and also the study abroad stuff because in fields where we might not usually think about these as being good matches, like engineering, we’re always looking for new strategies to find those relationships and what have you. So, can you talk a little bit about some of the strategies or things that you developed?

Stacy: Sure. In study abroad, a lot of it was doing the logistics, but some of it was also helping engineers realize that in order to come up with good engineering solutions, you have to really understand the client for whom you’re working; the person who’s found the problem that you’re looking to solve. So you need to not just understand the straight up science, technology, engineering, and math, but you also need to understand the culture of the person, perhaps the language…What is it about their environment that makes different design constraints? So, I think, having engineers study abroad, in such an international world that we live in, is crucial now. I’ve really seen it grow in popularity which has been really fun, even though I’m not in charge of it anymore. We have a very high percentage of students at Vanderbilt who now study abroad as engineers. The second half of that question, or maybe I took him in out of order, was around K-12. You know, at the time I was doing a lot of funded work by the National Science Foundation. My favorite project was a Research Experiences for Teachers program (RET). This is a program where you bring, typically, high school faculty (although that’s broadened some since then) onto your university campus, for six weeks during the summer. Then I would place those teachers into different labs that I had picked very carefully and they would have an assigned project that they worked on full-time, for most of those six weeks…and then at the end of that time, I would work with them on designing curriculum that would be both standards-based (so they would be allowed to teach it in their classroom) as well as based in the research of their labs. So that they were bringing in real-world, current research that was going on, and often the people from that lab would come to the high school as well. Then we would publish those units through a wonderful national digital library called TeachEngineering.org. So that was definitely my favorite piece. I did some other work. I designed some high school level medical imaging curriculum units, and getting to where people have a better grasp of “what is ultrasound? or MRI? and how do those things work?” and actually motivate you to want to study high school physics or math or something like that.

Rebecca: That sounds really exciting and a great way to get people involved in fields they might not know that much about.

Stacy: It’s definitely important, especially when you’re thinking about subjects that sometimes get a bad rap for being particularly challenging. It’s good to let people see why it is they’re learning those and to put that, when am I ever going to use that, upfront so they know exactly when and how they’re going to use that.

John: Has there been any follow up in terms of following students to see how many of them did go into careers in STEM fields?

Stacy: It’s a little hard to get some of that data because I often work at the teacher level and it’s a whole other level of IRB [LAUGHTER] to get at student level data.

John: That’s true.

Stacy: You know, I think it’s somewhat depressing in that the numbers for engineering percentage-wise aren’t increasing rapidly at all, even though a lot of people are putting a lot of time and effort into it. So, not always, I mean I definitely have a lot more confident teachers in the Middle Tennessee area who are integrating what is going on in engineering into their classrooms. Of course it helps now that the next generation science standards have engineering embedded into them and just recently in my state the Tennessee state science standards do as well.

John: In 2010 to 11, you established the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools K to 12 Engineering Pathways. What problems did this address? How has it worked and are you still working with the Nashville public schools?

Stacy: I think one of the biggest problems it was created to address is a misalignment between what different careers and companies are looking for in their high school graduates, as well as probably colleges too, with what the high schools were producing. There’s such an emphasis now on STEM, and problem solving, and computational thinking that really wasn’t being addressed by the schools and so, with Race to the Top money, Metro Nashville Public Schools set out to form this engineering pathway. I was heavily involved with it for that particular year. I did a lot of professional development. I did all of the professional development for the elementary school that was part of this K through 12 pathway, using the Engineering As Elementary curricula and integrating that. Then, at the high school level, I actually co-taught a ninth grade engineering course at this particular school. So, I was helping another teacher who was an engineer by training but didn’t have as much of pedagogy, and that sort of thing. Trying to help her build up her skills and left her rolling. That high school, Stratford High School, is still clicking along and doing really well with STEM education. It’s growing in reputation and now has a middle school that’s been integrated into the campus as well. So, I think it’s it’s been a success and will continue to be. One of the teachers with whom I worked with the most there is now the STEM director for the entire district. It’s been nice to watch her come from being one of my RET teachers to that position at Stratford, now to leading our entire district. My involvement with the district kind of waxes and wanes over the years. You know, I’ll get really involved for a while, and then I’ll be less involved for a while. I’m not working with Metro Nashville Public Schools right now although I’m always available if they call on me for anything in particular. I’ve actually just joined an advisory board for the Williamson County Public Schools which is just south of here. So, I like to keep my finger in the pie in something locally, but then I often try to work more on a national level.

Rebecca: I wanted to follow up a little bit on what you were talking about elementary education and engineering. For many of us, perhaps, when we went to elementary school, engineering wasn’t a part of that curriculum. So, for those of us that aren’t in engineering can you talk a little bit about what that even looks like?

Stacy: I’d be delighted to. If you think about what the characteristics of an engineer really are…it’s around someone who’s creative, and who thinks outside of the box, and brings in different kinds of solutions, and doesn’t have a lot of preconceived notions. If anything, that’s exactly what a preschool to elementary age child does. They haven’t sort of been beaten down by the system to think in a particular way. They still have that inherent creativity. So, the ideal time to introduce the field of engineering is at the preschool through elementary levels…so that they learn what the field is about, can identify what an engineer does, and have positive feelings towards it, and that we’re creating them to be more STEM literate citizens. There are multiple programs out there. The one with which I’m most familiar, and have even liked so much I’ve joined their staff, is with Engineering is Elementary. But, with any of them you find an authentic but sort of compacted version of the engineering design process. I might look at what a college student would use, or even a high school student might use. and we might call out 12 different phases of the engineering design process. But, in elementary school we have five fingers, so we have five steps to the engineering design process, [LAUGHTER], and in preschool we have three steps. So, just kind of compacting it a little bit…always providing an accurate view of the field. Then giving the kids age-appropriate challenges, things that might happen to an elementary aged child, and then asking them to problem-solve.

Rebecca: Can you give an example?

Stacy: Oh sure. There’s one of the EIE units that comes to mind, where the kids are out there playing a sport and their team needs to be cheered on. They find this little turtle nearby, and they win the game, and so they decide that they’re gonna keep the turtle, and they have to bring the turtle back for the next round of the playoffs. Somebody’s got to keep the turtle in a place where the turtle can not die, because that would not be good for school spirit at all. So, the whole question becomes around, what do you need to design in order to have a habitat that this turtle can live in? They draw upon the appropriate science in this particular unit…and a lot of its around membranes and creating a habitat that has enough water but not too much water. So they draw upon things they’re already learning through the science standards for elementary age children, but they’re putting them to use, and they’re working to save the turtle. Of course they do. It’s an exciting unit, it’s based on a story book that sets the stage for it so you get a lot of your reading and ELA minutes and that sort of thing in it, but then really does bring in science and math as they use the engineering design process.

Rebecca: Sounds really fun.

John: It does.

Stacy: It is a lot of fun [LAUGHTER].

Rebecca: I mean I have to admit I asked that question just because I have a toddler and I was just really curious [LAUGHTER].

Stacy: Talking about the new Wee Engineer, WEE, it’s very cute its for preschool kids.

Rebecca: Yes, yes. Yeah, I want to hear about it. [LAUGHTER]

Stacy: Oh, you really do want to hear about it?

Rebecca: No, I really do.

John: She does [LAUGHTER].

Stacy: The new Wee Engineer units that are coming out are meant for the preschool setting where the teacher introduces the problem…and it’s actually not a teacher, it’s a puppet…and so the puppet comes and introduces and says something like “I want to throw a party for my friends, and I want to make this noise maker really loud, and what do you think of my noisemaker?” …and of course it makes no noise. The puppet then says, “Can you help me?“ …and so the students go through an explore stage, where they explore the materials that are available. A lot of the work at this age focuses on helping students think about how a material is made and how that affects its function. So, they explore different materials and then they get to create their own noisemaker in small groups… and they test it… and then they do it again…and they improve (which is a big part of the engineering design process), until they all have really loud noise makers which they then share with each other and they of course give back to the puppet so the puppet can help throw a good party.

Rebecca: I like that it’s given back to the puppet so that the teachers don’t go crazy. [LAUGHTER]

Stacy: Yes, that would be a critical part of not driving the poor preschool teacher insane.

Rebecca: That sounds like a lot of fun. Maybe I need to go back and teach preschool engineering instead of web design. [LAUGHTER]

John: But, so many students get turned off early on and reaching them early can be really effective in stimulating later interest.

Stacy: They do.

Rebecca: Can you talk a little bit about what you’ve done with STEM for girls and other underrepresented groups and how to get them interested and excited about STEM?

Stacy: Absolutely. My study of the literature shows that a lot of the things that motivate girls also motivates different underrepresented groups, particularly underrepresented minorities/ethnicities, and is often just generally in line with what is good pedagogy, if people actually stopped and thought about that in engineering. I’ll focus on the girls just because that’s been my wheelhouse for the last seven or eight years now. But, a lot of the research shows that girls are interested in helping people or the environment, or something like that. If we can help frame STEM as being something in which you can help people, we will inherently pull a lot more girls into that field. So, that’s kind of one basic way. Often, if I talk to a girl, she’ll say she wants to be a doctor or nurse or something like that in the medical field, because it’s so painfully obvious of how you help people. I try to turn her into thinking about engineering and what engineering really is. Majors like biomedical engineering and environmental engineering are often popular with women, because again, it’s obvious how you’re helping people or things. But if engineers are good, and there’s actually a whole book called Changing the Conversation published by the National Academy of Engineering, on how do we praise engineering appropriately, because it is all about solving human needs and want. If we can present the field more accurately and more fully that will help. I think also when I look at a lot of these things, I like to be very explicit about things like stereotype threat, or implicit bias, or imposter syndrome, and I try to be very overt about teaching students what these things are so that they can recognize it in themselves, know what it is. There’s something about identifying it. I even still have imposter syndrome at times, where I feel like somebody’s gonna figure me out…that I’m not actually that good at engineering education, despite having just been named a fellow of a prestigious Society, I feel like still somebody might figure that out. But I know what it is, I can call it out and say you’re just having a case of imposter syndrome and, somehow, it’s easier to move aside and move along if you know that it’s a real thing and you’re not the only person who has some of these…I call them issues, I’m not sure that’s the right word.

Rebecca: I agree with you. The ability to name it out and file it away allows you to move forward. When I finally learned what some of those things were as a designer, I too, was able to overcome some of those hurdles.

Stacy: I guess the other thing I’ll add, is Carol Dweck’s work with growth mindset, has really put a name to something…about having the ability to think of your brain as a muscle that you can flex and you can grow and it can get stronger. I think letting students know that that’s a thing. Or, at the school where I worked most recently, you were not allowed to say “I’m not good at whatever it was,” you were only allowed to say “I’m not good at _____ yet.” …and I really appreciated that word “yet” there, and the implication that you can and will be good with it, but it’s going to take some hard work, and things don’t always come easily…whether you’re gifted or not doesn’t really matter, you still have to work to accomplish anything good.

John: Besides stereotype threat, implicit bias, and imposter syndrome, what are some of the things that are being done in classes now that deter women and minorities from entering engineering and other STEM fields?

Stacy: The first thing that pops in my mind there is thinking about the examples that are used in a classroom. If there are examples that are supposed to illustrate some concept, yet they are completely unfamiliar to you because the situation in which you’re growing up provides you no context for experiencing that or understanding that, you’re immediately set at a disadvantage in the classroom, and that’s not going to encourage anyone to want to continue in that field. I think there’s also some cases of just downright bias. I had a professor in college that didn’t really seem to think women should be engineers, and well I do know that that is improved, that’s not gone. There are cases of bias that are still out there. I also think a lot about parents and the role of parents, and what they believe their children, their daughters especially, can do…and what’s appropriate for them. Because there are some cultures that have a lot of bias kind of built into them and so it’s about changing the way parents think. Because if a student…if her parents don’t think she should study engineering or science or something, she’s probably not gonna go study that in college. So, we need our parents to understand what these fields are about…educate them…and then get them as a part of our moving more and more diverse people into these STEM fields.

Rebecca: One of the things that I think a lot about is the relationship between design and engineering. As a visual designer, I know that I end up with a lot of students who seem to have a fear of math, or a belief that they just can’t do math, which the process of engineering in the process of visual design is, I don’t know, almost exactly the same. So it’s always interesting to me that they err on the side of the arts thinking that they’re somehow avoiding math, but then of course they discover that there is math there too. Are there things that we can do to help overcome this…I don’t know…. it’s like almost like a preemptive strike, that like “Oh, there’s math. so I obviously can’t participate in this.”

Stacy: I hope so. I feel like we’re making some strides in that area, because you’re right, it is often math that is the big hang-up on why people don’t stay in STEM. Some of that is from having one of your parents, especially the mom, saying “Oh, Honey, I wasn’t good at math, you don’t have to be either.” …which, of course, we would never in a million years say about reading or a lot of other areas. So, I’m not sure why we say that about math sometimes. I think we’ve got to figure out how to let the math come naturally; that, if it’s a part of some problem that you are actually interested in solving, you have empathy for your client, and you’re invested in it, the teachers picked a good problem…“Oh gosh, look we’re gonna have to do this math here” and suddenly it makes sense why you’re doing the math…and you have a reason to want to do it. I think those are critical things that we need to have in our math sequences from elementary on up, so that students don’t develop this hatred or fear of it that is somehow irrational. I also think that while there is math in engineering, not every engineer does mathematics all day long. So, there is some conceptual understandings you have to obtain in order to become an engineer, but it doesn’t mean you sit around and solve differential equations all day long, necessarily. Some can, but many don’t.

Rebecca: I think that’s an important thing. I think there’s a lot of fields where we just assume that people just do math all day and it’s just a misunderstanding or misconception about the field. I think it’s also, sometimes, we present some things in such an abstract way that it doesn’t seem relevant. So, I always like to share with my students the experience that I had around geometry. When I was learning geometry in high school, I could do geometry, I could answer the questions correctly, but I never really understood what the point was and like “I’m never gonna use this.” Then I started doing more programming stuff and made visual interfaces and then all of a sudden was like: “I understand why this is relevant” [LAUGHTER] and I had that breakthrough moment where I was using all kinds of different geometry equations and things to create visual interfaces, essentially.” So, I share that with students and that sometimes helps a little bit. I could put in the math, and then all of a sudden I saw a visual, and then it just clicked and made sense.

Stacy: …made sense…it had purpose to it.

Rebecca: Yeah.

Stacy: I think a lot of math traditionally has been taught like as this separate silo, never to be used…and sometimes I think it’s because the math teachers themselves don’t know when it’s used. They don’t know the science or whatever the other field is…or psychology…and there plenty of places with statistics that use math. But, I feel like we have to lead with those things. So, when I was a high school math teacher and I wanted to teach sinusoids, I would lead with “What’s the temperature gonna be on your graduation day?” …and so we would have to develop this whole model to predict what the temperature was going to be on their high school graduation day – which was not just in a few months, most of them are juniors taking the class. So, we would have to develop this whole mathematical model which involves sinusoids and all the different parameters of one, and then on the test I would give for that unit they had to answer that question for me. It was always fun on their actual graduation day to see how close we had come.
[LAUGHTER]

Rebecca: That sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to make things seem relevant.

Stacy: mm-hmm.

John: So, one thing that would help is if math instruction and science instruction was made more meaningful by using more meaningful examples, so that the math is motivated…so people can get past the fear, because they see that there’s a purpose to it it’s difficult to do that. But, you’re doing some of that with the Nashville schools. I hope we see that more nationwide.
Could you talk a little bit about your work with Engineering is Elementary in designing curriculum?

Stacy: Sure. I have been affiliated with the Engineering is Elementary program for about a decade now. I have followed their work…their research as it was designed and presented at the American Society for Engineering Education. I was super impressed along the way that they were actually doing real education research and they weren’t just developing some curriculum and going “Oh, look how many people use our curriculum.” They were actually looking to see if learning objectives were being met and things like that. So, I’ve had a lot of respect for them. About ten years ago, I affiliated myself with them and became one of their endorsed network providers, such that I could provide their workshops whenever I wanted to around the country, I always really loved and admired how they set up their professional development…how its implemented…that the PD itself is based in research. So, when I was looking for a new educational intellectual pursuit to take on in my career, I approached them and asked if I could come work for them, and to my delight they said “Yes.” So, I started working there part time in January and have enjoyed that. There are separate teams within EIE and I serve on the professional development team right now. So, I’m enjoying working with our extended network of partners, so the people I used to be one of, I now work with and help to take the best of what we’re doing in house in Boston and get that material and the best practices for engineering education out to all these people across the country who can help spread the word and get more kids into engineering. So, I’m really enjoying that piece. I’m gonna be developing some of my first, I’ll call it online PD, but it’ll have some hands-on components to it also, for the adult learners. I think that’s a fun new pursuit for me. In house at EIE, they’ve just created (as I was mentioning earlier) this new Wee Engineer program for preschool and pre-K and there’s also a new EIE for Kindergarten, which I’m thrilled to see, because those age groups desperately need some authentic well-designed, well-researched curriculum. That’s kind of been my role right now. We’ve got some middle school projects as well, but I’m really enjoying starting young and going all the way up through eighth grade and looking at how do you do that best.

Rebecca: As a college faculty member, I’m interested in how you got involved in more of the P-12 things. How might you encourage other faculty, no matter what their discipline is, to get involved at those earlier levels?

Stacy: Great question. I think it’s kind of fun to see, once it clicks to faculty members that what goes on in P-12 definitely affects what can go on at the university level. Some of it can even be slightly self-serving in that they want more students or more diverse students to enter into the university process. So, I think that’s part of it. I think that it’s fun to help a university faculty member see how they can take their passion and enthusiasm that they have for whatever their research field is and take that down to younger kids and distill it to the basics, but increase people’s understanding of their field overall. So, I like that piece of it. There’s the other motivating factor, if you’re gonna apply for like a National Science Foundation grant you have to have an education and outreach component. So, that there’s that external motivator as well to think about how could I be involved in this process. I also worry a lot about we have these new next generation science standards. which I think are quite good but they have a lot of engineering in them. So, who exactly do we think is going to help the K-12 teachers know how to do that, and do it authentically, if we ourselves are not out there helping them and teaching them.

Rebecca: What would you encourage a faculty to do as their first step to get involved in P-12
STACY. I’m trying to think of one single first step…probably, reach out to your kids’ local school and listen…ask the teachers and the administrators…but especially the teachers…ask them what they need. Because the teacher will know. He or she may not know how to go about getting it, but they will know what they need. Don’t go in and be like “I know everything” when in fact you really don’t know everything about what it’s like to be a K-12 teacher…but go in and ask how to be helpful. Listen to what they say and honor the fact that they have to be standards-based.

Rebecca: Sounds like really good advice, but at times, it’s just that little encouragement of what that step could be is helpful. So, thanks for that nugget.

Stacy: Yeah. I mean, go ask. People really want you to.

John: …and in many disciplines, I think, there are organizations that work with elementary and secondary schools. In economics, there’s the centers for economic education spread throughout the country, who do work with middle schools and high schools in providing some educational resources. I don’t know how common that is in other disciplines. Is there anything like that in art?

Rebecca: There is something more general for art, but not for design. Design stuff is kind of under the umbrella of art which, depending on what your position is, you might not think that they’re entirely related. They are, but they aren’t, you know. It’s kind of complicated. {LAUGHTER]

John: You’re working on a new advanced course in engineering for high school students. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Stacy: Yeah, this is a project that has been near and dear to my heart, and some of my wonderful colleagues, particularly from the University of Maryland (Dr. Leigh Abts, in particular). We have been trying to get an AP engineering course started for 14 years now, and when we started, really, the colleges weren’t ready for it. The schools of engineering were not interested in it. They weren’t interested in accepting credit for it. They didn’t really see the value of it. Thankfully, that has changed over time, which I’m really excited about. The College Board got interested in AP engineering and created a framework for the course. They had to put the brakes on that for a little while while they focused on the redesign of the SAT, but now they’re back to being interested in it. So, my team approached the National Science Foundation who said “Yes, we’re on board with this. This needs to happen.” So, we’re modeling our upcoming work off the very successful work of creating the new AP computer science principles course which has been a highly successful course for AP…and it’s also really successful in that a lot of women and underrepresented students are taking the course and taking the test, so that’s super exciting. So, we’re trying to draw some best practices from that and, knock on wood, I hope that the NSF will approve our final proposal to begin the work later this fall. The basic idea around it is we’re going to finish the framework…make sure it’s right…and we’re going to be developing a sample curricula and sample professional development for that. As you may know, with AP courses there isn’t any one set curricula that you’re expected to follow. You can do it however you see fit. You just have to make sure it fits the framework. So, we’ll be developing some sample ones and then we’ll be partnering with high schools. We’re hoping for about 70 high schools all over the country and a lot of diverse settings to train their teachers and have them work with our students and do engineering design at that level. We’re looking at having ultimately an assessment that is a bit like AP art studio actually in that we’re hoping for a portfolio process where you would submit engineering design work that you’ve done over the course of the semester or the year, and then that work would later be evaluated for possible engineering credit.

Rebecca: That sounds like an exciting advancement.

Stacy: I hope so. we’ve had over 110 Deans so far say that they’ll be interested in giving some sort of credit for it. I think it’ll be interesting to see how the universities handle it. I think some might give credit for their actual Intro to Engineering course while others might give it as more general science and engineering credit. I think that the universities now see it as a great way to get more STEM literacy in our population and I think they’ve started to see it as a great way to get more diverse students into their programs, because they will have done engineering at a younger age and done it in the more friendly confines of their local high school.

Rebecca: …and perhaps introduced populations who aren’t really familiar with the field at all to what the field is rather than expecting college students to just magically know what all of our disciplines are.

Stacy: Right, that’s true of a lot of disciplines, so it’s not just engineering.

Rebecca: Yeah, exactly.

Stacy: There aren’t tons of schools that have economics in them but you’re probably not gonna major in it if you don’t know what it is.

John: Actually, I think most schools do now have economics. It’s part of the New York State curriculum and I think most states do have at least one semester economics course. But, it took many many years before that was widespread.

Stacy: We’re trying to catch up with you, John.

John: It’s not always taught by people who know much about economics, unfortunately…. [LAUGHTER] …which is one of the reasons why the Centers do so much work.

Stacy: I would mention that if someone is interested in engineering education, I know that there are now actual programs in engineering education. You can get graduate degrees in it, and I would also steer them towards the American Society for Engineering Education. It’s a wonderful Society. It is the place to go to for what the best pedagogy is in engineering education, and to find your people there. They have lots of divisions, some are specific to your field of engineering and then we have a wonderful pre-college division there as well. So, it can be a great resource if anybody who’s listening wants to jump in jump in and join it.

Rebecca: So, we generally wrap up our podcast by asking what’s next?

Stacy: What’s next? Well, I feel like I’ve hit some of the “what’s next” because I’m in this great transition period in my career, which I’m excited about. So, I’m hoping that what’s next is that personally I’m able to view engineering education from preschool all the way through 12th grade and then into college and look for “How does that pathway work?” Are there things that are missing? Are there things we should be doing differently? So, I’m excited about taking that long view across engineering education and I’m always looking for new collaborators and people who are as excited about the field as I am.

Rebecca: Thank you so much for joining us. I hope that you’ve motivated a lot of others to think about their own disciplines plans from the elementary level all the way up through the university level. Sometimes, that longitudinal perspective can really help us have better perspective on what we’re teaching in higher ed.

Stacy: Definitely. Just to think about like “What matters? “What’s actually important?” It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of these little things you have to be sure you’ve mentioned to your students. Not really. Focus in on the big thing.

John: …and if you really want to do something about the gender imbalance in STEM fields you do have to reach out earlier because by the time you get to high school, people have already been sorted out. So, it’s really important to do that sort of work early.

Stacy: Very true. Most of the girls are getting sorted out late elementary to middle school, at the latest. So, you’re absolutely right there.

John: Well, thank you.

Stacy: Well, thanks for having me. This was fun. I appreciate you reaching out to me John, I was flattered.

John: Thank you, Stacy. We very much appreciate you joining us today.
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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.

Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts, and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Theme music by Michael Gary Brewer.