~ PRE-COLLEGE ENGINEERING EDUCATION DIVISION ~
engineering education for all | early childhood through high school | in and out of school
JANUARY 20, 2016
Dear Pre-College Engineering Education (PCEE) Division Members,
This newsletter is stuffed with lots of information for you! First, I am pleased to share our division’s first diversity/inclusion tip for reaching all learners in engineering classrooms. The tip:Engineer for people. See more about that tip, below!
Also, today begins our nominations process for our division. We are one of the most active and vibrant divisions in ASEE! Please consider joining the leadership team of this important effort by nominating yourself or a willing colleague for one of the following positions:
- Program Chair Elect
- Secretary/Treasurer
- K-12 Representative PK-5 (1-year term)
- K-12 Representative 6-12 (1-year term)
- K-12 Representative Other (1-year term)
- Members at Large (2)
It only takes a minute; simply go to this SurveyMonkey link by Wednesday, February 3! Questions? Please contact Stacy Klein-Gardner, Nominating Committee Chair, at stacy.klein-gardner@
Upcoming deadlines:
- We need more proposals for our K-12 ASEE Annual Teachers Workshop! Please share your excellent work with teachers!! Proposals are due by February 4. Workshop registration is also open. Click here for more information about the workshop (New Orleans, June 25).
- For those of you whose abstracts for the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition were accepted, remember that draft papers are due by February 1. Conference housing and registration is also open. Click here for more information about the conference (New Orleans, June 26-29).
The diversity/inclusion tip and many announcements – most of them new in this newsletter – follow my signature, below.
Sincerely,
Pam
—
Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Ph.D.
Chair, Pre-College Engineering Education Division
American Society for Engineering Education
Associate Professor of Science Education
Director, Integrated STEM Instructional Leadership (PreK-6) Post-Baccalaureate Program
Department of Physics, Astronomy & Geosciences
Towson University
DIVERSITY/INCLUSION TIP:
The PCEE division is committed to engineering education being inclusive of the diverse pre-college students we aim to serve through our work. Out of this commitment we are instituting a diversity and inclusion tip in every other newsletter. Quite fittingly this tip makes an inaugural appearance following the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life. This tip may be considered a response to a famous Dr. King quote, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”
TIP: Engineer for people.
Try asking your students to engineer a solution for the kindergarteners down the hall, for the principal, for a character in a story, or for their grandparents. Inviting students to engineer solutions with particular people in mind can tap into their existing knowledge and experiences and spur rich engineering discussions in your class. Human-centered or user-centered engineering requires engineers to consider the constraints and criteria imposed by the people who will be using a product or process. A human-centered engineering activity can be a great way to involve students’ diverse knowledge and perspectives. You may choose to design for a very specific, culturally diverse user group, or draw upon the rich array of perspectives in your classroom to identify how various users may have differing criteria or constraints. Inviting a broader knowledge base than a more traditional STEM-focused design activity, you create an opportunity to engage a more diverse group of students’ interests and talents in pursuit of meaningful solutions. To answer the late Dr. King’s question, engineers strive to make the world a better place for us all.
For a bit more about this topic check out this article highlighting the “need to understand the user as much as possible and to appreciate the diversity and complexity of users.”
If you have a diversity/inclusion tip or resource you would like to share with the division, please email Morgan Hynes morganhynes@purdue.edu.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
WORKSHOPS (new!):
STEM Think Tank and Conference: Do you have the perfect STEM instructional materials for girls? Or maybe you’re an outreach professional looking to improve your own practice? Each summer the Center for STEM Education for Girls (http://stemefg.org) hosts the STEM Think Tank and Conference. The 5th Annual Think Tank and Conference will be held July 13-15, 2016, at the Harpeth Hall School in Nashville, TN. It brings together national leaders in K12 education for girls and young women (independent, public, charter, and parochial), university K12 outreach coordinators and researchers, STEM university faculty, girls’ informal educators, and members of industry. Please plan to attend if you teach or work with girls and young women in a STEM field. The conference begins midday on Wednesday (July 13) and runs through 5pm on Thursday (July 14). On Friday (July 15) we hold optional post-conference workshops. “Cultivate Your Network: Growing Sustained STEM” has been chosen as the conference theme for 2016. Areas of focus are: Partnerships for Change, STEM+, Long Term Change, Social Entrepreneurship and Public Purpose, and Mathematics and Computational Science. Please note that you do NOT have to choose one of these areas, and that any STEM for girls proposal is welcome. We do encourage you to meet as many areas of focus as possible. Please submit your proposal by February 9.
Systems Engineering Knowledge Forum: The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), the Systems Engineering Research Center (SERC), the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) and a number of universities are working together to increase the use of Systems Engineering (SE) Knowledge in the Education of All Engineers. As part of this work we will hold a free Academic Forum meeting at George Mason University (GMU) on May 2-3, 2016 at the GMU Arlington Campus (http://arlington.gmu.edu/).
WORKSHOPS (re-posted):
Spatial Skills Workshops: Do you want to see your students, especially females, improve their performance in classes that rely upon spatial skills? Help them! Attend one of the Center for STEM Education for Girls’ Teaching 3D Spatial Skills Workshops this spring at Atlanta Girls’ School, Garrison Forest School, or Western Washington University. K-12 Teachers, Informal Educators, and University Professors are welcomed. Registrations open now! See bit.ly/1UwrozS for more information or contact Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner at stem@harpethhall.org
FROM ASEE Headquarters (new!):
Seeking Volunteers: ASEE Strategic Doing Team: We are seeking volunteers to engage in ASEE’s Strategic Doing efforts through the Transformation Team. The purpose of this team is to help ASEE transform how it supports teams of faculty, administration, and students as they transform engineering education at their institutions. This is a great opportunity to engage with and serve ASEE and its members while building a network of colleagues interested in transformation of engineering education. Expected monthly time-commitment: 2-3 hours. To join or for more information, please contact the team lead, Gurlovleen Rathore (Gurlovleen.rathore@gmail.com)
(Five-minute) Survey: Engineering Education Transformation Network: Are you working to transform engineering education? Do you want to connect with like-minded colleagues to expand your efforts, leverage best practices and/or resolve challenges you have encountered? Complete a brief survey to help ASEE’s Transformation Team develop a network to support your ongoing efforts to transform engineering education. Questions? Contact ASEE’s Strategic Doing Transformation Team lead, Gurlovleen Rathore (Gurlovleen.rathore@gmail.com)
FREE BOOK for SURVEY HELP (new!):
Free K-12 book for completing a quick survey on K-12 engineering: Can you help us with a project to show K-12 educators that engineering is accessible and possible for them? At Start Engineering, we are developing a free e-book on this subject and would like to collect both aggregated and narrative data from experts in the field. The first 50 respondents can receive a free K-12 engineering book from our list of publications. Please complete the 10-question survey and let us know what book you would like to receive. For more information, please contact Eric Iversen at eiversen@start-engineering.com
POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS (re-posted):
Johns Hopkins University – Program Manager for STEM educational Outreach. JHU is looking for someone with both an engineering and an education background (formal or informal) with some political savvy, project management and inner city experience. JHU has just made a 10-year commitment to partner with Barclay Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, MD to transform it into a PK-8 STEM school. More info about the partnership is here http://engineering.jhu.edu/
Program Manager, National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity. The Program Manager controls logistics management for NAPE’s suite of Professional Development programs. This person will be responsible for general sales, implementation and fulfillment of contracts and grants, customer management, and technology development and efficiency management of related processes. Location: Telecommuters welcome! Work from Home or at the National Office in Gap, PA. Applications Due: January 24, 2016 to mpollock@napequity.org For more information: http://www.napequity.org/blog/
We hope that these newsletters keep you informed about the division and some opportunities related to engineering education across the country. If you would rather not receive such communications, please email T.Manicom@asee.org and ask that you be removed from the K-12 & Pre-College Division listserv.