September 18, 2013 Newsletter

Dear ASEE K12 and Precollege Engineering Division Members,

This year the American Society for Engineering Education’s K12 and Precollege Division will participate in the USA Science and Engineering Festival to be held in Washington, DC, April 25-27, 2014. You may also wish to know that the US News STEM Solutions Conference is moving to DC in conjunction with the festival and will immediately precede the Festival.

The K12 Division will participate in two aspects of the Festival at no cost to your (other than your own travel and lodging):
1) The division will host a booth in the exhibit hall Friday, April 25, through Sunday, April 27, 2014.
2) The division will host professional development workshops on Saturday, April 26, 2014. We will have four PD workshops that will run from 8:30-3:30. During that time, we will host four separate workshops: elementary teachers, middle school teachers, high school teachers and one for parents, counselors, and K12 administrators.

This survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JVGZKDN) will allow the division organizers (Laura Bottomley and Stacy Klein-Gardner) to assess the division’s interest in participation and eventually to assign people to different time slots for both the Expo and the Workshops.  Please read more below and proceed to the survey if you are interested.

Many of you may be interested in participating in the STEMx Conference being held virtually later this week, September 19-21.  It is free to attend.  Please see http://www.stemxcon.com to join and see more information below if you are interested.

You may also wish to participate in the upcoming IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference to be held in March in Princeton, NJ.  Paper submissions are due January 12.  Please see below for more information.

The full call for papers for the annual ASEE Conference for the K12 Division is provided at the end of this update.  One important note is that the window for submitting abstracts has shifted:  it is now September 9 – October 20, 2013.  If you have questions about the call, be sure to contact our Program Chair, Sharlene Yang, at sharleneyang@yahoo.com.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly with information that should be shared with the division or if you have questions or concerns about division work.  It’s easiest to reach me by email at stacy.klein-gardner@vanderbilt.edu.

This year the American Society for Engineering Education’s K12 and Precollege Division will participate in the USA Science and Engineering Festival to be held in Washington, DC, April 25-27, 2014. You may also wish to know that the US News STEM Solutions Conference is moving to DC in conjunction with the festival and will immediately precede the Festival.

The K12 Division will participate in two aspects of the Festival at no cost to you other than your own travel and lodging:
1) The division will host a booth in the exhibit hall Friday, April 25, through Sunday, April 27, 2014. The exhibit days and times will be divided amongst interested K12 division members to showcase their K12 engineering work. It is critical that all participants understand that you MUST have hands-on activities for students and families to complete while they visit the booth. Talking with people alone will not be permitted. Also, the crowds can be very large; one of our division members estimates that she saw 5000 people over the course of last year’s Expo (that’s about 300 people/hr). You MUST keep 2-3 people in your booth at all times, per expo rules (and for sanity).

2) The division will host professional development workshops on Saturday, April 26, 2014. We will have four PD workshops that will run from 8:30-3:30. During that time, we will host four separate workshops: elementary teachers, middle school teachers, high school teachers and one for parents, counselors, and K12 administrators. In each workshop, three different ASEE K12 Division members will have the opportunity to provide a 1.5 hour PD for a group of teachers (30-70; size TBD).

This survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JVGZKDN) will allow the division organizers (Laura Bottomley and Stacy Klein-Gardner) to assess the division’s interest in participation and eventually to assign people to different time slots for both the Expo and the Workshops.

To book your hotel room with an official Festival block, click here:

https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=10747021
If you have questions about the events themselves, please explore the Festival’s website: http://www.usasciencefestival.org/.
If you have questions about the division’s activities, please contact us at stacy.klein-gardner@vanderbilt.edu or laurab@ncsu.edu.

We hope you will consider joining us for the Global 2013 STEMx Education Conference, the world’s first massively open online conference for educators focusing on Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and more. The conference will be held over the course of three days, September 19-21, 2013, and will be free to attend!

STEMxCon will be a highly inclusive event that will engage students and educators around the globe and will encourage primary, secondary, and tertiary (K-16) educators around the world to share and learn about innovative approaches to STEMx learning and teaching. The call for presentations has been issued. More information below.

Please register at http://www.stemxcon.com to attend and to be kept informed.

We welcome submissions for the 4^th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC ’14), which will be held Saturday, March 8, 2014 at Friend Center, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.  ISEC is known for presenting cutting-edge research and experiences with integrated approaches to the study of science, math, and technology through experiences and activities based in engineering and other design disciplines.

This year’s theme is Designing Pathways to STEM Success.  While all papers on methods of and/or experience with integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education are welcome, we are very interested in papers on STEaM (STEM +art) initiatives that have resulted in student recruitment and retention in STEM, especially among students from underrepresented populations in the disciplines.  “Underrepresented populations” are traditionally gender and ethnicity based, but also include age, differing abilities, and socio-economic status.

Please submit a full paper of 4 – 6 pages for review by 11:59 pm Sunday, January 12, 2014.  Your paper must not have been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Please see the author’s kit (available at http://ewh.ieee.org/conf/stem/isec_registration.html) for paper format information and template.  Acceptances will be sent no later than Sunday, February 3, 2014. The deadline for submitting a revised paper is Sunday, February 24, 2014. All accepted papers will be presented at the conference and included in the conference proceedings, which will be archived in IEEE Xplore.

The advanced registration fee schedule is $125 (IEEE members) / $150 (non-members) for academic and industry attendees and authors.  These fees are good through 11:59 pm February 28, 2014.

Please visit http://ewh.ieee.org/conf/stem or contact isec.2014@gmail.com for more information.  We look forward to your participation in ISEC 2014!

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K12 Workshop Committee
The purpose of the K-12 Workshop Committee is to actively contribute to the successful implementation of the K-12 Workshop on the Saturday prior to the main ASEE Conference (June 14, 2014). Specifically:

1. All committee members will be asked to provide input regarding general aspects K-12 Workshop preparation as prompted by the chair and/or committee members;
2. All committee members will be asked to participate as reviewers for K-12 Workshop proposals;
3. A sub-committee will be formed to plan, organize, and co-lead the lunchtime session of the K-12 Workshop; and
4. A sub-committee will be formed to plan, organize, and co-lead the closing session of the K-12 workshop.

Committee members will engage in this committee largely via email exchanges, with occasional requests to engage in video conferencing (for items 3 and 4).

K-12 and Pre-College Division members with an interest in participating in the above ways are encouraged to join the K-12 Workshop Committee. Contact the chair of this committee, Dr. Pamela Lottero-Perdue (plottero@towson.edu), and Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner (stacy.klein-gardner@vanderbilt.edu)  with the subject “K-12 Workshop Committee” to indicate your interest.

K12 Teacher Membership and Involvement Committee

• Our main goal is to increase ASEE membership of teachers and informal educators in the K-12 and Precollege Engineering Division. With 11,000+ math and science teachers, we should find a way to reach out to them and help them understand the benefits of membership in ASEE. We can use university resources for access to those teachers that are in cooperative efforts with K-12 teachers. We can also enlist universities to help us with alumni engineers who might be interested in getting involved in K-12 education.
• Use social media and electronic databases in order access teachers who might be interested in joining ASEE.
• Offer incentives to schools and teachers to join by perhaps making available a limited number of travel awards to the conference so they feel connected and engaged.

K-12 and Pre-College Division members with an interest in participating in the above ways are encouraged to join the K12 Teacher Membership and Involvement Committee. Contact the chair of this committee, Ms. Melinda Higgins (higgins@harpethhall.org), and Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner (stacy.klein-gardner@vanderbilt.edu)  with the subject “K-12 Teacher Membership and Involvement Committee” to indicate your interest.

ASEE Keynote Speaker and Sunday Workshops Committees

The ASEE K-12 Keynote Speaker Committee will engage in the following activities:

• Identify experts in K-12 engineering education as potential keynote speakers
• Work with Executive Board to select a speaker to nominate
• Work with Program Chair to complete speaker nomination process for ASEE Conference

The Sunday Workshops Committee will engage in the following activities:

• Identify themes and topics for workshops
• Seek proposals for workshop presentations
• Evaluate proposals and identify teams of workshop presenters
• Collect data on the effectiveness of the workshop

K-12 and Pre-College Division members with an interest in participating in the above ways are encouraged to join the ASEE Keynote Speaker and Sunday Workshops Committees. Contact the chair of this committee, Dr. Senay Purzer (spurzer@purdue.edu), and Dr. Stacy Klein-Gardner (stacy.klein-gardner@vanderbilt.edu)  with the subject “ASEE Keynote Speaker and Sunday Workshops Committees” to indicate your interest.

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CALL FOR PROPOSALS:

The K-12 and Pre-College Engineering Division invites submissions for the 2014 ASEE Annual Conference to be held June 15 – 18, 2014 in Indianapolis, IN. The Division provides a rich and vibrant forum for the exchange of ideas and experiences in the K-12 precollege engineering and technology education arena.

Abstract submission will be open from September 9, 2013 – October 20, 2013.

Papers should be submitted to these three main categories:

1. Research-to-practice studies

Research-to-practice studies are assessed/evaluated outreach and education initiatives; therefore, we expect that these papers will present robust data and evaluation. Because of the recently released Next Generation Science Standards, we are seeking papers that will offer practical supports to classroom teachers and are particularly interested in work that falls into the following four strands:

• Addressing the NGSS: Supporting K-12 Teachers in Engineering Pedagogy and Engineering-Science Connections
• Engineering across the K-12 curriculum: Integration with the Arts, Social Studies, Science, and the Common Core
• Principles of K-12 Engineering Education and Practice
• K-12 Engineering Resources: Best Practices in Curriculum Design

(NOTE: This strand is not the Best Practices Panel focusing on university and K-12 partnerships. A separate call for these abstracts will be issued later in the year.)

Research papers focusing on other topics such as pre-service teacher preparation, K-12 out-of-school-time programs and curriculum, partnerships, etc. are also welcome.

Accepted papers in this category will either be presented as an oral presentation and discussion during a themed session OR as a poster during a 90-minute poster session.

2. Curriculum Exchange

Resources presented in the Curriculum Exchange should be lesson and activity examples that show how you incorporate engineering into the K-12 curriculum. These resources will be presented in a round table format.

Abstract submissions to the Curriculum Exchange should include a brief description of your program and the resources that you will be demonstrating at your station. If your abstract is accepted, a one-page handout to be distributed at the exchange should be submitted in lieu of a paper. This hand out should summarize the curriculum, the target grade level(s), and your contact information.

3. Works in Progress

Work in Progress should describe an innovative study or program for which only preliminary data and results are available. These papers will be presented at the conference during a 90-minute poster session.

4. Other

NOTE:

• A separate call will be issued later in the year for the Saturday K-12 Workshop and Best Practices Panel.
• If you submit an abstract, you will also be asked to review at least one abstract (and paper).

Preparing Your Abstract: A Checklist

Please remember the following points when preparing your abstract:

• Category:
  In parentheses, indicate the category in which your submission falls in the abstract’s title.

Ex: Long-Term Impact of Attending Engineers-In-Training (research to practice)

• Length:

Abstracts should be 250 – 500 words long.

• Content:

Unless you are submitting an abstract to the Curriculum Exchange, abstracts should provide sufficient description of the research question, program details, observations, and (preliminary) results.

Abstract submissions to the Curriculum Exchange should include a brief description of your program and the resources that you will be demonstrating at your station.

• Format:

PLEASE refer to the Author’s Kit for guidance on formatting your abstract.

(As of August 2013, the Author’s Kit for ASEE 2014 is not yet on-line. If you would like to use the ASEE 2013 Author’s Kit for guidance, go to: http://www.asee.org/conferences-and events/conferences/annualconference/2013/program-schedule/call-for-papers.)

Do not use formats from other conferences, such as AERA and FIE

• Blind review:

Reviewers must be able to conduct a blind review of your abstract and paper.

• Please use a pseudonym or placeholder for institutional, department, and other identifying names. (Ex: University of _____)
• Anonymize references (Ex: author ASEE 2008 paper)
• Do not use identifying information, such as last names, in the file name (Ex: ASEE13_K12abstract.pdf)

For More Information:

To help place your research and experiences in context, we encourage you to review past proceedings and other literature sources to identify previous work done in your area. By reviewing these other papers, you may also find information and instruments that may be helpful in conducting and assessing your work.

Additional information on the Division’s plan for ASEE 2014 and how you can participate as author, reviewer, and/or moderator will be communicated through the Division Chair’s regular reports, updates from the Program Committee, and on the Division’s website at www.k12division.asee.org.

Please contact the Division’s Program Chair, Sharlene Yang, sharleneyang@yahoo.com if you have any questions or require more information. We look forward to your submission(s)!