Page 55 - Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century

Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11338.html

38 EDUCATING THE ENGINEER OF 2020

classrooms. Many programs are actively engaging K-12 districts and
faculty across the country; however, there are several that stand out with
respect to their growth in number of schools, connection to state educa-
tion standards, and support from stakeholders. Following is a brief de-
scription of some of these notable programs:

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) was initiated by Richard Blais in the
1980s while he was chairman of the technology department of an up-
state New York school district. Partnerships with private philanthropy
and the Rochester Institute of Technology (the program’s first national
training center) allowed the program to grow into a national organiza-
tion with 22 institutions of higher education supporting schools in over
40 states that institute some or all of PLTW’s middle school and high
school curricula of hands-on, problem-based, technology-driven
learning. 2
The Infinity Project was developed in the late 1990s by a national
team of engineering educators led by Geoffrey Orsak at Southern Meth-
odist University that had as its goal to help “students see the real value
of math and science and its varied applications to high-tech engineer-
3
ing.” With strong support from Texas Instruments and state and na-
tional government, the Infinity curriculum has demonstrated tremen-
dous growth in Texas high schools and is in place in 80 schools in 21
4
other states. Precourse and postcourse surveys of student attitudes have
shown a significant growth in student interest in pursuing an engineer-
ing degree, with nearly 80 percent of students indicating a “very strong
interest” in pursuing engineering. 5
Massachusetts K-12 Engineering Standards were instituted in 2001
and provide K-12 educators with guidelines for age-appropriate inquiry-
based learning. The frameworks also provide students with an introduc-
tion into the ways in which engineering/technology is related to, but
substantially different from, the field of science—“Technology/engineer-
ing seeks different ends from those of science.” The outcomes of science

2 See http://www.pltw.org/AUHistory.shtml and http://www.pltw.org/network.shtml.
3 See http://www.infinity-project.org.
4 See http://www.infinity-project.org/infinity/infinity_outcome.html.
5 See http://www.infinity-project.org/files/infinity_powerpoint.ppt#275,20,Student%20
Impact.

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