Page 136 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 121

Standards for Technological Literacy (STL) (ITEA, 2000) proposes perhaps the most fully developed
standards for technology and engineering education. The document was developed by the International
Technology Education Association in collaboration with the National Academy of Engineering. STL is
an organized set of 20 standards patterned largely on the framework of SFAA and Benchmarks, but
elaborated more fully. The 20 standards are broken down into benchmarks for grades K–2, 3–5, 6–8, and
9–12 and grouped into five major areas, as shown below:

The Nature of Technology
1. The characteristics and scope of technology.
2. The core concepts of technology.
3. The relationships among technologies and connections with other fields.
Technology and Society
4. The cultural, social, economic and political effects of technology.
5. The effects of technology on the environment.
6. The role of society in the development and use of technology.
7. The influence of technology on history.
Design
8. The attributes of design.
9. Engineering design.
10. The role of troubleshooting, R&D, invention, innovation and experimentation in problem solving.
Abilities for a Technological World
11. Apply the design process.
12. Use and maintain technological products and systems.
13. Assess the impact of products and systems.
The Designed World
14. Medical technologies.
15. Agricultural and related biotechnologies.
16. Energy and power technologies.
17. Information and communication technologies.
18. Transportation technologies.
19. Manufacturing technologies.
20. Construction technologies.

Notice that standards 1–13 correspond to many of the ideas in Benchmarks Chapter 3, The Nature of
Technology, and that standards 14-20 correspond to Benchmarks Chapter 8, The Designed World.
However, the detailed descriptions of what students are expected to know and be able to do are more
explicit in STL than in Benchmarks.

Although STL is now almost a decade old, it remains the most comprehensive set of standards for
technology and engineering education yet developed and should provide an excellent pool from which to
draw ideas for the next generation of standards. The standards that primarily concern engineering are 8,
9, 10 (all under “Design”), and 11 (classified under “Abilities for a Technological World”). These are
shown in Table 3.

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