Page 145 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

130 STANDARDS FOR K–12 ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

purpose. With proper restriction and guidance, calculators can play a positive role in school
mathematics, but such direction is almost always missing in state standards documents. (Klein 2005,
p. 1)

As the definition relates to this paper, we see that the warring parties tend to see technology as a tool for
learning mathematics, rather than as a learning goal per se.

Engineering or Technology Standards?

Building on the growing use of the term “engineering” in education, Robert Wicklein (2003) proposed
that focusing on engineering would be a more effective strategy for changing education than the older
approach of focusing on technology for the following reasons:

ƒ Engineering is more easily understood and valued than technology.
ƒ Engineering elevates the field to a higher academic level.
ƒ Engineering provides a solid framework to design curriculum.
ƒ Engineering is ideal for integrating mathematics and science.
ƒ Engineering provides a focused career pathway for students.

Wicklein’s arguments suggest that by developing “engineering” rather than “technology” standards, we
may overcome a number of barriers, such as avoiding the “vocational” label and the common
misperception that technology is limited to electronic devices like computers and cell phones. This line
of reasoning recently persuaded the State of Oregon to join Massachusetts and adopt “engineering design”
as one of the four organizing principles of its science standards document (Oregon DOE, 2009).

While Wicklein offers thoughtful arguments, the jury is still out on whether “technology” or
“engineering” is the better term from a strategic point of view. Both New Hampshire and Washington
State decided to include a strong component of engineering in their standards, but both preferred the term
“technological design” rather than “engineering design” because teachers fear engineering as a subject
they may not be able to comprehend, but are comfortable with the pairing of terms “science and
technology.” Also, a new framework for a national test of technological literacy beginning in 2012 is
currently being developed (NAGB, in press).

In Search of an Effective Strategy

As illustrated in the previous section, the current science standards documents include technology and
engineering, albeit with different definitions of the terms. However, most practitioners have ignored
those standards and focused instead on traditional science disciplines. Mathematics standards use an even
narrower definition of “technology” as limited to computational tools, and there are vigorous debates in
the mathematics community about whether or not to include technology at all.

For the next attempt at integrating technology and engineering standards into mainstream subject
standards to be more successful, we must pay more attention to terms and definitions. Wicklein suggests
using “engineering” as a more promising strategy than “technology.” Although there are
misunderstandings about both terms, we agree that the people’s conceptions about engineering are
probably narrower than their conceptions of technology. However, this suggests that an effective strategy
must develop clear definitions of both terms with relevant examples.

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