Page 54 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 39

• Informal and after-school education organizations
• Parent-teacher organizations

Once a consensus has been reached, the core ideas will be useful in a variety of ways. First,
they will provide a foundation and direction for the infusion and mapping approaches described
in Chapter 3. The consistency and authority of both approaches will be reinforced by having
agreed engineering ideas and practices to draw upon. One important use of the core ideas might
be to inform the engineering portions of the expected new standards for K–12 science education
to be developed by Achieve, Inc. in 2011. Another might be to strengthen the engineering con-
tent in the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association’s Standards for
Technological Literacy, if and when they undergo revision.
Second, the core ideas will be a resource for improving existing or creating new curricula,
conducting teacher professional development, designing assessments, and informing education
research.
Third, although the committee’s focus was on questions related to the development and
implementation of standards for the K–12 classroom, we recognize that there are also many
opportunities for young people—and adults—to learn about engineering outside the formal
school setting. Indeed, student involvement in out-of-school learning environments may equal
in-class exposure for some subjects, such as science (Chi et al., 2008). Core ideas will provide
guidance for people who work in informal education settings, such as museums, and after-school
programs.
Part of the committee’s charge was to consider how, or whether, standards for engineering
education in K–12 would differ depending on whether the overall purpose is to support the goal
of general literacy (the “mainline”) or to target a narrower group of students who are interested
in pursuing careers in engineering (the “pipeline”). The committee believes that the identifica-
tion of core ideas in engineering will be beneficial for both purposes.
Ultimately, curriculum developers, providers of professional development, and others with
an engineering-pipeline orientation may build on the foundation provided by core ideas by
emphasizing connections between engineering and mathematics and science, especially physics.
Educators with a mainline focus may use core ideas to develop resources for traditional science,
mathematics, and technology education classes or informal or after-school programs.

Step 2: Provide Guidelines for the Development of Instructional Materials

The value of core ideas will be greatly enhanced for all purposes if they are embedded in
“guidelines” for the development of instructional materials (cf., Rutherford, 2009). The purpose
of the guidelines would be to improve the quality of engineering education materials, accelerate
their development, and increase the number of individuals and groups that can use them, without
developing actual standards.
Guidelines would necessarily include the core ideas in engineering, but they would also
address other considerations, which we know from research and practice are important to ensur-
ing the quality of instructional materials (Box 4-1). In other words, guidelines would not include
all of the characteristics of effective educational curricula; they would include only the charac-
teristics for which we have some basis in experience and understanding. The guidelines should
be revised and improved as our knowledge grows and improves.

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