Page 112 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 97

In two countries, a distinction is made between the capabilities to be mastered and the contexts in
which they must be applied. At first glance, this seems to be what the Hamburg materials do, but
as we have seen, these domains indicate levels of mastery rather than application domains. In
the South African materials, however, there is a real separation between assessment standards
and content and contexts for the attainment of assessment standards. The meaning of the term
context, however, appears to be different from the meaning in the recent educational theories
mentioned above, in which context is a social practice (e.g., taking part in traffic by going from
home to school or participating in electronic communities).

Let us take a closer look at the South African Learning Outcome 1: Technology, Society and the
Environment. The first standard here is: “Describe the interrelationship between technology,
society and the environment” for Grade 10, “Discuss and evaluate the interrelationship between
technology, society and the environment” for Grade 11, and “Predict the impact of future
development in technology on society and the environment” for Grade 12. We have discussed
elsewhere the nature of the progression through the grades. The content and contexts for the
same standard are: “understanding of the issues of environmental technology” for Grade 10,
“describing of environmental technology” for Grade 11, and “applying of the principles of
conservation related to environmental technology” for Grade 12.

In this example, it is not clear at all what the differences are. Further investigation into the
standards and accompanying content and contexts shows that sometimes the very same words
are used in the standards themselves and the accompanying content and contexts. The only
differences are that sometimes the content/contexts are slightly more specific (for instance, the
principle of conservation is mentioned in the content and contexts but not in the standard itself).

Clearly, the idea of separating standards and the contexts in which they can be applied has not
been worked out in the South African materials. Still, the idea is worth considering. In principle
there is an advantage to making this separation. The standards themselves could then be phrased
in generic terms that leave open opportunities for curriculum developers to use different, perhaps
locally relevant contexts, for applications of the standards.

The very same distinction is used in a current Delphi study by Hofstra University (in
collaboration with the author) aimed at identifying broad, basic concepts for engineering and
technology education and contexts in which these concepts can be taught and learned. In
principle, it would be interesting to use the same distinction in standards for pre-
college/university engineering education. The South African materials show that more reflection
on how to do this properly will be needed.

4. Conclusions
What lessons can be drawn from this survey and analysis for the work of the committee? The
analysis has shown that the non-U.S. examples of standards for pre-college/university
engineering education have some interesting ideas that may be worth considering, even though
they have not always been well elaborated.

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