Page 22 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

INTRODUCTION 9

The fundamental idea of standards-based reform was to establish clear, coherent, and
important content as learning outcomes for K–12 education. Funders and developers assumed
that voluntary national standards would be used by state education departments and local
jurisdictions to select educational programs, guide instructional practices, and implement
assessments that would help students attain the standards. They also assumed that undergraduate
teacher education and professional development for classroom teachers would be aligned with
standards. These assumptions sound straightforward, but the reality has been considerably more
complex. Because of the many independent decisions affecting teacher preparation, curriculum,
and testing, the influence of national standards on teaching and learning has been highly variable
(NRC, 2001). This issue is discussed more fully in Chapter 2.
In the two decades since the release of Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1989), a number of
other STEM-related standards initiatives have been undertaken. In 1991, What Work Requires of
Schools, a report of the Secretary’s Commission for Achieving Necessary Skills (DOL, 1991),
and Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics, an NCTM report, were both published.
In 1993, building on Science for All Americans, AAAS published Benchmarks for Science
Literacy, followed in 1996 by the NRC’s National Science Education Standards. In 2000, ITEA
released Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology, and NCTM
published its revised standards in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics. A third
NCTM revision, Curriculum Focal Points for Prekindergarten through Grade 8, was published
in 2008. Today, as noted earlier, an initiative is under way to develop common core standards in
mathematics and science. (For a more detailed chronology of STEM-related standards initiatives
in the past 40 years, see the annex to this chapter.)

Project Goal, Objectives, and Study Process

The goal of the project described in this report was to assess the potential value and
feasibility of developing and implementing content standards for K–12 engineering education.
The project committee was not asked to develop standards for K–12 engineering and did not
attempt to do so. The committee’s statement of task included the following objectives:

1. Review existing efforts to define what K–12 students should know and be able to do
related to engineering, both in the United States and other nations.
2. Evaluate the evidence for the value and impact of content standards in K–12 education.
3. Identify elements of existing standards documents for K–12 science, mathematics, and
technology that could link to engineering.
4. Consider how the various possible purposes for K–12 engineering education might affect
the content and implementation of standards.
5. Suggest what changes to educational policies, programs, and practices at the national and
state levels might be needed to develop and successfully implement K–12 engineering
standards or alternative approaches to standardizing the content of K–12 engineering
education.

To address these objectives, the committee conducted a variety of information-gathering
activities, including commissioning papers on relevant topics (see Appendix B), soliciting input
from experts at a two-day workshop in summer 2009 (the workshop agenda appears at Appendix
C), and conducting additional research. The committee had three face-to-face meetings (includ-

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