Thoughts on Project Lead The Way

[Jeff Rodriguez]

As a soon-to-be Tech Ed teacher, I hear a lot about Project Lead The Way (PLTW), both positive and negative. I'm heard and read enough about it to know what its about. But, to get my own idea of the program, I'd like to hear from people who've actually experienced it, either as a teacher or a student.

What do you like/dislike about the program?
What do you think could be improved?

For teachers: How long have you taught PLTW?
How easily was PLTW implemented in your school?
What do you feel your students get from it?

I'm only trying to get a feel of PLTW in a real classroom and form my own opinions about it, NOT start a debate about whether it should be in every school.. If you'd rather PM me with your thoughts I can assure you that I'll be the only person to read them.
Thanks.

[Ericgehrken]

PLTW is a great program. It gives students with a higher aptitude a taste of college level engineering courses through teaching college level classes in a high school setting. This allows students who become not interested in engineering as a career to not go to college majoring in engineering then drop out. In some schools students can even earn college credits in the classes if they score well in the class, this will show to the colleges they are applying for that they can earn good grades even in classes on the college level.
One down fall of the PLTW Program is that only a select "Cream of the Crop" are selected for the PLTW Program in most situations. This limits the amount of students given a sample of the college coursework in engineering on the high school level. In my school the PLTW Program accepted 16 applicants for the class of 2010 and now they increased the students per class in the program to 32. My sophomore class has 550 students.

[Pavan Dave]

I hate it!

What do you like/dislike about the program? That students get to learn about engineering software.
What do you think could be improved? The cirriculum. IT requires you to learn everything yet nothing at the same time. YOU CAN"T TEST OUT OF ANYTHING. YOU CAN"T WORK AHEAD. And you don't learn enough... We learned how to make a train by the end of the year and that was pretty useless information since we already knew about constraints and desiging parts by than.

What do you feel your students get from it? Those who care about the class and want to learn engineering, Nothing. For slackers who want a tech credit, its awesome.

[Peter Matteson]

Contact Mr. Mo at SWHS. He just started implementing it over the last to years. I think he could tell you a lot.
Pete

[Danielle H]

First of all, to respond to Pavan, I believe the difference between what a student actually gets out of the program depends a lot on the teachers and their methods of teaching. I'm learning a lot about Engineering through the courses, and PLTW was actually part of what got me interested in Engineering in the first place. (The other part of that being FIRST, of couse.)

Right now, I'm currently enrolled in Introduction to Engineering Design and Principles of Engineering. (The reason my school is allowing me to take both is because I'm a senior that kind of unconventionally got involved in the program by helping pilot the Biotechnical Engineering course.) I've learned a lot about software and the logical process of solving a problem, already, and we're not even through the first semester.

In IED, we've gone through a typical design problem (Puzzle Cube) and worked step-by-step through the process of coming up with a design, fabricating that design, and creating a proper write-up of the project as a whole. It's been really helpful to me who really approaches problems in a haphazard way. I now know the logical process on how to go about things, and I'm earning college credit along the way.

In POE, we've already done career reports on different fields of Engineering. This is helping most of the students A LOT grasp just how large the engineering field is, and how many different needs can be met by engineers. In my class, we have presentations on everything from Weapons Engineers to Acoustical Engineers to Pneumatics Engineers. Also, we've gone through FisherTecknik with making marble sorter. That taught us BASIC programming in a software called RoboPro, and shows how computers have to interact with their parts in the proper form in order for something to be successful.

All in all, the PLTW classes have taught me a lot about engineering and about how to work in groups with other people. By combining the necessary computer skills with the necessary communication skills, our teachers work to give us a better understanding of the various fields and skills involved in Engineering, and I'd say they're doing a pretty good job.

(And, by the way, about the college credit thing... some schools offer it as a tech credit, and others offer it as an Engineering credit. Because I'm taking IED, I have gotten out of a drafting class at Tri-State University. And Tri-State offers renewable scholarships for students just because they've taken 2 PLTW courses at a certified school and gotten a B or better.)

All in all, the PLTW courses are very beneficial to high school students, and I wish you luck in formulating your own opinion on the subject.

--Danielle Hurley
Team 393

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Pavan

I hate it!

What do you feel your students get from it? Those who care about the class and want to learn engineering, Nothing.

You must have a terrible PLTW program at your high school. I learned more in my PLTW classes than I did in my freshman year of college.

It's a great program, I would recommend it to anyone.

[efoote868]

I took intro to engineering and design last year, and I am taking digital electronics this year.

As stated they're college level courses, but I didn't find them too difficult. It was also a good excuse of a class to hang out with the mentors for a period of the day.

I would recommend the class to anyone, as it does give a taste of engineering.

[whytheheckme]

We have a PLTW at our high school (The teacher that runs it is one of two primary mentors on our team.)

I haven't actually been in his classes, but from what I've heard from students (many of which are on the team,) the program was great, and gave them lots of experience and extended knowledge. For the most part, I got almost completely positive feedback.

Not sure if this really helps (because I didn't experience it), but thats my 2 cents on this one,
Jacob

[SSMike]

I personally love PLTW. It is a way to make more challenging courses because in my opinion the regents are a joke. I am currently taking the Principles of Engineering course and one of the things that I love most about it is that it has real life applications.

To reiterate what was said above, what you get out of it also depends on the teacher/teaching methods. I have had great teachers in all of my PLTW courses except for the introductory course. In that case I ended up having to self teach myself most of the program (Inventor).

One thing that I am curious about is how much the PLTW courses prepare students for not only engineering in college but also just for the college environment in general. From what I know the teachers at my school are preparing me pretty well in this area, for example mentioning projects once and then moving on, teaching more technical writing etc.

My 2 cents.

[colin340]

i like it but it's like any class it's all about the teacher but the order you take the class has to be reworked pof need to have prerequisite of physics and de needs some work i think edd is the greatest class ever made but i would like to see a manufacturing or prototyping class in pltw many of the students never get to use a real mill (not cnc) or do any molding or casting

but wow there alot of first students going in to tech ed