Engineering "Educator" Degree Programs

[gblake]

A) This feels a bit like it's a "pushing on a rope" topic.

B) Don't train people to become FIRST coaches. Train them to become STEM coaches. Those two aren't close to being the same thing. FIRST is good, but FIRST is neither everything STEM, nor proven to be best STEM.

C) When I am able to semi-retire; I look forward to doing more informal or formal teaching. An opportunity to get some high-quality training would be very welcome.

Blake

[ebarker]

Just to get the semantics correct, in general,
...Universities contain Colleges
......Colleges contain Schools
.........Schools contain Departments
............Departments contain the chair and faculty

There are two common models of creating science teachers

model 1) the College of Education teaches the science education courses to the students

model 2) the College of Education teachers educational pedagogy, and the College of Science teaches the teachers the science education courses

We use the 2nd model.

What if an engineering educator degree was created using the College of Education for pedagogy, and the College of Engineering for the engineering and technology courses ?

What if this degree had an intensive product development course, similiar to
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mechanica...i-spring-2009/
This course gave birth to FIRST, and can be used to train a teacher in the fundamentals of what it take to design, build, and deliver a product in a hurry.

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

What would this degree license the person to teach? How many part time teacher/part time coaches are there in your state?

I guess it boils down to: Is there a need for this? what does this do that your typical CTE teacher can't cover already?

Yes, this would lead to a teaching license. Echoing Glenn's comment, CTE teacher production is in dire straits.

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

I'm doing something very similar this fall with Georgia Tech and 1648's high school, where I will be a robotics coach/teaching assistant and be paid with a stipend. I'd definitely be interested in something like this in the future.

Is this leading to you earning certification as a teacher ?

Originally Posted by Siri

have you considered adding a master's degree program?

The OP mentioned BS only but we are actually mapping out several pathways and possibilities.

BS Degree, MS Degree, and certificate.

The thinking for the BS is that much of the upper division courses of an engineering degree isn't necessary for K-12 teaching, and many people that might want to participate in engineering type activities do not want to complete a full engineering degree. They would be better off focusing on principle of engineering and mastering the educational pedagogy, the how to teach it and how students learn. The BS route would best be for a high school student starting as a freshman, or a transfer student in from a 2 year community technical college.

It's a free country. If a candidate wants to get the full engineering degree, then extended training to become a teacher, by all means help yourself.

Requiring teachers to have a full engineering degree where they might have taken courses in stochastic theory, or deform-able bodies, or modulation theory, only slows down and reduces the supply of teachers. You reach a point of diminishing returns.

Still mapping out what MS, Phd and certificate should look like. There are a lot of ways to recruit candidates.

It is my opinion that the vast number of K-12 engineering and technology teachers will not come from engineering schools as pure engineers nor from educator schools as pure educators.

I believe there are a LOT of people that like technology and would be glad to teach pre-engineering and principle of engineer, and technology.

As earlier posters have stated, there isn't a lot of options for a high school graduates that want to go into middle/high school engineering education.

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

Ed, you may want to look into similar programs from other areas. When I was considering my college selections I noted that Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) has a well developed and pretty well know Technology and Engineering Education degree program.

What Justin said...

Here's a short list from the national organization...
http://www.iteea.org/Resources/institutionalmembers.htm

Programs just like this already exist. I graduated with a BS in Technology/Engineering Education. Obviously each state is slightly different, and might have different names for the certificate, but the framework is already there. Most of the schools listed also have Master's degree programs (MEd) that culminate in a teaching certificate.

It looks like University of Georgia already offers this program, are you working with a different institution? Looks like Savannah State University also offers an undergrad degree.

http://teched.uga.edu/

Googling for your state's specifics would be a good place to start for all the aspiring teachers in this thread.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by scottandme

What Justin said...

Here's a short list from the national organization...
http://www.iteea.org/Resources/institutionalmembers.htm

Programs just like this already exist. I graduated with a BS in Technology/Engineering Education. Obviously each state is slightly different, and might have different names for the certificate, but the framework is already there. Most of the schools listed also have Master's degree programs (MEd) that culminate in a teaching certificate.

It looks like University of Georgia already offers this program, are you working with a different institution? Looks like Savannah State University also offers an undergrad degree.

http://teched.uga.edu/

Googling for your state's specifics would be a good place to start for all the aspiring teachers in this thread.

This thread caught my attention with the OP's emphasis on integrated hand-on education. Without calling out any school specifically, I've been searching for an MS that really emphasizes transitioning practical skill sets and integrating more 'head coach' learning throughout the 1-2 years. That would push it up my list very quickly, though I know there are some very, very good MEds out there (I've been looking at JHU). The desire for this kind of alternative MEd may be a personal bias, as I've had some STEM teachers that really lacked in integration despite STEM BSs and education MSs.


As to the already existent ability to add teacher education on top of an engineering BS, yes, of course we can. (It's a free country, and I'm seriously examining it.) But considering the point of this is to up the number of engineering teachers, I'd think the push would be less about what's possible and more about what's actively advertised as a potential audience/degree option.

[Bennett548]

This does sound very interesting. It would be cool to get paid to do what I love to do anyways. Make them evening classes and I'd probably sign up.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by ebarker

Is this leading to you earning certification as a teacher ?

Technically the stipend is for a pre-teaching internship, but I was recommended by the head mentor of 1648 to the pre-teaching program director. I won't be getting a certification, but It will appear on my transcript and resume.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by jwfoss

Ed, you may want to look into similar programs from other areas. When I was considering my college selections I noted that Central Connecticut State University (CCSU) has a well developed and pretty well know Technology and Engineering Education degree program.

Prior to getting into the FIRST Robotics program back in 1999, we were introduced to it primarily because we were successful in racing electric cars (1995-2009). As I clicked on the link, I cant help but remember racing against a few Connecticut schools....i.e. Farmington HS? in Louden, NH 7-8 years ago.

I need to dig up old pictures. For awhile, we did both programs and decided to end our EV program once we got into VEX Robotics.

Glenn

[ebarker]

Now that summer is over and school is back in session, I'm going to bump this thread.

Please comment if you or someone you know might be interested in becoming an educator for engineering and technology education, with an emphasis on product development.

The fundamental question to FIRST students is "after graduating high school, would you be interested in going to a university and earning a four year STEM educator degree with a focus on Engineering Education" ????

[Lil' Lavery]

Personally, I'd be more interested in an after-hours/online certificate program.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Personally, I'd be more interested in an after-hours/online certificate program.

If someone has a degree and experience then there is a market out there for that, without question. That would be addressed with a MAT, Masters of Arts in Teaching, or some other initial certification pathway.

I working to justify creating a BS degree program. It closes a gap, by allowing STEM oriented high school students to take a direct engineering / education route to a BS and the classroom. It falls well short of an ABET accredited engineering degree.

See the chart here

[dtengineering]

Um... actually, I do that for a living.

Teach teachers to teach technology education, that is. After 13 years of teaching high school 'shop' I'm teaching in the same program I graduated from 20 years ago... and we've been doing it in BC for the past fifty years.

To be fair, the program isn't specifically "engineering". We cover Auto Mechanics, Woodwork, Metalwork, Drafting, Electronics, and Material Science. Students spend about 30 hours each week for four semesters learning "hands on" in a shop environment. (Okay, some of my lectures aren't always as 'hands on' as I'd like.)

Students are responsible for getting their "first year" university credits before enrolling in the program, spend two years with us at BCIT in the shops, and then spend 12 months at UBC to complete their B.Ed degree. It is a five year B.Ed degree that qualifies them to teach in BC, and by extension most other provinces in Canada (and likely states in the USA, although I haven't followed that through in detail as we don't currently graduate enough students to meet domestic demand, let alone worrying about work permits and the like) I do know, however, that some of our grads have had a good time finding work in Australia....

We have a great group of students with backgrounds in the trades, technologies, and even the occasional engineer entering the program.

It is kind of a unique program, but our graduates make up 100% of the current and past FRC team lead mentors from BC (albeit a small sample set) and about 80% of VEX teachers in BC.

Not bad for only taking 22 students a year!

So glad to hear that other people are looking at the same thing!

Jason

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by ebarker

I working to justify creating a BS degree program. It closes a gap, by allowing STEM oriented high school students to take a direct engineering / education route to a BS and the classroom. It falls well short of an ABET accredited engineering degree.

I'm going to look at this from a purely economic POV for a moment: Is there enough demand for a course like this? How many new "shop" teachers does Georgia need every year? Does it make economic sense for a school to create a new degree path?

I think someone said, if there was enough demand there would be a MAT path for this certification. That would lead me to ask why isn't there one already? It is possible the demand just isn't there? I think you are driving this from the wrong end of the pipe. Increase demand, then work of supply.

[ebarker]

Yes I am having to create an economic ROI analysis or something to that effect.

There is a large demand. People have not been able to articulate what it should look like until recently.

The degree isn't shop class, but an "integrative stem" teaching degree. Engineering is a highly stem integrated discipline.

Front page article in this weeks NSTA journal was about this very topic.

The problem schools are having is there are a lot of courses on the books that can't be taught, so they don't start the class, and in turn there is no teacher demand. Chicken & Egg.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by ebarker

The degree isn't shop class, but an "integrative stem" teaching degree. Engineering is a highly stem integrated discipline.

Talk to a typical administrator and talk about integrative STEM and I bet most of them will reply, "oh, you mean shop/CTE right?"

But I agree there needs to be a better job of training folks to teach engineering type skills. I have seen some really bad engineering classes.

[Chief Hedgehog]

I pray that most FRC teams are gearing their teams for students interested in 'shop classes'.

The skills gap in the U.S. is getting out of hand. And for teams to be overlooking these students is a disservice to the respective teams and the students that they could reach.

And as for 'Shop teacher' - there is a MASSIVE SHORTAGE!

In Minnesota alone, we had 40 openings for Tech Ed/Engineering Ed in 2015 - and St. Cloud State University (the only school in MN offering this degree) graduated a total of two.

For any student involved in FRC that wants to continue in this field and has a desire to inspire, this is a great career!