Thoughts on Project Lead The Way

[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