Collaborative Research: TeachEngineering - Hands-on Resources for K-12

这个收藏项目建立在由NSF GK-12计划资助的广泛的K-12工程课程开发的基础上，几所工程学院合作创建了一个工程资源的在线数字图书馆(TeachEngineering Collection)，供K-12教师和工程学院教职员工在他们的社区进行外展使用。每个机构都已经与许多当地学区合作，将工程学作为数学和科学整合的工具来推广。向K-12学生介绍工程学的课程和活动，同时作为科学和数学概念的集成者，将填充集合。TeachEngineering收藏中的课程和活动与青少年生活中的日常接触有关，因此为学生提供了学习的环境。藏书课程符合明确的最低质量标准，并与国家科学、数学和技术教育标准保持一致。活动可以用现成的材料以低成本建造--这是一种鼓励采用集合的“小成本工程”方法。收集还提供了进入几个“活实验室”的门户--装有传感器的结构、设施和过程，实时提供在线数据。该项目团队还通过推动培训教师和教职员工使用藏品的研讨会，接触到最终用户。美国工程教育协会的参与保证了长期的可持续性，负责新课程组成部分的认证和测试，以及在全国范围内传播和推广该集合。合作者正在设计系统架构，开发搜索引擎，并与K-12教师合作，完善和测试系统和内容，包括“活的实验室”部分。正在解决与其他NSDL集合的集成和互操作性问题。同时，馆藏内容正在标准化，将各种K-12工程课程转换为具有共同外观和感觉的可搜索的、基于标准的文档。在一系列第二级任务中，该团队正在填充和测试收藏，将其集成到塔夫茨数字图书馆，完成初始内容的加载和测试，举办教师和教职员工研讨会，并将收藏监督移交给ASEE。将K-12工程推广课程从个别地点转移到一个统一和有用的图书馆，为K-12社区提供了可利用的资源，并刺激了工程学教员和专业人员参与K-12教育。这项工作的更广泛的影响是让更多的工程项目参与到K-12课程的推广中，提供了更多的机会来显著提高STEM的一般识字能力，并扩大了渴望在工程领域为未来做准备的年轻人的群体。

This Collections project builds on extensive K-12 engineering curriculum developments funded by the NSF GK-12 program with several engineering colleges collaborating to create an on-line digital library of engineering resources (the TeachEngineering Collection) for use by K-12 teachers and engineering college faculty conducting outreach in their communities. Each institution is already partnered with numerous local school districts to promote engineering as a vehicle for math and science integration. Lessons and activities that introduce engineering to K-12 students while serving as integrators of science and mathematics concepts will populate the Collection. The lessons and activities in the TeachEngineering Collection relate to everyday encounters in the lives of youngsters, thus providing a context for student learning. Collections curricula meet explicit minimum quality criteria and are aligned with national science, mathematics and technology educational standards. Activities can be constructed at low cost with readily available materials -- an "engineering on a shoestring" approach to encourage adoption of the Collection. The Collection also provides a portal to several "living laboratories" -- structures, facilities and processes instrumented with sensors, providing data on-line in real time. The project team also is reaching out to end-users by promoting workshops that train teachers and faculty to use the Collection. The American Society for Engineering Education involvement guarantees long-term sustainability, with responsibility for certification and testing of new curricular components, and nationwide dissemination and promotion of the Collection. The collaborators are designing the system architecture, developing the search engine, and refining and testing the system and contents, including the "living laboratories" component, in collaboration with K-12 teachers. Integration and interoperability with other NSDL collections are being addressed. Concurrently, the Collection content is being standardized, converting a variety of K-12 engineering curricula into searchable, standards-based documents with a common look and feel. In a set of second-level tasks, the team is populating and testing the Collection, integrating it into the Tufts Digital Library, completing the loading and testing of the initial contents, conducting teacher and faculty workshops, and transferring the Collection oversight to ASEE. Moving K-12 engineering outreach curricula from individual sites to a unified and useful library provides accessible resources for the K-12 community and stimulates the involvement of engineering faculty and professionals in K-12 education. Broader impacts of this work are engaging more engineering programs in K-12 outreach, providing the expanded opportunities to dramatically increase general STEM literacy and expanding the pool of youngsters eagerly prepared for a future in engineering.