Broadening Participation: A Summit to Engage PK-12 Teachers in Engineering Experiential Learning

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Broadening participation in Engineering is a topic of importance at the National Science Foundation and other U.S. governmental agencies. Throughout popular and scientific literature, engineering educators, industry leaders, and policymakers have recommended more efforts are needed, at the K-12 level, to increase representation in engineering among students of color. With this in mind, the investigator proposed developing and coordinating a Rockets and Racecars Teachers Summit, an extensive workshop for PK-12 teachers in underserved school districts and communities in the State of Alabama. The Summit will be a platform for sharing exemplary practices for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching and learning and strategies for assessment and program evaluation. It will also provide time for teachers to develop detailed unit plans related to current Alabama content standards, with the support of STEM and education faculty from the University of Alabama. Additionally, teachers will have ample opportunities to interact with other teacher peers and learn from each other. Equally as important, it is expected that the teachers will gain firsthand practical experiences from their participation in hands-on demonstrations, a toolkit of materials to immediately support engineering instruction within their classrooms and lesson plans to effectively engage their students in standards-based STEM instruction.This workshop builds on the Rockets & Racecars Experience, which was created in 2012 at the University of Alabama. The focus of this three-day inaugural Summit is to introduce Rockets & Racecars to a broad audience and incorporate teachers directly into the planning and execution of the workshop. The overarching goal is increase the participation of minorities and girls in engineering and other STEM-related fields by supporting teachers who provide their instruction.