Collaborating for Early‐Age Career Awareness: A Comparison of Three Instructional Formats

Abstract

Background Early-age engineering education can enhance preparedness and generate interest in engineering careers prior to college. This article reports on collaboration between a university engineer and science teacher educators to introduce engineering career awareness in elementary classrooms. The resulting elementary school curriculum, Engineering is Everywhere, features video instruction by the engineer, a teacher activity guide, and a materials kit.Purpose/Research Questions Our research question was, "How might engineers and educators best collaborate in elementary engineering outreach efforts?" We co-developed curricula, prepared classroom teachers, and compared fifth-grade student learning outcomes to determine the most beneficial type of engineer instruction. Design/MethodA quasi-experimental research design assessed the effectiveness of three instructional formats: engineer-led, engineer-visit, and engineer-video. Pre-and post-tests captured changes in fifth-grade students' understanding about the work of engineers and attitudes about engineering.Results Findings indicated significant gains in all students' understanding, with some differences across the three instructional formats. The engineer-led students did not show significant changes in overall engineering attitudes. Only the engineer-video students demonstrated significant gains in engineering job interests.Conclusions A qualitative comparison of the costs and benefits of each instructional format raised important considerations for planning engineer outreach. We recommend that engineers collaborate with science teacher educators in the design of video instruction and assist in preparing elementary classroom teachers to administer the lesson activities.

Assessing Users’ Perception on the Current and Potential Educational Value of an Electrical Engineering YouTube Channel

“…These resources might constitute a helpful pedagogical aid when used within the context of CoI model [8], enhancing the educational experience by the improvement of parameters such as content engagement, interaction with pairs through video-related activities, and self-regulated learning. The proactive use of video resources might create a self-motivational environment able to promote students' engagement and goal setting [16]. Furthermore, ICT-TPACK model is based on constructs that could also be benefited by the integration of videos as pedagogical aid [25], [26].…”

“…Additionally, when referring to affective deficiencies, videos are also proven to be an effective support on students' motivation and to reduce academic stress and anxiety levels [15], [16]. These aspects are highly related to dropout rates, which are specifically high in engineering disciplines [17].…”

Exploring Authenticity Through an Engineering-Based Context in a Project-Based Learning Mathematics Activity

“…Additionally, incorporating real-world problems into the classroom creates an opportunity to introduce students to the world of work in a functional way. Coursework that has career awareness activities or skills integrated into the curriculum (e.g., Colston, Thomas, Ley, Ivey, & Utley, 2017;Ernst, Bottomley, Parry, & Lavelle, 2011;Ernst & Bowen, 2014) is an effective career intervention and provides connection to increased student engagement through both relevance and authenticity. By experiencing different aspects and tasks associated with specific careers through active engagement, children gain important knowledge about themselves and potential careers in an authentic manner, thus providing them the necessary input to make a sound decision in the future.…”

Student Online Activities and their impact on Self driven Learning and Motivation among Students in Public Secondary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya

“…Short Message Send (SMS) can be used especially for distant learning with students whose course requires them to communicate and calculate. Online interactions between student and student to teachers can be enhanced (Colston et al, 2017). It enables the learner to achieve self-efficacy and enhance individual personality development (Maclellah, 2008).…”