Work in Progress: Western Michigan University Partnership with K-12 Teachers to Improve STEM Education

This paper describes activities and assessment outcomes related to a 3-day workshop held in October 2005 for practicing and pre-service K-12 teachers, offered for the second time by the authors. Six teachers from five K-12 school districts partnered with university faculty and two pre-service teachers to learn about the engineering design process; engineering and technology careers in general; and expectations for K-12 students interested in pursuing STEM-related college studies. Working with university faculty during the 2005-06 academic year, each of the workshop participants designed and constructed a STEM-related module for their classroom, including equipment and lesson plans, which met State of Michigan educational standards. The modules were classroom tested and feedback was documented for further module refinement. Improvements implemented as part of this second workshop, including using a project design notebook and sharing knowledge gained with other K-12 colleagues, and preliminary classroom evaluation showing increased student engagement are presented