"Teaching Engineering to Counselors and Teachers (TECT)" is a proof-of-concept project to develop, test and evaluate a diversity-enhanced, STEM-based, professional development workshop for high school teachers and career guidance counselors. The project team is developing educational materials and running workshops that focus on pedagogical methods for incorporating hands-on activities into STEM classrooms in order to expose all students to technology and engineering. The long-term goal is to broaden and increase the diversity of students entering engineering-based college degree programs. In addition, improved career guidance counselor training materials are being created to assist counselors in promoting engineering careers to a wider audience of students.
This project uses an existing NSF funded ATE project that focuses on high school students who are underrepresented in engineering by involving them in a competitive program, Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS), which is conducted via after school clubs and summer camps. This project makes use of the existing summer camps as a time to conduct teacher and counselor in-service education to promote a view of diversity in engineering and technology education. The teacher and counselor workshops are one week in length and are held in conjunction with the summer camps. In the summer workshops associated with the camps, the teachers and counselors are observers of students, learners of new content and participants in teaching.
