CASTLE Talk: Connecting Pre-College and University Engineering
Recent developments such as the inclusion of engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards have greatly expanded opportunities for K-12 students to explore engineering. As a result, many more students are matriculating into university engineering programs with significant prior engineering experience. This presents numerous challenges to both the K-12 education system and undergraduate engineering programs, including identifying appropriate learning outcomes and activities for K-12 engineering, building capacity to teach engineering at the K-12 level, and understanding how pre-college engineering participation influences students’ experiences in university engineering programs. In this talk, I will discuss these challenges, and how to build alignment between pre-college and university engineering programs by identifying effective practices in K-12 engineering, reshaping university engineering programs to leverage students’ pre-college engineering experiences, and the important role that undergraduate engineering students can play in transforming pre-college engineering education by pursuing teaching licensure and careers in secondary school STEM education.
