John has been the Engineering Librarian at the University of Toledo since 2001. He is the library liaison for the entire College of Engineering. Previously he was employed as a librarian in an environmental engineering firm in Toledo, OH. His main research interests are information literacy and engineering librarianship. He served as Director of the Engineering Libraries Division of ASEE from 2016-2018.
This article reports on a 2-year evaluation of a STEM integration professional development (PD) program for 40 math, science, and special education teachers in Grades 5-9 from a large Midwestern public school district. The National Research Council's framework for integrated STEM education (Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014) was used to explain the goals, outcomes, nature and scope, and implementation of the program. Teachers were measured on their growth in STEM content knowledge, technology integration, teaching confidence, pedagogical beliefs, and impact of PD. Increases resulted in all these areas with statistically significant improvements in most of them, particularly in Year 2. A significant increase in math and science scores were also found in 413 students before and after participation in an integrated STEM lesson. According to teachers, the greatest strengths of the program were the STEM connections that teachers began making; the changes in teachers' instructional practices; improved attitudes, beliefs, and confidence in teaching; increased comfort with using technology; and the enthusiasm that students exhibited during a STEM lesson. Quantitative data and teacher feedback both indicate that the program was highly successful and had a positive impact on teachers and students.
The mechanical engineering technology (MET) students at the University of Toledo start their curriculum with a three-credit hour course entitled "Computers for Engineering Technology". Over the years, this class was subject to many changes with the objective of increasing student retention and overall satisfaction. Since this course is one of the first technical courses the students have to take, the latest approach is to incorporate hands-on laboratory experience with the goal of getting the freshmen accustomed with novel techniques of acquiring data, building the skills to analyze and investigate data using Excel software, writing a laboratory report, using a Word processor, and comparing their results with computer simulation results using Matlab or Simulink. At the end of the course each student will have the opportunity to improve their presentation skills by presenting their findings in front of their peers using PowerPoint. For the first hands-on experiment the students used a Vernier Dynamics Cart and Track System; this particular project was chosen to enhance the students' skills in trigonometry and physics mechanics. In this experiment students collected the data in the form of space and time, and were asked to find the speed and acceleration. If this teaching methodology will prove beneficial for the MET students, as shown by student questionnaires and tracking their results in the courses such as Dynamics, the authors will introduce more experiments, such as a Wind Turbine Experiment and other basic laboratory experiments. Department offers ABET accredited professional technical programs leading to the Bachelor of Science degree in four areas of study: Computer Science and Engineering Technology (CSET), Construction Engineering Technology (CET), Electrical Engineering Technology (EET), and Mechanical Engineering Technology (MET). The Department also offers a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology (IT) in partnership with the College of Business and Innovation. The MET program is the largest out of the five ET programs, with about 450 students enrolled.
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