Engineering as a profession faces the challenge of making the use of technology ubiquitous and transparent in society while at the same time raising young learners' interest and understanding of how technology works. Educational efforts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (i.e., STEM disciplines) continue to grow in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade (P-12) as part of addressing this challenge. This article explores how engineering education can support acquisition of a wide range of knowledge and skills associated with comprehending and using STEM knowledge to accomplish real world problem solving through design, troubleshooting, and analysis activities. We present several promising instructional models for teaching engineering in P-12 classrooms as examples of how engineering can be integrated into the curriculum. While the introduction of engineering education into P-12 classrooms presents a number of opportunities for STEM learning, it also raises issues regarding teacher knowledge and professional development, and institutional challenges such as curricular standards and high-stakes assessments. These issues are considered briefly with respect to providing direction for future research and development on engineering in P-12.

Computing in SCienCe & engineering This arTicle has been peer-reviewed. 17 H i g h-P e r f o r m a n c e C o m p u t i n g E d u c a t i o n

Inquiry-based instruction including problem-, project-, and case-based methods often incorporate complex sets of learning activities. The numerous activitites run the risk of becoming disconnected in the minds of learners and teachers. STAR.Legacy is a software shell that can help designers organize learning activities into an inquiry cycle that is easy to understand and pedagogically sound. To ensure that classroom teachers can adapt the inquiry activities according to their local resources and needs, STAR.Legacy was built upon four types of design principles: learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. We describe how a STAR.Legacy constructed for an educational psychology course helped preservice teachers design and learn about effective inquiry-based instruction.[] New developments in learning theory suggest that many teachers--the present authors included---can improve student learning by changing their teaching practices (e.g., Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1996). As college teachers, we often find that our predominant method of teaching is to assign chapter readings and then to give lectures and demonstrations of points we think are important (see also, Nunn, 1996). We assess learning by asking students to answer multiplechoice questions, give presentations, or write essays that paraphrase and elaborate on what they have learned. These methods of teaching and assessment "work" in the sense that most students can demonstrate that they have learned something. Nevertheless, the quality of their learning is often less than satisfying. Reading assignments and follow-up lectures can produce evidence of learning that looks successful at first glance but misses many elements of understanding when analyzed in more detail (Bransford & Schwartz, in press;). Students, for example, often fail to use spontaneously what they have learned in a new setting despite the fact that it is highly relevant. Whitehead (1929) referred to the failure to apply learning as the "inert knowledge" problem. A number of studies show that traditional approaches to instruction often produce inert knowledge (e.

Education in biomedical engineering offers a number of challenges to all constituents of the educational process-faculty, students, and employers of graduates. Although biomedical engineering educational systems have been under development for 40 years, interest in and the pace of development of these programs has accelerated in recent years. New advances in the learning sciences have provided a framework for the reexamination of instructional paradigms in biomedical engineering. This work shows that learning environments should be learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered, and community centered. In addition, learning technologies offer the potential to achieve this environment with efficiency. Biomedical engineering educators are in a position to design and implement new learning systems that can take advantage of advances in learning science, learning technology, and reform in engineering education.

Studies were designed to determine the effectiveness of challenge‐based instruction (CBI) versus traditional lecture‐based instruction. Comparisons were made over a three‐year period between student performance on knowledge‐based questions in courses taught with taxonomy‐based and challenge‐based approaches to instruction. When performance on all questions was compared, CBI classes scored significantly better than control classes on 26 percent of the questions, while control classes outperformed CBI classes on eight percent of the questions, but there was no significant difference in overall performance. However, students in CBI classes performed significantly better than students in control classes on the more difficult questions (35 percent versus four percent). We attribute these differences to additional opportunities available in CBI classrooms for learners to examine their conceptual understanding. Student surveys indicate a slight preference for the challenge‐based approach. We believe that the challenge‐based approach is effective and has the potential to better prepare students for the workplace and for life‐long learning.