Introducing Middle School Students to Engineering and the Engineering Design Process

Abstract

Kimmel has been a leader in the area of precollege programs from the inception of the Center in 1980. He has directed in-service training programs for pre-college teachers for 35 years that are designed to improve the teaching of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in secondary and elementary schools, and to improve and enrich science and mathematics curricula and the implementation of standards-based instruction in K-12 classrooms. Kimmel has had numerous NSF grants and state grants focusing on professional development, curriculum, and assessment. In addition, he is a member of the assessment committee for chemical engineering.

Stem Attitudes of Students as Predictor of Secondary School Technology and Design Course Achievement

“…As students' success in STEM courses such as the T&D course increase, their orientation, and interest in STEM professions increases. Therefore, it is vital in terms of creating human resources to produce technology (Hirsch et al, 2012). For this reason, improving the STEM attitudes of the students will increase the success of the students in the T&D course and contribute to the secondary school students choosing a field that goes to STEM professions in high school.…”

“…They obtained results indicating that children could get an adequate education in STEM and achieve concrete results in cooperation with school, parents, and industry. Hirsch et al (2012) engaged secondary school students at the Exxon Mobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camp at The New Jersey Institute of Technology in the design process, albeit briefly in the summer semester. Students completed the design process, including problem identification, identifying alternative solutions, prototyping, testing, evaluating, and developing positive attitudes to the engineering design process.…”

Exploring the Integration of Engineering Design Practices in Tenth-Grade Chemistry Activities

“…The rubric was developed and the targeted textbook analysis was conducted using the conceptual framework as a guide. Numerous other conceptual frameworks served as the prototype and guide for our study ( Chiappetta and Fillman, 2007 ; Kahveci, 2010 ; Dunne et al, 2012 ; Vesterinen et al, 2013 ; Aldahmash et al, 2016 ; Hirsch et al, 2017 ; Aldahmash and Alamri, 2020 ; Aldahmash and Omar, 2021 ). Chiappetta and Fillman (2007) , for example, used alternative frameworks to outline the inclusion of subject matter content, analyze the difficulty or readability of textbooks or content, and investigate the texts’ epistemological orientation.…”

“…The findings of several studies ( Tamir, 1991 ; Dreyfus, 1992 ; Tamir and Pilar-Garcia, 1992 ; Green et al, 2006 ; Hirsch et al, 2017 ; Lopez and Garlick, 2017 ) have emphasized the need for adhering to specific rules while examining the content of targeted textbooks. The attention placed on EDP skills to enhance student’s comprehension of science and critical thinking abilities inspired us to delve deeper.…”

A system for equity: enhancing STEM education during a pandemic

“…STEM camps are an excellent example of an informal learning environment that fosters an affinity to STEM in general. First, participation in STEM camps increases students' STEM content knowledge (Hirsch et al, 2017), interests toward the individual STEM fields (Mohr-Schroeder et al, 2014) and perceptions of creativity and problem solving in STEM fields (Bicer et al, 2017). Second, STEM camps provide students with an interaction of STEM materials, professionals and hands-on experiences that has been found to influence their perceptions of STEM fields and careers (Christensen and Knezek, 2017;Kwon et al, 2019;Mohr-Schroeder et al, 2014;Vela et al, 2020).…”