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Finding the Right Type of Engineering Suppose that a student approaches you with an interest in engineering. Let’s also suppose that the student doesn’t know much about the types of engineering available. What do you tell him or her? How do you help guide them?
Posted by Celeste Baine on September 8, 2010 For those of you that know me, you probably also know that I’m working on another book. I’m always working on another book. The concept that keeps me motivated is that you never know if you are going to connect with the student that is going to be instrumental in finding solutions to the energy crisis, enhancing our transportation system, inventing new ways to listen to music or stay connected with our families or discover a technology that allows us to live longer by being more resistant to disease. The potential that students have to change the world is astounding and only limited by our imaginations. As this new school year begins, don’t forget that sometimes all it takes is an inspiring teacher or mentor to set a student on the path that helps them realize their full potential. So get out there and go get’em! Posted by Celeste Baine on August 19, 2010 What Inherent Traits Should an Engineer Possess? Last year at a special engineering event for middle school students, the host told me he only invited the top 10% of the class to participate. At the same event, I overheard in a conversation, “What inherent traits should an engineer possess? Surely some people just can’t do it?” But why not? Is mathematical ability in our DNA? Are communication and teamwork skills? How about the ability to tinker or draw or fiddle? How dare we, as a community of educators, engineers, and do-gooders, say that some students aren't somehow smart enough, genetically or culturally advantaged enough, or that some just don’t have the ability to invent new technology or have amazing ideas about changing the world for the better. If I had a dollar for all the times someone told me I shouldn’t waste my time on engineering, that engineering was only for the super smart, or for the times that I felt less than adequate in math or science, I’d have about $50. We've been culturally conditioned to believe that only one type of person can become an engineer. It's simply not true. I agree, the challenges are plenty and the cards are unfairly stacked against too many people. There are too many walls, barriers to success, and not enough support (financial or otherwise). But no, a student’s ability to create, invent, concoct, shape, think up, originate, produce and contribute isn't determined at birth. It's a choice. Posted by Celeste Baine on June 16, 2010 Even though RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has been around for years, I finally have integrated it into this blog and the EESC news. Now you can subscribe using your favorite RSS reader! The advantage for you is that you no longer have to receive this information in your email account. You don't have to worry about spam or wonder if your favorite topics have been filtered to Neverland. You can read it anytime you want and keep it with other engineering education news that you receive. Hopefully, it will help you stay updated and make your life much easier to keep organized. In plain English, an RSS feed is a constantly updated summary of site headlines, updates and content, with links to web pages. This makes RSS feeds a great tool for you to stay current on all your favorite information. If you prefer to keep receiving this via email, no worries! We won't be changing anything for you. Adding RSS is simply a way to give you a choice. Either way is ok with me. Posted by Celeste Baine on June 13, 2010 Biomedical Engineering and Girls Back in 1993, when I decided to get my Biomedical Engineering degree, there were only about 12 accredited Biomedical Engineering (BME) Programs and our class was about 10% women. Biomedical engineering was considered a new multidisciplinary field. Today, according to ABET, there are 65 programs and the enrollment is 40-50 percent women. The demand for biomedical engineers and biomedical engineering technicians is higher than ever. Advancements in health care technology are exploding, and the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that this field is going to grow at a rate of 26 percent per year for the next six years, or almost double the rate for all other jobs combined! If this sounds astonishing, just watch the news – new advancements in medicine are being made almost every day. If you are interested in recruiting girls by providing biomedical activities I recommend the following resources:
Posted by Celeste Baine on May 19, 2010 What’s Important to Girls – Lessons Learned
Informal Engineering Education So often, students are selected to participate in engineering activities or clubs because of their GPA or satisfactory progress in school. Robotics clubs are often a reward. However, hands-on activities, inquiry-based learning, experiential learning, and project-based learning are all known to be effective ways to engage learners. It’s good for students across the spectrum – those that doing good in school as well as at-risk students. The Lemelson-MIT Invention Index is an annual survey that gauges Americans' perceptions about invention and innovation. The index reported that 77% of teens are interested in pursuing STEM careers. According to the Index, hands-on activities outside the classroom are an effective way to engage teenage youth. Specifically, it reports, "Teens listed activities such as field trips to places where they can learn about STEM (66 percent) and access to places outside the classroom where they can build things and conduct experiments (53 percent) as the best ways to get them interested in these subjects. Highlighting the need for non-traditional learning regardless of setting, two-thirds of teens chose hands-on individual projects and hands-on group projects as the types of classroom-based educational methods they enjoy most." Another insight of the survey was the power of mentors in STEM education to increase youth interest. Students would like to know more about STEM in order to create and invent, and afterschool settings are ideal place to let youth explore and discover on their own. In informal environments, students can engage in STEM learning and meet active STEM professionals. If 77 percent of all students are interested in pursuing STEM careers, we need to open all the doors so every student has the potential to find their way to a fabulous career. Engineering is not a one-size-fits-all career and the old ways of evaluating student performance and potential to succeed don’t always work anymore. Posted by Celeste Baine on April 25, 2010 Mother Daughter TEA - Train the Trainer A few months ago, I blogged about the benefits of holding a Mother Daughter TEA (Technology Engineering and Aptitude) workshop. This event is by far, the best I've ever seen at reaching girls. We've had fantastic results (100% positive feedback) in that the girls are very engaged and having fun with engineering at the same time. We make hovercrafts, build towers or make helmets and jewelry. The girls are always well behaved (probably because their mom is sitting right there) so it's not a difficult workshop to manage. As you know, it's extremely important for girls to have career support at home - especially for technical careers. One group of girls sent us a picture of themselves doing more engineering at home right after the workshop. I believe that if their mom hadn't attended, she might have been resistant to the project they were attempting (let's just say it was big). I've even had several moms tell me they wanted to become engineers too! Since that time, we've have requests for so many workshops that we decided to hold a Train the Trainer event (October 2, 2010). Come to this workshop to learn to facilitate many different engineering activities, get strategies on working with and motivating girls, and leave with your own toolkit to hold this same workshop in your community. The toolkit, in a rolling duffle bag, comes with everything you need to lead 40 Mother/Daughter teams through a day of experiences - the materials for all the activities, T-shirts for the girls, a take-home engineering project for each girl, a booklet on engineering careers, and teaching engineering resource kits for teachers that attend so that the excitement about engineering that these girls experience doesn't end with the day. You'll also received detailed instructions and prizes that you can give away during the workshop. If you are trying to build more girls into your pipeline, this is a great way to start. Posted by Celeste Baine on April 18, 2010 Engineering vs. Engineering Technology - So Many Choices Choosing between engineering and engineering technology (ET) is a matter of preference for hands-on vs. theoretical work as well as consideration of working environment, opportunities for advancement, financial constraints, and time in school. An engineer and a technologist both go to school for four to five years. A technician usually goes to school for two years to obtain an associate’s degree or gets a certificate in one year or less. Engineering technologists and technicians use the principles and theories of science, engineering, and mathematics to solve technical problems in research and development, manufacturing, sales, construction, inspection, and maintenance. Their work is more limited in scope and application-oriented than that of scientists and engineers. Many engineering technicians assist engineers and scientists, especially in research and development. Others work in quality control, inspecting products and processes, conducting tests, or collecting data. In manufacturing, they may assist in product design, development, or production. Engineering technicians who work in research and development build or set up equipment, prepare and conduct experiments, collect data, calculate or record results, and help engineers or scientists in other ways, such as making prototype versions of newly designed equipment. They also assist in design work, often using computer-aided design and drafting (CADD) equipment. ET is a field that concerns itself with the application of technology. A technologist is an expert at applying technology to solve problems. An engineer may design a product to solve a problem, but the technologist will build, install and maintain it. There is some overlap in the two fields. Occasionally, with additional coursework, the technologist will also design a product, but most of the time, that is the work of an engineer. Conversely, some engineers are also involved in the build process, but most of the time that is the work of a technologist. For example, every machine has a designer, a builder, an installer, and a maintainer. Engineers are usually the designers; technologists typically build, install, and maintain the machine; and the technicians usually install and maintain the machine. Other advantages of ET degrees include:
Disadvantages of ET degrees include:
An advantage of engineering is that over the long term, you can climb higher on the totem pole. Engineers more often escalate to management positions and earn more over the life of their careers. If a career in research is interesting, an engineering degree can open the doors to further study. A terminal degree from an ABET accredited college in engineering is a doctoral degree, whereas a terminal degree in ET is a master’s degree. Advantages of an engineering degree include:
Disadvantages of an engineering degree include: Posted by Celeste Baine on April 6, 2010 Creating a New Breed of Engineer I found this article in the paper last week – is it a great idea or does it bend the rules too far? If we want to educate well-rounded engineers, is the system broken? Accredited or not, getting an engineering degree from Stanford will set you up for life. However, if accreditation is a problem, how can other schools follow in their footsteps? -- 'We're looking for kids who think of the world in terms of finding solutions to big problems, like global warming, international development, the environment," Plummer, dean of the School of Engineering, said in an interview. "We want to attract students ... who might have a wider world view" than those in the traditional math- and science-laden programs featured at the nation's top technical schools. 'We are not - and should not be - a technical institute," Plummer told the university's Faculty Senate last month. "If (students) come here, they can take advantage of all the other pieces of this campus, which are equally as good as the School of Engineering." The approach has advantages when recruiting the kind of students Stanford wants, Plummer said. But it has also brought the engineering school some grief, both from the professional group that accredits it and from the employers who hire the graduates. Although accreditation guidelines have changed in recent years, they still require that students take a certain number of specific technical classes - a more traditional program with a heavy load of math and engineering. 'We try to encourage diversity in (engineering) programs, since that's the strength of the American system," said Kate Aberle, deputy executive director of ABET, which provides accreditation for Stanford's undergraduate engineering programs. "But there is a certain body of knowledge the engineering community feels students must have." Accreditation's edge Stanford's engineering school is ranked second in the nation behind MIT. The school grants about 350 bachelor's, 1,100 master's and 270 doctoral degrees each year. Still, Stanford's push to broaden the student experience has had consequences, Plummer said. "We end up on the edge of an accreditation," he said. "We have not yet failed to get accredited. But it's a tricky thing every year - or every six years." -- Read the article here: http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-03-22/bay-area/18842156_1_engineering-accreditation-students Posted by Celeste Baine on March 31, 2010 The other day, I answered the phone to find a flustered lady on the other end that said she wasn’t ready to tell me what she needed because she expected an answering system to answer the phone. I laughed and said that you’ll always get a person answering when you call here. “How unusual,” she said. I suppose she is right. Every business wants to do more with less and an answering system is one way to automate. At a conference last November, a friend asked me why I didn’t go after big grants and get a staff to develop more materials to, “rock the world” with engineering projects, content and classroom solutions. As fun as it seems to rock the world on large scale, it’s not in my cards. I prefer an unstructured working environment and find that managing other people saps my creativity. Everyone has a set of strengths and one of my strengths is developing, maintaining and sustaining relationships. Every relationship developed in this business is part of the foundation that we stand upon. I prefer the grassroots approach because it gives me the chance to let you know that you are important to me. I think that if I lose that connection to you, I will lose the pulse of this company. In January, we hired a public relations person, Nisco Junkins, to help continue building better relationships. However, in late February, we let her go. It didn’t work out. It’s been an emotional journey that got me to think deeply about the EESC and its future direction. I'd like to share a few highlights of the future direction:
So pull up a cup of coffee, browse our resources and share your thoughts. If you have problems with anything we produce, I’ll fix it to the best of my ability. If you like a product, I always appreciate hearing about that too. Drop me an email, you are the reason we exist. Posted by Celeste Baine on March 7, 2010
Posted by Celeste Baine on February 9, 2010 Teaching Engineering in Middle School
Posted by Celeste Baine on February 1, 2010
Posted by Celeste Baine on January 26, 2010 Guest Blogger Patty O'Brian Novak: Talking to Children About Engineering Young children are natural engineers. They learn through experimentation – “hey, this ball keeps coming back even after 1000 rolls!” They are also naturally curious about the world around them. This natural curiosity and experimentation provide multiple opportunities for talking to children about engineering. Below, I’ve included some tips and suggestions for getting started. Remember your focus One key point in talking to young children is remembering to focus on them more than on the engineering. They will retain more from your conversation if your tone is light and playful. Keep it simple Let children hear the word “engineer” or “engineering.” Say these words at various points in your conversation or play (because children learn best through playing) using simple phrases such as: “Engineers helped make this book, or this ice cream, or this game.” Or “You seem to enjoy puzzles, then you might enjoy engineering.” Involve the children Ask young children “what do you think happened?” and listen to their thoughts and ideas. There are no right or wrong answers here. Let their ideas flow. Children excel at brainstorming new ideas – a crucial 1st step in the engineering design process. Encourage them with nods of your head and “I see” or “uh-hum.” Some examples of open-ended questions could be: “Oh no, my cake is soggy in the center. How did that happen?” Or “I wonder why this pen isn’t working?”Look for teachable moments If a favorite toy is difficult to assemble or their crayon keeps breaking, ask “What would you change about this toy?” Or “How would you design a crayon that doesn’t break?” Lastly, make it real Look for examples of engineering in everyday life – cell phones, computers, cars, dolls, action figures, refrigerators, ovens, etc. Talk to children about how they can be “ice cream engineers,” or “doll engineers,” or “video game engineers.” My 5 year old daughter loves to work with paper. We often say to her “You could be a paper engineer.” And my 8 yr old son loves LEGOs. We talk about how he could be a Lego test engineer. We even went to the LEGO corporate website to search on jobs. I read a few of the engineering positions to my son and he decided test engineer is what he wanted. For many children, the word “engineering” is foreign to them until about age 10 or 11. There are many ways to talk to young children about engineering and the best time to start is now. I hope this blog post gives you the ideas and confidence to talk with young children about engineering. Patty O’Brien Novak loves showing young children how fun & colorful engineering can be. She has done engineering presentations for children as young as preschool and lives by the motto of “the younger, the better!” Patty recently published her first children’s book about engineering titled “Engineering the ABC’s: How Engineers Shape Our World.” The book is available on the Engineering Education Service Center website as well as Amazon and most online bookstores. Patty thanks Celeste for her support. To learn more about Patty, visit www.PattyOBrienNovak.com Posted by Celeste Baine on January 20, 2010 Book Review: Engineering the ABC's
Posted by Celeste Baine on January 11, 2010 Every year, I make the normal personal resolutions that I’m going to lose weight, stay fit, eat healthier, etc. Professionally, I resolve that I am going to find new and improved ways to reach those kids that haven’t yet been exposed to engineering. I almost decided to stay away from resolving to do anything because I make the same resolutions every year which must mean that I haven’t been successful yet. Additionally, as those in outreach positions know, it’s a very long and difficult process to find out if a middle school student that attended your camp or participated in your contest enrolled in engineering school. So this year, in an effort to conquer my professional resolution, we have a new member on the EESC team. Please say hello to Nisco Junkins. Nisco is our new Educational Services Manager (nisco.junkins@engineeringedu.com). She is your contact point for all of our products and services. If you love a product, can’t find something on the website, want to know the grade level of a book or DVD, want to book a workshop or presentation, have questions about customizing a product, need shipping costs, need a quote or special pricing, a sole source letter, tax id information, or something else, just ask Nisco. She is here to help and make sure that you can find or get what you need. She's easy-going, good natured and dependable.In celebration, the first 50 people who write Nisco to give her a big welcome are eligible to win a free poster, DVD or book of your choice! The winner will be selected at random from among the eligible entries and announced next week on January 12. This also helps Nisco get off to a good start with several gold stars by her name. Don't wait, do it now! Posted by Celeste Baine on January 5, 2010 |
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Lesson 1: Have colored building materials. If you are using straws, get the ones with color. Same goes for pipe cleaners, paper clips, CDs and whatever else you are planning to use. I noticed several moms coming to the materials table and only taking a certain color of the supply that they needed. Even with only a few minutes left to finish their project, they were still extremely selective of color.
Lesson 2: Encourage them to name their project. Towards the end of the workshop, we completed a helmet building activity (similar to an egg drop). Acting as biomedical or materials engineers, each girl drew a face on her egg and gave it a name. Because of this simple exercise, each girl took more ownership of the project and built a better helmet for their “person”. The girls were being creative, focused on the goal and intent on saving this little person that had just been brought to life. Some of their egg people were even planning to hang out when the day was over. I’d call this visualizing success.
