Promoting Engineering Education Among High School and Middle School Students

Abstract

with the necessary strategies to foster creative thinking, successful problem-solving skills, and the imperative to become cultured to meet these demands (Felder, Woods, Stice, & Rugarcia, 2000). In order to guarantee that students will have the critical-thinking skills to succeed as professionals and responsible members of society, we must identify the skills that we wish for our students to develop and communicate their importance to the students; additional suggestions have also been given that apply specifically to the development of problem-solving, writing, teamwork, self-assessment, lifelong learning, and change-management skills (Woods, Felder, Rugarcia, & Stice, 2000). In recent times, and through much turmoil, a consensus was reached among engineering educators as to what engineering education should encompass at the moment. The purpose of this focus is to achieve the changes necessary to bring this curriculum into effect nationally (Ernst & Peden, 1998). Three instructional approaches—active learning, cooperative learning, and problem-based learning—have been shown to achieve some successes in the training of future engineers (Felder & Brent, 2004). There were other programs conducted by TAMIU with this intention in mind. The STEM-RRG PE Cohort was such a program, in which a group of about 24 students was selected and given a year round advising, mentoring, and familiarity with the engineering programs and careers. A feature of the program is that this group of students is sent to Texas A&M University (TAMU), College Station, Texas, the largest engineering school in the country, to accomplish the task of benefitting students seeking programs in engineering (Bachnak, Goonatilake, Jin, & Belkhouche, 2010).