Ac 2011-1284: Implementing the Capstone Experience Con- Cept for Teacher Professional Development

The need for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) workforce is well documented in the literature. The lack of interest among school-age students in STEM careers and the reason for such lack of interest are also well documented. Pedagogical research suggests that K-12 students learn best by engaging them in activities that relate to their daily lives and that reinforce principles through hands-on tasks. Research also suggests that the engineering design process (EDP) offers the best platform to implement these activities because it typically involves critical thinking combined with hands-on tasks to motivate the students. While many variations of using the EDP in student teaching exist, we introduce an innovative methodology of using and implementing the concept of “capstone experience” at the high school level; the EDP encourages open-ended problem solving and multiple solutions. The capstone experience is rooted in the capstone design project course that is typically required in the ABETaccredited college engineering curriculum. Students are motivated by the capstone experience because it shows the elegance of the EDP and relates to how engineering is used in practice to design and manufacture products. In order to teach the EDP and capstone experience effectively, high school teachers must experience, learn and use the EDP themselves. Our methodology begins by educating the teachers about the capstone experience and how to incorporate it in their classroom instructions when they return to their schools. We continue to work with and monitor the teachers during their teaching activities over one academic year. We have implemented the capstone experience in the first year of a three-year NSF funded project. We have developed and delivered a professional development (PD) course for teachers in urban school districts such as Boston (Massachusetts) Public Schools. The paper covers the details of the capstone-based PD program and how it is designed and implemented to advance the pedagogical skills of the high school teachers, the results, what we have learned, and the data we collected. We discuss the two types of data we collected (attitude and content knowledge) and what improvements we plan to make for the next PD offering next year. The paper also discusses the evaluation methods developed by the project evaluator and the insight gained from the data analysis. Data is presented on teacher attitude change as well as content knowledge change. The lessons learned and the data analysis should be helpful for other school districts who might be interested in implementing capstone design projects, especially as more states are looking to include engineering standards for high school students.