STEELS: Planning for T & E Learning and Integration K-12

Instructor(s): Peney E. Wright

Description of Activity:  

Our goals are for students to learn how scientific knowledge is acquired and how scientific explanations are developed. Secondly students learn how science is utilized, in particular through the engineering design process, and they should come to appreciate the distinctions and relationships between engineering, technology, and applications of science. The iterative cycle of design offers the greatest potential for applying science knowledge in the classroom and engaging in engineering practices.  (Framework, Chapter 8 Dimension 3 Disciplinary Core Ideas – Engineering, Technology and Applications of Science, 2012)

We’ll answer What is Engineering? What is the Engineering Design Process? and What is meant by the “applications of science?”

Read beforehand: A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas, Chapter 8, pgs. 201-213. Free download and available by chapter at the National Academies Press (NAP) site here.

STEELS Technology & Engineering - Focuses on the interactions among technology, engineering, society, the environment, and other disciplines, with a goal of developing individuals that can create, utilize, and assess current and emerging technologies. The standards are written as grade-banded performance expectations built around technology and engineering strands, practices, and contexts and integrated into a set of specific standards. These components are elaborated upon in Foundation Boxes (hyperlinked for each standard) providing support for design of curriculum and instruction.  (STEELS K-12 Standards, pg. 2, 2023)

This deep dive will include a focus on:

T & E Long-term Transfer Goals

Students will be able to engage as technological and engineering literate members of a global society, using their learning to:

1. Analyze a problem in its entirety while recognizing the subcomponents interacting with human-made and natural environments.

2. Apply investigation, imagination, innovative thinking, and physical skills to accomplish goals.

3. Employ hands-on problem solving, i.e., designing, making/building, producing, and evaluating outcomes.

4. Acquire, analyze, and evaluate information to reach an informed conclusion, using logic and reasoning skills.

• Layer in computational thinking: decomposition (breaking down the complex into smaller, simpler essential parts), pattern recognition (making connections between similar problems and experiences), abstraction (determining what is important and what unrelated or irrelevant), and algorithms (detailed and precise step by step instructions or directions)

5. Investigate better solutions through a belief that opportunities can be found in every challenge.

6. Collaborate as part of a team, valuing the contributions of all members.

7. Exchange and explain ideas by sharing information with a larger community.

8. Demonstrate integrity and conscientiousness, considering ethical issues involved

T & E Multi Dimensions:

Technology & Engineering Strands 

• What all students should know and understand
• What they should be able to do
• And their attitudes towards each
   

Technology & Engineering Practices

• 21st Century Skills and Engineering Habits of Mind
• Essential Skills for TE Literacy
• Attributes and Personal Qualities towards each

Technology & Engineering Contexts – rigorous and high level 21st Century Contexts

• Practices apply across contexts
• Essential Skills for TE Literacy
• Attributes and Personal Qualities towards each
   

STEELS T & E Standards and Curriculum Framework
Intentional Planning and Integration of T & E

• K-5 ELA, Science and Math Integration
• 6-12 Project-based Learning Integration
• Planning with STEM Teachers and/or Library Media Specialists
• Links between Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society
   

Read beforehand: A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts and Core Ideas, Chapter 8, pgs. 201-213. Free download and available by chapter at the National Academies Press (NAP) site here.

  Audience: administrators, K-12 STEELS educators, STEM teachers, library media specialists, special education educators, paraprofessionals, substitutes