The TEAK Project: Students as Teachers

Rochester Institute Of Tech, Rochester NY

Investigators

Abstract

Engineering - Other (59) The project is enabling engineering students in a capstone course to design and build creative tools for teaching engineering concepts to K-12 students. Working on multidisciplinary teams, students are creating Traveling Engineering Activity Kits (TEAKs) that are being brought into K-12 classrooms, and they implementing interactive websites that can be used for TEAK follow-up and stand-alone classroom activities. Through these efforts, approximately 30-40 engineering students per year are enhancing their own understanding of engineering fundamentals. Several engineering students are working as coop students on the TEAK project and in this role they are traveling to area schools to teach engineering while developing and enhancing the TEAK offerings. The evaluation efforts is using interviews and surveys, including several established tools, to examine the impact on the engineering students' understanding of fundamentals and on the quality of the senior design projects, the multidisciplinary senior design program, and the TEAK outreach program. The investigators are disseminating their ideas and results through websites, presentation at engineering education conferences, a faculty workshop, and postings on several established databases and digital libraries. Broader impacts include an extensive outreach effort to K-12 students and the dissemination of the material through several mechanisms.