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• Programs and Facilities

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• ECST Senior Design Program
• S.P.A.C.E. Laboratory
• NASA University Research Center
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• P.E.T. Laboratory
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• Naval Seafloor Laboratory
• The National Center for Engineering and Technology
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Programs and Facilities

The National Center for Engineering and Technology

The National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) is one of the 17 National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Centers for Learning and Teaching in the country, and the only center addressing engineering and technology education. The ultimate goal of the NCETE is to infuse engineering design, problem solving and analytical skills in to the K-12 schools through technology education in order to increase the quality, quantity, and diversity of engineering and technology educators, and to significantly strengthen the pathways to engineering and technology professions for students.

A major thrust of NCETE is to refocus Technology Teacher Education (TTE) programs at the partner universities to prepare technology teachers who are capable of infusing engineering design, problem solving, content and analytical skills into the K-12 schools. This will be accomplished by linking TTE faculty with engineering faculty to redesign and refocus TTE programs.

Teacher Professional Development

Teachers from partnership school district are being provided with 100 hours of professional development in three phases. The first phase was designed to lay a foundation with the math, science (mostly physics), and engineering design principles to prepare the teachers to infuse engineering design into their programs. The second phase involves the use of our seismic engineering design challenge as a module that the teachers will take back to their programs. The third phase involves fall follow-up meetings of the cohort. The plan was to consider the cohort to be one group over the five years. One group that will simply grow larger each year, rather than five separate cohorts. Data was collected from participants regarding the quality and outcomes of the professional development. The participants also developed a portfolio of resource materials collected in a project binder.

The ultimate goal of NCETE is to infuse engineering content and design, problem solving and analytical skills into technology education to increase the quality, quantity, and diversity of engineering and technology educators. We do this by teaming engineering faculty with technology educators.