IEEE PowerUP Engineers Teacher in-service Training
March 24, 25, 3006
Evaluation Summary
What:
IEEE ran a two-day training workshop for engineers to encourage their participation in
pre-university education programs with support from the PowerUP! initiative at the
Museum of Science. Over 50 engineers and educators attended the event. Thirty
evaluations were collected and summarized in this document prepared by the
PowerUP! program.
Activities and Discussions:
Attendees rated the following activities on a scale ranging from Excellent, good,
average, could be improved, to poor. 96% of the participants rated the over all event as
excellent or good. Below is a breakdown by activity/topic area. Thirty participants
completed the evaluations (roughly 80% of the total audience not including presenters
and IEEE staff).
Area/Activity
Rotational Equilibrium (using a
mobile lab to look at mathematical
properties of design and balance).
Designing a Sail
Pre University Information Session
How to Begin
Pen and Teller
Aligning with standards
Panel Discussion (with educators)
Build a Robotic Arm
Rating 5 (Excellent) – 1 (Poor)
4.5 average
This lab had the second highest number of
“excellent” responses (18/30)
4.5 average
93% of the participants rated this either
‘excellent or good’
4.1 average
3.9 average
4.0 average
3.9 average
50% of the participants rated this good with an
equal number saying it was ‘excellent’ and ‘fair’
4.2 average
4.6
62% of the respondents said this was ‘excellent’
with another 24% rating the activity as ‘good’
Participants enjoyed the hands on activities (all hands on activities scored between
excellent and good). The standards alignment project appeared to be the ‘least liked’
activity. Mapping curriculum to standards can be challenging even to a person with
specific educational training and back ground. Since the majority of participants were
engineers with out formal educational training, and no previous knowledge of the
standards, it is understandable why this had an average that fell just below good.
Effects of the Training
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Participants were asked to answer the following questions with ‘definitely’, ‘maybe’, ‘no’
responses at the end of the workshop:
1. How likely were you to work with teachers/education programs prior to this
training?
2. Howe likely are you to work with teachers/education programs after coming to
this training?
3. Did this workshop provide you with valuable information and resources?
4. Would you recommend this training to others?
The responses were very interesting. 40% of the participants were likely to work with
teachers/educational programs prior to the event, 47% said maybe, and 13% said they
were NOT likely to work with teachers/educational programs prior to the training. In
resonse to the second question, 90% of the respondents said they would work with
teachers/education programs after attending this program and 10% said maybe. No one
reported that they had no intention of working with teachers/educational programs in the
future. It would be important for the facilitators’ and leaders of this program to follow up
with these engineers to see if they did in fact participate in an outreach activity with a
school or teacher or if they need additional support to do so.
93% of the participants said the workshop provided valuable information and resources
and 7% said maybe they felt this way. With the follow up web resources that IEEE is
establishing and plans for a collaborative workshop between engineers and educators,
we will be able to follow up on this and insure that participants have contacts both within
IEEE and PowerUP!.
97% of the respondents said ‘yes’ they would recommend this training to others with the
remaining 3% saying ‘maybe’ they would. Note that the 3% is equal to one respondent.
In light of this feedback, it is evident that the training was a successful and valuable
activity. The responses below can assist us in continuing to develop the program and
address concerns and incorporate ideas of the participants. Follow up is vital to insure
that the engineers are now given a chance to work with teachers and education
programs to promote and enhance the understanding of engineering and technological
literacy.
What went well?
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The hands on session with Ralph Painter. The sail, the mobile, the robotic arm
Contacts between engineers and educators
Program in general
Robot arm
All of the hands on activities were great!
Hands on topics were all very good
Table discussions and interesting people.
Explanation as to the need for engineering education in context of keeping the
US competitive.
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The activities with simple, cheap materials went a long way to dispelling
engineering stereotypes.
I now understand what works for groups and teachers
Statement of problem, importance of a solution and demonstrations.
Hands-on activities and active Q & A throughout. Networking with in the section
and region. Sharing ideas!
The activity part was really good
The activities
Everything (3x)
Tying in the experiments to the national and state standards
Excellent instructors- especially Julie with ETF
Hands-on to show the way to implement what you have provided. It makes it
easier to bring into the class if I already know how to do it and what to expect for
complications.
Robot arm
You made us aware of a multitude of resources available to use for training.
What could we improve on?
 Food service issues
 Investigating student ‘limiting factors’
 Do less projects but allow more time per project
 Increased attendance of local teachers
 More time, more demo of ‘innovation’
 Some of the powerpoint presentations were not hard copied
 We are engineers not teachers. An overview of school districts, organizations,
standards and curriculum would be useful
 Make the day longer
 Guide line on reaching educational community (2X)
 The boy scouts rejected me, I don’t know how to make a slip knot.
 Session was good. I just wish there was an emphasis on computer science
 Standards
 Sound and light for the video portion of the presentation
 Cant think of anything
 I think if we can handout the contact info of the school representatives.
 More involvement/visibility by region/section
 A little more time on the experiments would be helpful.
 Hand outs for all briefs
 Don’t read word for word from the slides that match hand-outs. Use time for Q&A
Hand outs should include all the websites that are commented on. More time for
interactive discussion versus being lectured to.
 Timing was a bit off on some of the activities.
 The seminar ‘goals’ was not clearly stated on Friday. I didn’t know why we were
doing the activities.
 Exposure to materials and issues for teaching technology (material cost,
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educational requirements)
Are there other ideas/topic that would be helpful?
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Organize event through the IEEE local section
Connection between basic literacy and science education success
Would be good to provide educational requirements (just those related to our
areas) for all the state
Howe to reach schools with large minority populations
Samples of curriculum for all projects
Electronic use of breadboards LED’s- sample circuits, generators
A discussion of design goals, assumptions would be helpful in order ot limit ‘overengineering’ and ‘under engineering’
Computer science
WE can probably go to the school in a group and have an informal discussion
with them.
Who is the region/section coordinator?
Don’t rush me when I am trying to do the hands-on. If I am having trouble, then
my students will. I need to learn it correctly first. On the day of event it would be
helpful to have contact info from other participants (emails etc.) so I can follow up
correctly and immediately if I wish.
Fewer activities with more time will show the audience more about the subtleties
of the lesson.
IEEE should provide a contact that we can volunteer our time
Any other comments:
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Collaboration/communication between engineers and educators must continue!
Investigate ways that public education is scientific or non.
Keep up the good work!
Detailed contact sheet for IEEE staff with phone numbers and emails
Looking forward to strong positive results
Thank you for a great inspiring workshop
A very worthwhile workshop for connecting engineers to educators.
Best food I have ever had at a conference
Good course, very useful
Wonderful
It was a great experience
Region IEEE must follow up with members in order to give the needed support or
this effort will fall apart
Excellent visual aids. Hands on tasks were excellent: great meeting
I am an IEEE member, but not active. I would like list of the appropriate contacts
in region 1 as part of the materials on the website. Not familiar with IEEE
structure.
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More time needed for Pen and teller activity- It’s great as a group project. Bulidng
the robot arm was great-you gave way too much paraphenilia than necessary.
Could make competitive via seeing the heaviest weight picked up or other ways.
Add a module on how to present this to a perspective school or teacher.
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