Research On The U.S.K-12 Engineering Education

Along with the penetration of K-12 STEM Education reform,the integration of its four parts has begun to be a hotspot in education both for discussion and practice.As a key catalyst in integrating,Engineering Education is an inevitable issue for academic concerns integration.Aiming at improving the public engineering literacies,K-12 Engineering Education breaks through the limit of traditional limitation of engineering education.In China,the engineering education in higher education has developed rapidly,which still unable to meet the increasingly social need.Therefore,with K-12 Engineering Education as its object,this dissertation studies the relative reports,latest research achievements and cases.Applying the method of literature research,this dissertation studies the following aspects and forms the points of views as following:Firstly,this dissertation traces the influence factors and historical development by the terms of the U.S.K-12 Engineering Education.The dissertation argues that social reform has changed the requirements for public engineering literacies Meanwhile,this transformation in values also conforms to the development of engineering education.Furthermore,the concern on science,technology and engineer,and the integration tendency in K-12 curriculum also promote the K-12 Engineering Education.Then,this dissertation also discusses its theoretical foundations from the following perspectives:the trialistic theory of science,technology and engineering,the key competencies and Learning Sciences.Then,the connotations of public engineering literacies and K-12 Engineering Education are presented.The demands on K-12 Engineering Education are interpreted.The dissertation considers the K-12 Engineering Education in the following dimension:goal,standard,implementation and assessment.In terms of its goal,there are three dimensions:basic engineering knowledge,basic engineering(and relevant)abilities,and public engineering literacies.Surrounded the above mentioned goals,the dissertation discusses the integrated standards in K-12 Engineering Education.In the implementation,K-12 Engineering Education involves the engineering tasks in daily lifes as its content,carries out the cirruculum in the form of integrating with other kind of education or on its own,and regards Engineering Design as its core.With the example of NEAP assessment,the dissertation emphasis assessement on Engineering Literacy is its measure for quality assurance.Then,the paper analyzes some experience in successful engineering curriculum with the example of Project Lead the Way with explanation its key advantagesThis dissertation concludes the advantage of K-12 Engineering Education in U.S.as follows:with the emphasizing of real context,with the emphasizing of iterative design and amendment,with the emphasizing of integrity of curriculum,and with the autonomous learning company with collaborative learning etc.Meanwhile,K-12 Engineering Education is also faced with some dilemma.After introspection and comparison,the dissertation gives some enlightenment,including that we all parties should identify the promotion of public engineering literacies as valve orientation,launch pilot projects in K-12 schools,command some ideas in U.S.K-12 Engineering Education to promote our curriculum reform,and help the integration of STEM by introducing K-12 Engineering Education.