About This ProjectProject GoalsThe Dartmouth Project for Teaching Engineering Problem Solving provides teachers with a framework for bringing engineering problem solving into science, mathematics, and technology classrooms. Teachers use the Dartmouth/Thayer framework to guide their students through the problem-solving cycle and help them develop skills in communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. Students maintain high standards for scientific inquiry while they learn how to solve the less structured problems they will encounter in their future lives in classrooms and in employment.
Partners for Engineering Problem SolvingIn 1997, working with a second NSF grant, TEPS brought to the campus eight teams -- each with at least one former participant of a summer workshop and one engineering professor from a university or college of engineering. The Partners in Engineering Problem Solving institute provided the impetus for educators at schools other than Dartmouth to introduce high school teachers to what has become known as the "Dartmouth/Thayer approach to engineering problem solving." The first replication course took place during the winter, 1998, term at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Other workshops and seminars followed during the summer and early autumn months on five other campuses, two public school districts, and a professional development consortium. The PEPS teams include:
Engineering Concepts for the High School Classroom
From 1990 through 1996, Thayer School of Engineering hosted an annual summer workshop for secondary science, mathematics, and technology education teachers. Engineering Concepts for the High School Classroom immersed teachers in the Dartmouth/Thayer framework for engineering problem solving. In teams, workshop participants defined their own problem, worked it through the problem-solving cycle, constructed prototypes of potential solutions, developed business plans, and presented their solutions to a review board of engineers. Participants also met the challenge of applying their skills to curriculum development in their specific disciplines, creating teaching modules in physics, calculus, and other courses for high school students. A total of 185 teachers attended the workshop. According to data gathered by an external evaluator, approximately two-thirds of them have integrated some aspect of engineering problem solving in their classrooms.
Project HistoryThe theoretical framework for Thayer School's engineering problem solving grew out of a course developed in the early 1960s. The objectives of "Engineering Sciences: An Introduction to Engineering" (ES-21) was to have beginning engineering students experience the practical and interdisciplinary nature of engineering by designing and building solutions to problems. The course has come to be the foundation of Dartmouth's undergraduate engineering degree program. Currently a requirement for the undergraduate engineering major at Dartmouth College, "Introduction to Engineering" is one of the first engineering courses students take, usually in their sophomore year. Because it is an exciting course and accessible to those with modest technical background, many non-engineering majors also take it. Introduction to Engineering (ENGS 21) is taught by Professor John P. Collier, who also instructs the Summer Institute, and by other Thayer School faculty members. Project Sponsors
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