Flexible, relatable, affordable
Engineers On Deck training workshops
Engineers On Deck training workshops enable teachers in STEM fields with little or no background in engineering to present the field as relevant, engaging, and open to all their students.
Teachers learn the basics of engineering design through hands-on, easily reproduced lessons that are cross-disciplinary and grounded in real-world challenges.
They learn how to integrate engineering into teaching content from other STEM fields.
They discover how to use engineering as a way to connect technical knowledge with critical skills like analysis, teamwork, and communication.
They take away immediately usable knowledge and tools to make engineering a substantive feature of their students’ learning.
The benefits
Our teacher training program is designed to meet the individual needs of particular schools or districts.
We work first to understand their local circumstances and existing capabilities in developing a training activity that helps them meet their goals.
We customize the subject matter of training sessions to align with schools’ own areas of interest or emphasis.
We provide training at a time and location convenient to participants.
We engage with teachers before and after training events to support both their learning and implementation efforts, helping make engineering in the classroom a collaborative enterprise for participants from a given school or district.
We work with third-party funders to make training no or low cost for participants.
Our approach
Always hands-on
Examples of what we do - With support from the George Mason Mechanical Engineering Department, we offered a full day workshop for Manassas City, Manassas Park, and Prince William County Public School in Virginia. Twenty three educators attended and participated in hands on sessions in mechanics and forces, electric circuits, light and sound, projectiles, and fluids and flight. teachers were provided content as well as supplies to allow them to immediately implement the activities in their classrooms. A pre- and post-survey indicated that the teachers felt an average of 48% increase in knowledge and understanding of the topics offered after the workshop as well as an 83% average likelihood they would share topics with other teachers. Educators self reported over 16,000 students and 500 additional teachers would be affected by their attendance. All said they would recommend this workshop to others and all commented positively about the benefits of the workshop.
With support from Florida Atlantic University Stiles-Nicholson STEM Teachers Academy, we offered several workshops to support teachers in the West Palm Beach area in engineering design and project based learning. Pre and post surveys were used to identify an 180% increase in teacher confidence in content knowledge in the area of physics, energy transformation, and engineering design.
Another successful series - The Cyber Workshop, offered on multiple occasions to Anne Arundel County, introduced teachers of all levels to basic cyber technology principles, and included interactive activities to help reinforce the principles. Topics focused on cyber terminology, careers, cryptography and ciphers, coding and logic, algorithms, offline and online programming and robotics. Engineers on Deck developed appropriate content and hands-on activities for an introductory course as well as an advanced session, provided necessary materials and supplies for teachers attending, provided lecturers for the workshop, and maintained communications with educators for follow up conversations about the technologies.
