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USF & HCC NSF - High School Technology Initiative . . . Marilyn Barger

Today's high school students, while familiar with high technology as users, frequently fail to connect underlying scientific principles to the technologies that enable their lives in so many ways. The High School Technology Initiative (HSTI) was formed as a unit of high school pipeline activities associated with a National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education (NSF-ATE) grant aimed at developing a high technology workforce for semiconductor manufacturing industries within the State of Florida. HSTI is now independently funded as a separate project by NSF to deliver and evaluate three modules. The HSTI team consists of high school science teachers from schools in the greater Tampa Bay region, USF College of Engineering and Hillsborough Community College faculty as well as USF engineering graduate students. The primary tool of the HSTI is the educational module.

Mission

The goal of HSTI is to attract and retain more high school students in science and technology career paths. The objective is to engender an interest in pursuing technology, engineering, or science related careers by providing students with connections between technology and its underlying science as part of their normal state-mandated science instruction.

Strategy

Develop HSTI educational modules that meet goals and objectives by:
  • Providing instructional material to the teacher on topics they currently teach, but packaged in the context of high technology examples that are relevant to their students' everyday lives.
  • Providing the curriculum material in a high-tech, computer based presentation format so the lessons will grab the student's interest and hold their attention.
  • Making the materials easy to use by including detailed instructions and suggestions on how to use the curriculum materials as well as background materials about the engineering and technology involved.
  • Making the instructional materials integratable throughout all of the high school physical sciences courses so students will work with the same concepts several times during their high school studies but from different perspectives and to different depths and detail.

Teacher Professional Development

An important component of the High School Technology Initiative is the professional development for the teachers. To this end, the HSTI team has developed a two part strategy for teacher professional development: the HSTI Hands-On Module Workshop and the HSTI Module Short Course. The Workshop is two to four hour hands-on introduction to the module structure, available resources and navigational philosophy. PowerPoint skills are also included if requested. The Short Courses are module specific and provide a half day series of lectures and demonstrations about the technology embedded in the particular module. For example, the Problem Solving Module has semiconductor fabrication as the underlying technology theme and its short course covers several of the important processing steps in that industry. Hands-on activities that can be done as classroom activities or demonstrations are included in the short course. The objective of HSTI Short Courses is to increase their own knowledge about the technology embedded in the module classroom materials so that they are more comfortable introducing these concepts into their classroom.

The HSTI Modules

Under the current grant, three modules will be produced over a three year period. The first module, the Problem Solving Module is currently being used in schools in Hillsborough, Polk and Manatee Counties as well as in schools in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. The Atom Module will be available for the beginning of the 2003-2004 academic year. The Waves and Fields Module will be available the following year. The context of the Problem Solving Module will be presented in the June IT3 newsletter. The HSTI classroom materials in each module are appropriate for chemistry, physics, physical science and math courses at a range of levels, including the first year college level courses that are taught at community colleges and universities.

High School Science Teachers...Marilyn Barger
Module 1 - Problem Solving

The first module developed, based on the needs of high school teachers, is the Problem Solving Module. This module presents a methodology for problem solving and basic problem solving skills using high technology examples, primarily wafer and chip fabrication. When the module CD-ROM is inserted into the drive it autoruns presenting two choices as shown in Figure 1a. These are best represented as two sides of the module; the left side is an introduction and the right side the instructional materials. The introduction content is designed to provide the instructor with an overview of the module architecture and hints for its use. Here the instructor is presented with seven hot links that lead to the following resources: Module Structure, Instructional Components, Lesson Plans, Assessment, Standards, Module Site Map, and Feedback & Contact Information. Aside from the background information here the most important information on this side of the module is the lesson plans. Understanding that the module will not meet its educational objectives if teachers do not use it, these lesson plans suggest how the teacher can integrate the units into their science curriculum. They were developed in concert with the teachers who beta tested the module, and reflect the in-class trials. Florida 9-12 educational mathematics and science standards are fulfilled by each unit of the module.

For the instructional materials a multimedia approach was chosen. An overarching video that introduces the students to problem solving was developed using examples of wafer and integrated circuit manufacturing. This video was created using live and computer-generated content and strives to connect the student to the science and technology behind the high-tech devices they use in their every day lives, while teaching basic problem-solving skills. To facilitate its use, we included the video as a VHS tape and as a video file on the CD-ROM, accessed by clicking on the video button on the module interface, see Figure 1b. The rest of the module content is contained on the CD-ROM. This module contains five different units to be presented to the student: the Eight Tenets of Problem Solving, Significant Figures, Scientific Notation, Unit Conversions, and Errors, Precision, & Accuracy.

The main navigation tool of the interface is a Module "Wheel"; which is an html-coded image with hot links. Each segment of the wheel represents one unit in the module. Clicking on that segment of the wheel will connect the user to the materials for that module unit. The materials in each unit are provided in the format of Presentations, Student Handouts, Student Activities, Worksheet Keys, Unit Quizzes, and Quiz Keys. The Presentations are in PowerPoint format and are intended to be shown during class. They include pertinent technological examples of problems, and work through all of the steps needed to solve the problems. The Student Handouts outline a systematic approach concerning how to use each of the tools presented through this module. The Student Activities are worksheets, templates, and interactive applets. The worksheets provide the students with the opportunity to apply the techniques learned from the handouts and presentations by working example problems, and will gauge the student's understanding of each topic. The templates are workspaces in the structure introduced in the presentations, handouts, and worksheets. They are intended for use with text exercises. The primary interactive applet is flashcards; a computer-based tool for the students to self assess their knowledge of the unit's material. In one unit there is an additional interactive computer activity that allows the student to graphically solve the problem presented in the video and explore issues associated with that problem. Finally, each unit contains Worksheet Keys, Unit Quizzes, and Quiz Keys for student assessment. Cognizant of the equipment limitations that many high school teachers face in the classroom, the presentations were designed such that they can be easily printed for use as overhead transparencies. The other module materials are presented as portable document format (PDF) files. This facilitates the printing of notes, worksheets, templates, and quizzes by teachers using either PC or Macintosh based systems.

Evaluation: Several evaluation techniques will be used to assess and improve the HSTI curriculum modules. Teachers will be surveyed about the quality of the materials, ease of use, and appropriateness. Students will also be surveyed about the materials and additionally for changes in attitudes towards science and technology before and after exposure to the modules.

USF: Jackie Voulgaris, voulgari@eng.usf.edu (813)974-5366 HCC: Marilyn Barger, mbarger@hccfl.edu (813)253-7852
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