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MASTERING THE ESSENTIALS FOR A CAREER IN TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION FEATURE ARTICLE Harry T. Roman Prologue In this article, I shall endeavor to set an ideal, a personal wish list if you will, for what I believe are the key areas of competency young technology education teachers should be developing while still in college. Not being an educator in the traditional sense, I write from the perspective of an engineer and inventor who has spent considerable time interacting with the educational community. In this paper, I profess by default to be a member of “the tech ed school of hard knocks” and a long-time devotee of tech ed principles and practices. I hope you find my thoughts both relevant and challenging, appreciating the perspective from which they originate. The Wish List There is no priority or preference inherent in this listing of preferred competencies. They are the requisites I have personally compiled over the years based on my experiences. I have tried to group them for convenience. Some Basics for Action: Definitions and Distinctions Being able to clearly draw distinctions between the definitions of science, technology, and engineering would be ideal. Our society often blurs the lines between these important terms. Tech ed teachers should see clearly the distinctions. Science is about discovery, while engineering is about application in the real world. Technology is the know-how to make what we want from what we have (resources) and is the main creative Over 60% of the annual growth in our nation’s economy is directly attributable to scientific and technological advances. tool of the engineer. Engineering and tech ed share much common ground—the human designed world—achieved in a benign, beneficial, and cost-effective manner. Most definitely, the links to engineering must be brought into the tech ed classroom. Because of the close relationship that tech ed has with engineering, wouldbe tech ed teachers should have some form of interaction with working engineers as well as a sense of their profession and the problem-solving regimen used by engineers in their daily work. A study of the history of engineering and its roots in ancient times would be of significant value. Most, if not all, of the seven wonders of the ancient world were largely engineering feats. Students should be familiar with great engineers of the world and their contributions. The first man on the moon was an aeronautical engineer! Five U.S. presidents were engineers (can you name them?). It is highly likely that a good portion of the students that tomorrow’s tech ed teachers influence will become engineers, and best that engineering be discussed at the K-12 level. It is also imperative that tech ed teachers fully understand that technology long preceded science. There are thousands of years of successful tool-making behind such a premise; but formal science as we recognize it today is a mere 500 years old. Technology is the mortar between the bricks of science, the empirical glue that holds the structure together. Good Communications The basis of all academic, and eventually corporate performance, is good communication. This bedrock skill set comes in both oral and written form and should span the gamut from short thematic writing to a fully researched project paper complete with formal footnotes, references, and bibliography, to the development and presentation of original work via formal slide formats followed by Q&A. Ideally, I would also recommend that tech ed career aspirants be able to respond to extemporaneous speaking challenges too. A powerful way to drive this message home to would-be tech ed teachers is to grade their work twice, once for its “technical” rigor and once for its “communications clarity.” That would do the trick of reinforcing the importance of good communications. All tech ed teachers should have numerous opportunities during their undergraduate experience to participate in and lead team problemsolving exercises. It is important to gain extensive experience with how this powerful educational tool should be used in the classroom. In my observations, this technique is what sets apart the tech ed experience from activities in which other teachers partake, and it is the fundamental reason why tech ed is successful in integrating the curricula. The Value of Mathematics It is not sufficient to be good at math. Tech ed teachers must be able to apply it, respecting it as another tool that helps them understand, quantify, and bound the world for their students. The ability to estimate, ballpark, and 36 April 2005 • THE TECHNOLOGY TEACHER
FEATURE ARTICLE use mathematics to place designs and potential solutions in perspective is paramount for a tech ed teaching career. Our globally competitive world runs on mathematics as it does on fuel. Tech ed teachers, regardless of the grade levels at which they will ultimately be teaching, should be able to appreciate the value of mathematics and articulate its importance in classroom activities and design challenges. They should be comfortable manipulating mathematics symbols, able to draw conclusions from its application, and trusting of the directions it indicates in their designs. It should become second nature to tech ed teachers to reach out for the mathematics tool. A Physical Feel of the World Computers are simply knowledge amplifiers, devoid of any creativity or insight save that imbued them by their programmers. A good tech ed teacher has sufficient grounding in first principles to be able to have an intuitive feel for the “rightness” of solutions, whether computer-derived or otherwise. This comes with frequent exposure to problem-solving regimens, confidence honed through success and constructive criticism, and a frank analysis of design failure. Computers are tools, not arbiters of “rightness”—and they most certainly should not be the image that springs to mind when someone says the word “technology.” Their output is to be as critically reviewed and weighed as any other data/information. As a minimum, would-be tech ed teachers should be able to explain and demonstrate with mathematics: • Simple machines and their ubiquitous presence in real life. • The force over distance action. • Hydraulics (Pascal’s principle). • How transformers work. • AC versus DC current. • The difference between power and energy. • Simple airplane flight, and fluid flow (Bernoulli’s principle). Brain-Based Research In light of the remarkable findings in the area of brain-based research, the tech ed teacher of tomorrow should be knowledgeable and versed in the classroom implications of this work, specifically the ability to: • Apply head and hands learning paradigms as needed. • Assemble balanced classroom student teams for design challenges. • Teach in a Socratic style, coalescing answers to classroom challenges. • Conduct open-ended, team-based exercises. • Teach solution methods to multidimensional problems in a multidisciplinary manner. Technology and Our National Culture and History: Understanding Our Nation’s Technological History We did not attain the status of most technological nation on the planet by accident. There is a rich history with definite phases of key technologies that mark and define the growth and transformation of our society, from revolutionary times to the present. They are: 1800-1850: Canals, steam power, textile manufacturing. 1850-1900: Railroads, steel, the emergence of natural gas, water, telephone, sewage, and electric utilities. 1900-1950: Electric power, automobiles, hydropower, chemicals, mass media, communications, and R&D labs. 1950-2000: Computers, electronics, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, nuclear power, a national highway system, TV and biotechnology. A tech ed teacher should have a good grasp of what those defining phases were and how they influenced our society. The Technology-History-Economy Triad Because we live in a free market economy and expect profit for our hard work and ingenuity, this has made all the difference in both our technological creativity and optimism for the future. Our technology, history, and economy are inextricably intertwined. Any attempt to separate them will detrimentally alter our world-recognized penchant for ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking. Capitalism and its ability to influence creativity, markets, and entrepreneurship was built into our national Constitution from the very beginning—the very fuel a fledgling new nation would need to tame its frontiers. Over 60% of the annual growth in our nation’s economy is directly attributable to scientific and technological advances. It is the very essence of our high standard of living. To effectively discuss the benefits of technology, a tech ed teacher must recognize the importance of the technology-historyeconomy triad. The Value of Infrastructure Every day, vital services are delivered to our homes, making it unnecessary for us to arrange for the availability of these resources or expend personal time and energy to gather or attain them. I am speaking of the infrastructure/services such as water, electricity, telephone, natural gas, sewerage, cable, and satellite TV. In the last few years, there have been major changes to the telephone and electricity infrastructure (cell phones, home PC use, deregulation of electricity, distributed generation sources, etc.). New technological advances have totally re-shaped these infrastructures. What a fertile area for study and what it portends for the future! Students often take these infrastructures for granted, and should be studying the origin, history, use, and growth of these essential community-based services. Competent tech ed teachers should be able to bring the value of these services to their classrooms and arrange for students to creatively explore and understand them. Technology, Ecology, and Man The internalization of environmental costs and impacts on the way business is conducted has been a significant achievement over the last 40 years. All major projects are required to divulge the potential environmental impacts of their THE TECHNOLOGY TEACHER • April 2005 37
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