Department of Mechanical Engineering

SEMINAR SERIES

Christine Cunningham

Professor of Education and Engineering
Founding Director, Youth Engineering Solutions (YES)
Colleges of Education and Engineering

The Pennsylvania State University

November 4, 2022
11:00 am
Ewing Room in Perkins Student Center               

Engineering PreK-12 Engineering Education

ABSTRACT

All students in preK-12 classrooms should be engaged in engineering learning. The diversity of student ideas and experiences in today’s classrooms represents an opportunity to foster a generation of creative problem solvers that will shape their world. Curricular resources are powerful tools that can invite or exclude students and affect their participation, learning, and identities. Thus, the design of such materials should be carefully considered. This talk will explore a set of research-based, equity-oriented curricular design principles that have been used to create engineering curricula and resources that have reached millions of students. Using examples and short video clips from preK-8 classrooms, it explores how well-designed curricula and resources can engage students in authentic engineering challenges and practices that develop their engineering knowledge, abilities, interests, and identities.
 

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Christine Cunningham aims to make engineering, science, and computational thinking education more equitable, especially for populations that are underrepresented in STEM. She is a Professor of Practice in Education and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. Cunningham is also the founding director of Youth Engineering Solutions (YES), which develops equity-oriented, research-based, field-tested curricula and professional learning resources for preK-8 youth and their educators. Her research focuses on articulating frameworks for precollege engineering education and exploring affordances of engineering for learners. Previously, Cunningham was a vice president at the Museum of Science in Boston where she was the founding director of Engineering is Elementary (EiE), which reached 200,000 educators and 20 million children under her leadership. Cunningham currently serves as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board and the Chair of the National Academy of Engineering’s Inclusive, Diverse, Equitable Engineering, for All (IDEEA) Committee. She is a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education and has received numerous awards including the American Society of Engineering Education K-12 and Pre-College Division Lifetime Achievement Award, the IEEE Pre-University Educator Award, and the International Society for Design and Development in Education Prize. In 2017, her work was recognized with the prestigious Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education. Christine holds joint B.A. and M.A. degrees in biology from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Education from Cornell University

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