Post-Secondary Resources

By the American Society For Engineering Education

• Advances in Engineering Education
• Fellowship
• PEER Paper Repository

ASEE provides numerous resources to help people across the engineering education community. As the only engineering education society dedicated to the professional needs of engineering educators across all disciplines, ASEE connects you to a world of research and a wealth of information right at your fingertips.

Department of Defense (DoD) STEM internships allow high school and college students the opportunity to engage in hands-on research, solving real-world problems at DoD laboratories and facilities.

By The Great Minnesota State Disciplinary Get Together, Keep Teaching

This webinar is the continuation of The Great Minnesota State Disciplinary Get Together, Keep Teaching: Engineering Discipline forum. It is a conversation between Minnesota State Engineering, Engineering Technology, and STEM faculty sharing how they are solving the pedagogical challenges of distance learning. There were also discussions of techniques to support student and faculty mental health.

Check back for the video link!

By Keen

• Collaborate with thousands of other engineering faculty.
• Author content and share your resources and best practices through our custom card authoring process.
• Join and create groups within the community to drive change. 
• Contribute to the forums – an open space to ask and answer questions related to entrepreneurial mindset, engineering education, or any number of topics related to your work.

Your free membership in Engineering Unleashed opens the door to thousands of ready-to-use resources that cover a wide range of engineering disciplines. 

By the Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence

Collection of resource links related to:

• Career exploration,
• Free offers for digital textbooks, and
• Other resources related to transportation and beyond!

By the California State University System

• Teaching Materials
• Peer Reviews
• Academic Discipline & Support Communities

MERLOT is another open education resource that houses curricular resources for all ages. If you are looking for instant curricular resources, MERLOT is a great start for open educational content available to teachers.

Using A Women in STEM-themed Card Deck For Lesson Planning 

The Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) card deck contains 52 female cards. The front of each 6″ x 4.5″ card displays a picture of a professional woman with a short bio and achievements in her field(s). 

These STEM-themed cards are a fun and colorful way to keep the lesson planning fresh in your class, helping your students not get bored. Once you start this card deck, you will want to use it for every class or even as a visual aid during discussions. 

How Can Teachers Use This Deck? 

There are multiple ways that teachers can integrate the deck into their lesson plans: 

1. Use The Cards as a Brainstorming Tool 

The cards can be used as a brainstorming tool. You can ask students to think of an example of a woman working in STEM and share their ideas with the class. 

For example, one card on  FreeCell solitaire shows Rosalind Franklin’s work on DNA, while another shows Marie Curie’s work on radioactivity. The cards can be used to inspire writing prompts or make mini-biographies! 

2. Connect The Cards With The Existing Curriculum 

The cards can be used as a reference when students need extra help with a topic or concept. 

For example, suppose you’re teaching about electricity. In that case, you might have one card that shows the accomplishments of one notable woman scholar in the field of Physics who researched how circuits work and how capacitors store electric charge. 

3. Develop Objectives That are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART) 

A SMART lesson objective is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. The “A” in SMART stands for “attainable.” A lesson that is not attainable will not be attempted or completed by students. 

The following example illustrates how you can use the SMART lesson objective format to develop a Women in STEM-themed card deck lesson plan: 

• SMART Lesson Objective: Students will analyze the role of women in STEM careers. 
• Specific: Only Women in the field of Physics will be considered. 
• Measurable: Students will identify one-way women are underrepresented in STEM careers (e.g., low numbers of women vs. men with degrees). 
• Attainable: Students will evaluate three ways women can increase their representation in STEM careers (e.g., leadership opportunities). 
• Relevant: This activity relates directly to students’ interests and learning goals because it addresses why they should care about women’s participation in specific STEM fields and how they might increase it. 
• Timely: This activity can be completed within a short time (e.g., one week), allowing students to finish it before moving on to other activities or lessons on this topic. 

RTOL is a free emergency roadmap for making a rapid transition to remote learning during forced school closures. This quick-start guide will walk you through a simple step-by-step process to maintain your continuity of teaching and learning in a crisis. This program is based on a simple question, If a teacher had just one hour to prepare to teach remotely, what are the most essential things she would need to know and do?

By the Best Colleges

• Engineering Scholarships
• College Outreach
• College ranks

The Best Colleges is a great resource for STEM scholarships and college outreach. Some scholarships are based entirely on academic merit, measuring student performance in school or on standardized tests. Other scholarships use mixed criteria, determining awards based on both academic merit and financial need. No matter the case, there is no shortage of academic scholarships available for engineering students.

The Career Essentials Credentials

• Advanced Courses
• Career Readiness Skills

The SkillsUSA Career Essentials suite engages students in defining, implementing and measuring their career-readiness skills along every point in their educational journey, whether it be middle-school, high-school, college/postsecondary including the adult learner. The curriculum generates high levels of student engagement and is built on evidence-based outcomes that support the industry-validated Career-Ready Assessment.

By the Scitech Internship Program

• Paid Internships
• Networking
• Hands-on Experiences

SciTechsperience is a free, state-funded program that connects STEM college students to a wide variety of paid internships in small to mid-sized Minnesota companies. Qualified companies receive a wage match that covers 50% of a STEM intern’s wages (up to $2,500), so they have a huge incentive to hire students registered with SciTechsperience. At least 200 spots are available in 2019-2020!

By the Harbor Freight Tool For Schools

As schools close across the country and as skilled trades teachers work to reach students who are sheltering at home, Harbor Freight Tools for Schools hosted three online conversations among our network of skilled trades teachers to ask: how are you teaching skilled trades online? Below, we’ve compiled their recommended ideas and resources for remote trades learning. We hope to continue offering their thinking about this unprecedented challenge.

Resources by trades includes:

• Welding and Manufacturing,
• Agriculture,
• Automotive,
• Construction and Carpentry, and more.

By the Minnesota Technology and Engineering Educators Association

Various resources for educators related to Communications, Construction, and Manufacturing including:

• Curriculum,
• Career exploration,
• Distance education, and more.

By the Minnesota Association of Agriculture Educators

Collection of resource links related to virtual classroom support and agricultural topics including:

• Biology,
• Chemistry,
• Biotechnology,
• Career Exploration,
• Leadership and others!

By the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities

• Scholarships
• Campuses and Programs

The Minnesota Legislature has provided funding for hundreds of $2,500 scholarships at the 30 community and technical colleges of Minnesota State in the high-demand fields of: Advanced Manufacturing, Agriculture, Health Care Services, Information Technology, Early Childhood Education, and Transportation.