By Keshawn Mellon
Currently at the Dayton
Regional STEM School, volunteers are coming in from the Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base (WPAFB), to teach the Principals of Engineering (POE) course to
juniors and seniors.
These volunteers’ names are Lieutenants
Micheal Benitez and Keith Wyman. Both of them are first lieutenants, and both are
from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). Every semester, the school puts in a request
for volunteers through WPAFB, and they send it out to other organizations that
they’re connected with so people from those organizations can apply. Each
volunteer has real-world experience, and has taken the college course, helping
them see how the information they’re teaching can be implemented in the real
world.
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| Lt. Wyman presenting new material during the POE course. |
While there is a curriculum
for the class, the instructors go deeper with the content by utilizing a
teaching technique called project-based learning, also known as PBL. PBL is
when a teacher teaches students new information and then use projects to
enhance the learning process and apply the information they learned. This
learning technique is used throughout the STEM school. Also, the volunteers can
apply what they specialize in into the class material. For example, if someone
specializes in aerospace engineering, they can find a way to infuse the engineering
of a rocket into the course.
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| Lt. Benitez explains the concept of Resultant Force to students in POE. |
In addition to using
projects to enhance the learning process in the POE class, the students do
hands on activities. In the class, the volunteers give a lecture every unit
that provides the students with new information, similar to what college
professors do. But, instead of testing over the material, students work in
groups on a new hands-on activity. This assignments use the students’
engineering skills, and the newly presented information, to build something. The things they build range from simple
machines, such as gears or gear trains, to bridges, circuits, model rockets,
computer programs, and even video games.
Thanks to our volunteers
from WPAFB, juniors and seniors at DRSS are applying their newfound engineering
skills that they are getting from a high-quality engineering class to build
many things and gather new experiences that will be beneficial to their future
careers. Thanks Lieutenants Benitez and Wyman!
