About Click2Engineering
Welcome to Click2Engineering – a website to designed to transform out-of-school time engineering education and support professional learning for educators. You will find resources to help you and your staff understand engineering and lead authentic engineering experiences for youth.
In the Learning Activities section, you will find vetted, high-quality, engaging and authentic engineering activities for youth. These activities were selected to support youth engagement in practices to develop an engineering mindset. While we provide suggested age ranges for each activity, most can be readily adapted for a different age group.
Practices for an Engineering Mindset is a framework developed by Dr. Christine Cunningham, and represents ways that engineers think and work (i.e., practices). These practices help youth understand engineering and develop an engineering mindset. In this section, you will learn about this framework, the ten engineering practices, and how to incorporate or highlight these practices in experiences for youth.
In the Training Staff section, program leaders can find information and resources to use in training their staff (team). You will also find information on Click2Engineering-facilitated communities of practice and other training opportunities from Click2Engineering. Our team is happy to work with you to develop customized training for your team that can be delivered in-person or virtually. In the Blog section of the site, you’ll find articles about new resources and current topics in engineering education.
Click2Engineering is the newest site to join the Click2Science family of resources designed to support out-of-school time learning.
Evidence-Based Professional Learning
The professional learning opportunities and engineering activities used in Click2Engineering are based on a strong body of work in science and engineering education research. The Click2Engineering site is organized around Ten Practices for an Engineering Mindset (Cunningham & Kelly, 2017). Each of these practices are described in our Learning Blasts. Educators who have a greater understanding of engineering as a discipline and content area are more effective in supporting youth learning during engineering activities (Reimers et al, 2015). Additionally, we know that educators who have the opportunity to engage in developmentally-appropriate science or engineering experiences are more likely to develop deeper understandings of the disciplinary practices, which leads to an increased ability to understand youth’s ideas and reasoning during learning activities (Watkins et al, 2020). Specifically, there is strong evidence that when educators have the opportunity to observe videos of classroom activities and reflect on those videos, either together or independently with prompting questions, that they are more likely to take up and integrate high-quality teaching practices into their own teaching or facilitation (Sherin & van Es, 2009; Swanson, 2018; Watkins & Portsmore, 2021; Dalvi & Wendell, 2017). As such, we draw on these research-based practices in engaging educators in learning how to design and facilitate high-quality engineering activities.
Cunningham, C. M. & Kelly G. J. (2017). Epistemic Practices of Engineering for Education. Science Education, 101 (3), 486-505. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21271
Dalvi, T., & Wendell, K. (2017). Using Student Video Cases to Assess Pre-service Elementary Teachers’ Engineering Teaching Responsiveness. Research in Science Education, 47(5), 1101-1125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-016-9547-5
Reimers, J. E., Farmer, C. L., & Klein-Gardner, S. S. (2015). An introduction to the standards for preparation and professional development for teachers of engineering. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1107
Sherin, M. G. & can Es E.A. (2008). Effects of Video Club Participation on Teachers’ Professional Vision. Journal of Teacher Education, 60 (1), 20-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487108328155
Swanson, R. D. (2018). Boundary Crossings Between Professional Communities: Designing Online Collaborative Learning Opportunities for Informal Stem Educators. University of Colorado at Boulder ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2018. 10792260
Watkins J., Jaber L. Z. & Vesal D. (2020) Facilitating Scientific Engagement Online: Responsive Teaching in a Science Professional Development Program. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 31(5), 515-536. DOI: 10.1080/1046560X.2020.1727622
Watkins, J. & Portsmore, M. (2021). Designing for Framing in Online Teacher Education: Supporting Teachers’ Attending to Student Thinking in Video Discussion of Classroom Engineering. Journal of Teacher Education 73 (4), 352-365. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871211056577
About Click2Science
Click2SciencePD.org has provided professional development resources and support for STEM programming since 2013. The mission of Click2SciencePD is to make professional development easier and more accessible to out-of-school time professionals by providing the very best training materials, tools and resources to help frontline staff facilitate STEM in a more impactful way – so that all youth have access to high-quality STEM learning experiences during out-of-school time.
About Click2ComputerScience
Click2ComputerScience.org launched in 2021. This site’s is focused on the intersection of computational thinking and positive youth development. It’s mission is to create and deliver learning experiences that prepare youth to be creative, to lead, and to find their full potential through computer science.
Click2ComputerScience uses a blend of self-directed and facilitated learning for out-of-time educators and volunteers, for teen leaders, and for computer science professionals committed to broadening participation in computing. Resources here are focused on developing the capacity to understand and teach computer science, and to engage youth in meaningful, impactful learning experiences. Like the Click2Engineering site, we’ve collated a variety of computer science learning activities for out-of-school time programs.