Student Engagement Study

Over the next 15 months, Center on Education and Work researchers will work with educators and local business leaders in a stratified and randomly selected set of 15 communities committed to implementing a pre-engineering program in this middle and/or high schools. Our major purpose is to develop knowledge and resources that assist the Wisconsin educational community and their local business partners, as well as State and local policymakers, in advancing high quality STEM education efforts. To support and expedite the implementation of Wisconsin education reform efforts, such as joining the national Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Governor Doyle’s Grow Wisconsin initiative, educators and local partnerships are currently faced with important student engagement questions. Expanding the involvement in and commitment to these efforts rests, in large part, on the question: To what extent do STEM curricula enable students to learn about and solve real world problems engage students in acquiring the knowledge and skills that make them both college and career ready before leaving high school?

To address this question, we will undertake two major objectives:

1. To document the extent to which the PLTW and GTT instructional enhancements are associated with improvements/gains in student engagement and educational outcomes for all learners, including girls and students from diverse backgrounds.

2. To prepare and disseminate a series of critical information resources, including research and promising practice briefs and associated presentations, for key policy and leadership groups in STEM education and workforce development.

Funders: Kern Family Foundation and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation