This workshop is intended to introduce Elementary teachers to some of the philosophy and ideas behind the new engineering and technology program being introduced to RPS this year. This will include interactive use of Autodesk Inventor Cad software, discussion of the focus of communication skills, both in terms of visual and written language, and the opportunity for students to learn through active projects using the design process. Attendees will get the opportunity to experience some of the concepts of engineering design through hands-on activities. An underlying agenda of this workshop is to prompt discussion of potential pathways for future introduction of some of these concepts into the elementary classroom.
This workshop addresses the visual skills students need in order to create solutions to realistic problems in CAD and engineering electives at RMHS. These skills are applicable to many other academic disciplines and are often not explicitly taught using a coherent methodology, or students find it difficult to transfer their knowledge across discipline boundaries. This workshop explores some techniques of teaching these visually-based skills within a necessarily combined verbal and visual communication modality. It is the combination of language and technique which provides the student with an explicitly taught methodology for development of these skills.
“Project Lead The Way (PLTW) is the leading provider of rigorous and innovative Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education curricular programs used in middle and high schools across the U.S.” This interactive workshop introduces the engineering software used in PLTW classrooms and by professional engineers all over the world called Autodesk® Inventor® which is a 3D CAD software product that offers a comprehensive, flexible set of software for 3D mechanical design, product simulation, tooling creation, engineer to order, and design communication.
