To address the grand challenge of the severe shortage of qualified engineering workforce and equally important educators, engineering and education departments at Manhattan College created a holistic program called Engineering Scholars Training and Retention (STAR) program. Engineering STAR program created a collaboration among undergraduate education and engineering majors, the professors who teach them and current STEM teachers and their students in local urban middle and high schools. We developed three new academic programs (engineering education minor and certificate programs for both undergraduate and graduate engineering and education majors) to support engineering and education students who are passionate about promoting engineering for 6-12 grade students and become qualified and competent engineering educators. In addition, through partnership with local middle/high schools we developed an engineering ambassadors' program where students from engineering and education majors develop hands-on design projects and present them to middle/high school students to encourage and inspire more students to study engineering. Next, we engaged in a professional development program to support current STEM teachers to develop skills in engineering and increase the number of teachers who possess the pedagogical content knowledge to prepare students to be successful in engineering fields. All three aspects of the STAR program employees engineering design projects to introduce engineering to students and teachers. This integrative model could serve initially as a template to design such programs.
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