Future teachers win five awards at engineering education competition

Pictured from left, front row: Greg Strimel, Daphne Fauber, Morgan Hauck, Liwei Zhang. Back row: Sean Bacha, Zach Laureano, Derek Miller, Scott Bartholomew, Rebecca Bridget, Vanessa Santana.

Twelve students majoring in engineering/technology teacher education in Purdue Polytechnic’s Department of Technology Leadership and Innovation (TLI) brought back five awards from their regional conference. The Technology and Engineering Education Collegiate Association (TEECA) event was held Nov. 2-3, 2018, at Illinois State University in Bloomington. The TEECA competitions require teams to solve challenges by combining creativity with technological abilities, which is what they’ll need to do in front of their classrooms, when they become teachers. The team won the following awards:

  • The Purdue team placed second in the Teaching Competition, which evaluates how well an individual or pair plans and teaches others about a technological topic.
  • The team placed second in the Problem Solving Challenge, where members use their design skills, 3D modeling abilities and creativity to solve a specific problem.
  • The students took second place in the Communications Challenge, which requires teams to create a 90-second public service announcement video and accompanying movie poster, spotlighting the important work teachers do.
  • The team placed third in the Transportation Challenge, where students design and create a drone frame with the ability to collect and transport objects of various shapes and sizes.
  • The Purdue students also took third place in the Technology Quiz Bowl, a bracket-style competition among the TEECA chapters.

Next on the students’ competition calendar is the National TEECA event, scheduled for March 27-30, 2019, in Kansas City.

The Polytechnic students are advised by Scott Bartholomew and Greg Strimel, assistant professors of engineering/technology teacher education.

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