TEEAP News

The Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEAP) has officially become the Technology and Engineering Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEEAP), as a result of the balloting of the association’s voting membership. TEEAP’s Immediate Past President, Peter Wright, received and tabulated 122 valid votes that were sent on or before June 11th, 2010. 92 votes were to change the name of our association to TEEAP (The Technology and Engineering Education Association of Pennsylvania) while 30 votes were to leave the name as TEAP (The Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania). 75.4% of the valid votes were for the name change while 24.6% were against it. TEEAP won by a 3 to 1 margin.

The name change properly positions the association to deal with the ‘T’ & ‘E’ of a strong STEM education and allows the association to begin to address curriculum and professional development that includes both technology and engineering education at the K-12 level. The association’s membership has been comprised of teachers who have been working in both areas with some already having “engineering” in their department or course titles. Additionally, the Technology and Engineering Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEEAP) is now aligned with the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA).

TEEAP’s publication titles and electronic communications have started the transition to new names and addresses to be in line with the association’s new name. The association’s new primary web address is www.teeap.org.

Click here to view the Survey Results in PDF format.

There were 275 individuals who responded to the TEAP Name Change Investigation Survey that was emailed to members of the TEAP Listserv last week.  Results of the survey were emailed to you or can be obtained at the link above. Please take a few minutes to review the results and provide feedback in the TEAP Name Change Investigation Survey Results section below.

Thank you for your input into this important issue that faces our association.

Sincerely,

Brandt Hutzel, 2010 TEAP President

Joanne Trombley, NCI Committee Chair
TEAP Council for Leadership President

The Name Change Investigation Committee (NCI) was formed on November 7, 2009, at the Saturday TEAP Executive Board meeting.  The committee was formed by myself, 2010 TEAP President Brandt Hutzel, to address the C-2010-5 (Investigation of Association Name Change) resolution.  The resolution reads as follows:

WHEREAS, in 1986 the Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania assumed its current association name to reflect a changing curricular focus, be it therefore

RESOLVED, that the Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania will investigate a name change for our association that would better reflect our curricular focus as the T&E in STEM education.

Joanne Trombley was appointed NCI Committee Chair and the following TEAP members volunteered to serve on the committee:  Tanner Huffman, Len Litowitz, Peter Wright, Bill Bertrand, Dan Vavreck, Dan Engstrom, Jared Bitting, Stan Komacek, and Brandt Hutzel.  The committee conversed via email during November and December and participated in a Skype video conference on December 12, 2009.  Several committee members were charged with writing a series of short articles to express varying positions on the subject of an association name change.  These articles will serve to facilitate discussions by all TEAP members using the NCI blog section of the TEAP website.  The NCI blog will remain open January 6 – February 1, 2010.  The NCI committee will meet again via Skype on Saturday, February 06, 2010 to review the blogs and to develop a survey.  The survey will be made available to all TEAP members from February 8- February 24, 2010.  The NCI Committee will meet in Bedford on February 26, 2010 to review survey results and formulate a recommendation or report to give to the board on 2/27/10.

UPDATE 02/27/2010: Comments have been closed for this thread, please feel free to continue the discussion on the Survey Results thread above.

Submitted By: Dr. Peter Wright

Pennsylvania has one of the strongest technology education systems of any state in the USA.  We are treated as a required general education subject allied with science.  We are required at the middle school level and our subject must be offered at the high school level although it is not requirement for all students.

It took many years and much effort for our Technology Education Advisor to achieve the move off of the vocational floor at PDE and onto the floor where the other general education programs are housed and to get us accepted as part of Science and Technology  and to be part of the future PSSA tests.  Through the efforts of many people, our goal of being a required general education subject for all students has to some extent been realized.  We have partially escaped the pre-vocational trap of being considered only useful for certain students.  The push for technological literacy for all has been rewarded in our state.

While people do have a positive view of engineering, they also view it as an occupation for the top quarter of students.  We use the phrase “to engineer something”, but most of the public views “engineering” as a noun tied to a vocation.  In fact, collegiate engineering education is typified by higher and higher levels of math knowledge (Calculus 1-4) being applied theoretically to physical systems.  If we change our name and claim to represent both Technology Education and Engineering Education we must be ready to answer many questions.  Are these Technology Education and Engineering Education the same thing or is Engineering Education for the top quarter of all students?  Would Technology Education teachers and Engineering Education teachers need the same skills and preparation or should Engineering Education teachers be required to have at least taken one calculus course?  Many other questions and impacts would arise.
 
The engineering societies that are interested in K-12 Education are focused on increasing the supply of engineers in this country.  This is a worthy goal for us no matter what our name is.   However, by adding the name of this vocation to our discipline name, we risk having a vocational engineering track for the top students and a general low-status technology track for all of the others.  If this happens, it will be hard to claim that the study of technology is a general education subject that all students should take.  Names are important and they send out multiple messages both positive and negative.

Some other reasons I believe it is a mistake to add the word “engineering” to the name of our association and discipline are the following.

• Loss of communication content to English, drama, and art
  More and more of our teachers are being told that the art department should teach digital photography and the English or drama teachers should teach video production.  Adding “engineering” to our name could make this problem even worse as we will be viewed most often as materials processing.
• Loss of claim to be an academic discipline
  An academic discipline has a unified body of content that can be delineated.  Math. English, and science are academic disciplines and required general education subjects.  Technology is an academic discipline (and so is engineering) but “technology and engineering” is not.  It is like “math and accounting” and may be viewed as more of an elective than a necessity like Family and Consumer Sciences.
• Simplicity lost
  Try saying “Technology and Engineering Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEEAP)” and then explain it to someone.  Any longer association name would cause the same problem.  The simpler and shorter a name is, the better.  All required general education subjects have one word names like math, English and science.  Biology is taught under the umbrella of science just as engineering content should be taught under the umbrella of technology.
• Loss of logical name
  Adding a name (engineering) that is part of the content area of technology so that we sound like we are trying to have “Math and Accounting” declared a general education subject or “English and Journalism”

And as discussed above –

• Addition of the name of a vocation to our general education subject
  Adding the name that the public views as a job category to what should be a required general education subject is a mistake. If we are not aiming to have the study of technology required for all students, then what are we trying to achieve?  Adding the name of an occupation to our subject area further blurs this line and gives ammunition to those who say we should only be for students who desire technical careers.

I believe we should keep our field of study focused on “Technology” as a subject that all students in today’s modern world should take every year.  We can actively position ourselves as the home of the T and E in STEM and individual schools and programs can call themselves whatever they want and use the word engineering as often as they wish.  I just believe that the name of the field (the subject) should remain “Technology” and that we will risk losing the progress we have made and blurring our message by trying to add something else just because a word is currently popular.

One marketing message might be something like the following.

• Technology Education: The home of applied math in the schools
• Technology Education: The home of STEM in the schools
• Technology Education: The home of manufacturing in the schools
• Technology Education: The home of video production technology in the schools
• Technology Education: The home of engineering in the schools

And so on, keep the slogan but keep adding items that we are the home of.

If we must change the name, how about changing it to something that mirrors PA math and science associations and more clearly communicates who we are such as something like the following – Pennsylvania Association of Technology Teachers (PATT).

UPDATE 02/26/2010: Comments have been closed for this thread, please feel free to continue the discussion on the Survey Results thread above.

Submitted by: Len S. Litowitz, Professor & TE Program Coordinator, Millersville University

A Bit of History
In 1986 the Industrial Arts Association of Pennsylvania changed its name to the Technology Education Association of Pennsylvania (TEAP) following the lead of many other state associations and the membership of the American Industrial Arts Association who had voted to change to the International Technology Education Association a few years earlier. At that time the name change was driven in large part by the evolution of the American economy from that of an industrial nature toward a more technological nature.  To the extent that the name change served to challenge our profession to move away from our industrial roots toward more progressive technological content it was the correct thing to do. But those of us with long history in the profession know that the name change resulted in some negative impacts for the association as well.  Some members did not agree with the name change and this resulted in a decline in membership. Many agreed with the name change but would now acknowledge that the term technology and the subject title of technology education have been problematic in that they are frequently misunderstood in any number of ways that you are all likely familiar with. For whatever reasons it is my contention that the present title for our profession has failed to gain traction on a nationwide basis, although we have made considerably more progress throughout Pennsylvania than have many of our sister states. ITEA’s Standards for Technological Literacy (2000) and Pennsylvania Science & Technology Standards (2002) provided an increase in traction around the turn of the century, but eight to ten years later now those gains have been largely offset by budget concerns, A lack of cohesive curriculum, and legislation such as No Child Left Behind that is rapidly turning public education into a two subject curriculum – and I don’t need to tell you that we are not one of those two subjects!

Why Engineering?
So why consider a name change to include engineering? Because we need to rally around some things that will help to reverse these trends and provide us with the traction we have long sought as a profession but that has been so illusive. Will a change in focus toward engineering do the trick? In my opinion it sure couldn’t hurt. Why?

1. Because engineering is a term that people can relate to. Engineering has curb appeal. People are buying engineering. It has become a very marketable term.
2. Because people think they know what engineering is, even if they don’t. People think they know what technology is. Unfortunately, it is Not our definition of technology that they recognize.
3. Because we should be doing more to attract the top 20% of our high school classes when we have and continue to do so much for those on the lower end of the spectrum.
4. Because we should be doing more to offer courses and curricula that are more purposeful and more intentional with regard to math and science.
5. Because we need to start positioning ourselves to be the T&E in the heart of the STEM acronym.
6. Because our newly proposed Science & Technology Standards refer to us as Technology & Engineering as a way of more clearly defining our content.
7. Because, in the words of an association consultant that recently spent time with the ITEA executive board, engineering is sexy.
8. Because such a change has already done world of good for some tech programs that were on the ropes here in PA.
9. Because it will posture our profession to take advantage of all types of STEM legislation that is being proposed as you read this information.
10. Because if we don’t move toward engineering someone else will. The American Society of Engineering Educators (ASEE) has had little historical interest in K-12 education until the last decade. Their motives may be vocational in nature (those espousing engineering education for the purpose of creating more engineers in this country), but they are beginning to develop a following and have an impact on educational policy.

You may disagree with me but many others have already reached this conclusion. A case in point. At the time of the last name change of our parent organization from AIAA to ITEA in 1983 none of ITEA’s affiliate organizations (including TEAP) had changed their name to reflect technology prior to the name change of the parent organization. Could it be said that TEAP would be on the front edge of the curve if we were to contemplate a name change to address engineering in our title at this point in time? Not entirely. Several state technology education associations have already included the term engineering in the title of their association and others are considering such a change at the time of this writing. A handful have also maintained their titles but included engineering in their mission statement. Titles such as the Georgia Engineering & Technology Association or the Engineering/Technology Educators of Indiana are now becoming commonplace. Why? Because these states recognize that we already do as much with the engineering process as any other subject in the public schools. They recognize that the technological method and the engineering method are mutually compatible with one another. They recognize that the definition of engineering and the definition of technology can be quite similar. And they recognize that the term engineering allows them to market in ways they had never thought possible. Lastly, they recognize that it only makes sense to lay claim to both the T and the E in STEM before another subject does.

Questions for the TEAP Membership
Name change is a serious issue that should be debated rigorously, both pro and con. Here are a few questions to ponder if we were to change. If we did change, would it be just a change in name? What type of changes in curriculum would be necessary to support a true technology & engineering education curriculum? Can we bolster our math, science and research skills to deliver an effective T&E curriculum to high school students as a natural outgrowth of middle school technology education programs? Or, is a name change just a marketing gimmick? And if it is just marketing, is that necessarily a bad thing either?

UPDATE 02/26/2010: Comments have been closed for this thread, please feel free to continue the discussion on the Survey Results thread above.