Students at nearly 300 Wisconsin middle and high schools are discovering first-hand engineering and technology and the important roles they play in our everyday lives. Their schools are participating in Project Lead The Way (PLTW), a nonprofit program that is helping curb the nation’s ever growing shortage of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) professionals.
MSOE has been involved with PLTW since 2004, serving as the National Affiliate University for the PLTW’s Pathway to Engineering Program in the state of Wisconsin, and was selected as the Affiliate for the Biomedical Science program in 2011.
PLTW offers middle school and high school curriculum that combines mathematics and science problem solving in project-based learning.
The emphasis of the courses is to introduce the scope, rigor and discipline that engineering, engineering technology and biomedical science programs require.
The Kern Family Foundation, a major proponent of the program, has played a significant role in providing Wisconsin with the distinction of having the largest participating school district in the country and the fourth largest number of participating schools.
Benefit to Students and Schools
The Project Lead The Way program uses a hands-on approach to learning which shows students how math and science integrates into real life. The program touches a wide array of students, many of whom normally wouldn’t have considered engineering, a technical field or a biomedical sciences field. PLTW students have performed better than their college-prep counterparts in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments.
How Teachers Get Involved
The program's critical component is the comprehensive teacher-training model. Nearly 1,000 teachers have come to the MSOE campus for intensive, two-week training programs using PLTW-trained master teachers and professors, teacher idea exchanges and conferences for guidance counselors.
Results that Show
- In the 2010-11 academic year, 33,000 Wisconsin students were enrolled in PLTW courses.
- 298 PLTW program implementations are currently underway in Wisconsin.
- Wisconsin is the fourth largest state in the union, in terms of number of schools that have adopted the PLTW curriculum. (It’s the third largest on a per capita basis.)
- MSOE is the second largest teacher training site in the nation.
- MSOE has trained 971 teachers in the past seven years.
- In 2009 and 2010, 865 high school students were issued MSOE transcripted undergraduate credit for successfully completing their PLTW course work.
- PLTW classrooms are in more than 4,000 schools in all 50 states, serving more than 350,000 students.
- About 90% of PLTW students surveyed at the end of their senior year said they had a clear sense of the types of college majors and jobs they intended to pursue. In Wisconsin, 80% of those students indicated their primary area of study would be in engineering, technology or computer science.
- Native American and Hispanic students, traditionally underrepresented in math and science courses nationwide, are proportionately represented in PLTW.
- Male and female achievement levels on end-of-course exams are equal in all courses.
As the Affiliate University for PLTW’s Engineering Program and the Affiliate for the Biomedical Science Program in Wisconsin, MSOE’s role is to train middle and high school teachers in the curriculum so they can teach it in their respective schools; serve as an accreditation agent; educate high school counselors and middle school administrators and counselors about the program and what it involves; provide transcripted undergraduate course credit for high school students who complete the PLTW classes; and advocate for and raise awareness of the program throughout the region.
