International Perspectives of Technology and Engineering Education

The ITEEA's Council for Technology and Engineering Teacher Education (CTETE) Curriculum Committee solicited, collected, and analyzed several examples of international lesson plans to find out how various countries understand and/or apply the "Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy: The Role of Technology and Engineering in STEM Education" (STEL) in their own technology and engineering education classrooms. Several overarching themes--achieved independently and then confirmed through follow-up discussions among curriculum committee members--appeared in the analysis. These included: (1) Technology and Engineering Education is hands-on; (2) Problem-based learning (PBL) is a central tenet of the curriculum; (3) the STEL standards are/were not equally (or widely) utilized in lesson planning; rather, an emphasis on local (state, region, district, school) standards was evident; and (4) TEE learning is context-driven with an emphasis on the application of knowledge in specific settings/scenarios. As a means of broadening the understanding of what TEE "looks like" around the world, the lessons shared here are brief synopses of the collected lesson plans in addition to a summary of additional findings explored through the means of a follow-up survey sent to each of the contributing teachers.