2007 Leaders to Watch

Mar 28, 03:39 AM

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Those who have contributed to the technology education field for many years are known for their teaching, written work, presentations, research, and recognition received from professional groups. The selected individuals who are highlighted here have shown outstanding leadership ability as educators early in their careers.

This list is by no means inclusive. There are many other professionals in the field with similarly impressive qualifications.

Individuals who want to recognize other technology educators with outstanding qualifications should forward their vitae and a sponsoring letter to ITEA for consideration.

The leaders of our field are our future; we should promote and encourage them to realize their potential.

Jeff Bush

Consultant

Design & Technological Studies

Oakland Schools

Waterford, Michigan

Jeff Bush is the Design & Technological Studies Consultant for Oakland Schools, the regional educational service agency for Oakland County, Michigan. Oakland Schools is one of Michigan's 57 intermediate school districts. Jeff is responsible for the development and implementation of K12 Design and Technological Studies curricula, assessment, and instructional programs for the schools of Oakland County, Michigan.

Jeff obtained his Bachelors of Science Degree from the College of Applied Science at Western Michigan University in 1979. After graduating, Jeff used his builder's license as a general contractor in residential/commercial construction.

In 1984, Jeff started at Lincoln Consolidated Schools in Willis, Michigan teaching junior high general shop and drafting. He also worked with elementary, middle, and high school students at Lincoln. Inspired by the Future Directions of Industrial Education Conference put on by the State of Michigan, Jeff began to move toward a systems model of the study of technology. Engaged in the teaching and the development of curriculum focused on real-world applications of academics through concrete hands-on experiences, Jeff implemented problem-solving lessons to address science and mathematics principles, as well as communication skills. Improving program content to better reflect a range of technological systems was ongoing. Units of study were created to stimulate career exploration and assist in an increased awareness of technological applications and impacts.

Returning to graduate school, Jeff completed his Masters of Arts at the College of Technology of Eastern Michigan University in 1987. In the fall of 1990 Jeff started consulting for Oakland Schools.

Under Jeff's leadership, Oakland County, Michigan developed the largest concentration of the 6-7-8 Grades' Integrated Mathematics, Science, and Technology/IMaST pilot schools in the USA. Developed by the Center for Mathematics, Science, and Technology at Illinois State University, the IMaST project was funded with support from the National Science Foundation.

Working together with our British colleagues, Jeff orchestrated a robust elementary school design and technology professional development series that worked with close to 50 pairs of elementary teachers per year between 1992-2000. Introducing design thinking, technological systems, and interdisciplinary units of study, the initiative provided innovative and creative problem-solving experiences for children to develop understanding of their academic subjects along with broad technological literacy.

A founding board member of the Learning Institute for Technology Education, Jeff is LITE's immediate past president. LITE is a Great Lakes region professional development organization that promotes and supports the implementation of design and technology education in K12 schools. Also a member of the Michigan Industrial & Technology Education Society, Jeff helped develop and chair the Technology Forum as an integral part of professional development of the Annual MITES Conventions.

Currently, Jeff is involved with Automation Alley, Southeast Michigan's Technology Cluster. Automation Alley is a future-focused organization that unites exceptional thinkers from diverse realms of technology, academia, manufacturing, engineering, production, and R&D. Jeff is working on the Math Science Partnership and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics/STEM Committees.

Jeff is a strong supporter of teacher preparation and serves as a Cochair of the School of Technology Studies Advisory Committee at Eastern Michigan University.

Jeff credits that his inspiration for education stems from his mother's love of learning, the passionate teachers he had, his graduate advisor, Harry PaDelford, and the innovative environment of Washtenaw County, Michigan where Jeff spent the majority of his life. The combination of these factors provided Jeff with the encouragement to question, be curious, and think openly about the world we live in and how we learn about it.

Jeff's quest is to establish design centers at all levels, K-12. In doing so, design and technological studies can provide for the integration of mathematics, science, and technology, and other subjects naturally through the program of study and lab activities. Design thinking allows students to confront constraints and variables whilst making decisions in the development of a plan of action that has real consequences. Students see this process as meaningful and, in due course, discover their innate talents. Accordingly, they have countless opportunities to demonstrate how they are smart.

Jeff is a proud father of two wonderful sons, Joshua, 19, and Nicholas, 13, and enjoys bicycling.

Tony Casipit

Technology Education Coordinator

Fairfax County Public Schools

Fairfax, VA

Tony Casipit is currently the technology education coordinator for Fairfax County Public Schools located in Northern Virginia. He graduated with a BS in Technology Education from Old Dominion University and an MA in Instructional Leadership and Supervision from Virginia Tech. He served as a Signal Corps officer in the United States Army prior to becoming a professional educator. Throughout his 21-year professional educator career with Fairfax County Public Schools, he has been actively involved in providing leadership to the profession, serving in leadership roles at the county and state level. As a teacher, he had the only electronics program in the state of Virginia offering four levels of instruction. He conducted numerous professional development in services at the local and state level and was instrumental in rewriting the state curriculum framework for technology foundations and engineering. He instituted a network cable engineering certification program through Lucent and C-Tech for students in his Electronics 3 course. He was president of his local technology education teacher's association. He also taught electronics through the county's Adult Education program. As technology coordinator Tony has provided leadership and training opportunities for his teachers that have led to a technology focus in interdisciplinary instruction and integrated teaching methods that reinforce core subjects. He and his teachers rewrote the state instructional framework for electronics and advanced drawing. Through his leadership and guidance, the technology teachers are using an electronic forum to collaborate and improve instruction throughout the county. He has increased the number of teachers actively participating in the Technology Student Association (TSA) and increased his teachers' membership in the Virginia Technology Education Association (VTEA) and the International Technology Teachers Association (ITEA). He has served as an adjunct instructor to Old Dominion University and provided regional technology teachers with a local graduate program to pursue advanced degrees. He is a firm believer that all students need to study technology education and that making connections for students with other subjects is paramount to successful learning.

Tony has served as the VTEA conference planner and currently is President of the Virginia Council of Technology Education Supervisors (VCTES), which acts as the state supervisor's advisory council. He has been recognized with the VTEA Northern Region High School Teacher of the Year for 1999 and the VTEA Presidential Citation award for 2006. He has been listed in Who's Who Among American Teachers three times. He received the Virginia Electric Energy Counsel's teaching award. He has been recognized by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Washington Chapter 48, for demonstrations with students at the National Air and Space Museum using innovative activities. He was recognized in the textbook Technology Education in the Classroom, by Raizen, Sellwood, Todd, and Vickers for his superior electronics and engineering program implementing interdisciplinary curriculum. One of his most favored accomplishments is seeing two of his former students became technology education teachers in Fairfax County Public Schools.

Tony Casipit is married and lives in the historic town of Occoquan, VA. His recreational pursuits are target shooting and volksmarching. He has recently taken up cycling.

Christine M. Cunningham

Vice President of Research

Museum of Science

Boston, MA

A desire to understand why some populations are underrepresented in technology, engineering, and science and a commitment to make these disciplines more accessible have grounded Dr. Cun\ningham's career. She is particularly interested in ways that the teaching and learning of engineering, science, and technology can change to include and benefit from a more diverse population.

From early memory, Cunningham planned to teach. She attended Yale College, where she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelors and masters degree in Biology, and Cornell University, earning a Ph.D. in Science Education, Curriculum, and Instruction. Her dissertation, which studied the effect of teachers' subject-matter knowledge on their classroom practice and curricular innovation, was awarded the American Educational Research Association Division K Dissertation Award and the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Dissertation Award.

As a research associate at Cornell, Dr. Cunningham led several teacher professional development projects. Her transition from science to technology/engineering education was an offshoot of her interest in women in science, which led her to consider why there are so few women in engineering. Dr. Cunningham directed the Women's Experiences in College Engineering (WECE) project, the first national, cross-institutional, longitudinal study of factors contributing to women's persistence in an engineering major. Women (21,000 students per year) in engineering at 53 universities nationwide were surveyed for three years about their background information, their experiences in and perceptions of engineering, and their use of engineering support resources.

The WECE study convinced Dr. Cunningham that K-12 experience with engineering and technology was essentialto help all children understand the world in which they live, which increasingly depends on technology and engineering, and to encourage youngsters to consider these fields as possible careers.

Her work at the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach at Tufts University focused on providing professional development for K- 12 technology, science, and mathematics teachers to foster the integration of engineering into their subject areas.

In her current position as the Vice President of Research at the Museum of Science, Boston, Dr. Cunningham works in its National Center for Technology Literacy. Founded in 2004, the NCTL works to integrate engineering as a new discipline in schools and to increase public understanding of engineering and technology via science museums. She leads teacher professional development, creating curricula, and conducting educational research about how people learn and teach technology and engineering. Her projects span the elementary to community college educational continuum. Principal among these is Engineering is Elementary-a curriculum and professional development project designed to integrate engineering and technology concepts into elementary school science lessons. Connections are also made with literacy, social studies, and mathematics.

A core commitment has been to make the materials accessible to girls and underserved populations. As of May 2006, over 750 teachers and 12,000 students nationwide had been exposed to these materials. Early pilot and field-testing suggest that students are learning the concepts from the curriculum and that students of both genders and various races and ethnicities have similar outcomes.

Dr. Cunningham has secured over $15 million in grant funding to support her research and projects. Currently, she serves as the Chair of the Advisory Committee for the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education, and the President of the American Society for Engineering Education K-12 and Precollege Division.

John R. Dakers

Lecturer in Educational Studies

University of Glasgow

Scotland

John started out in the field of architecture, ultimately running his own small practice. Although he now thinks of this as his "former life,' it remains a strong influence in his thinking today. It was in the late eighties that he started to take an interest in design education and, inspired by his wife who was a teacher at the time, he became interested in design and technology education. The result was a career shift from architecture to teaching, and he graduated with a first class honours degree in technology education in 1998. After a two-year period teaching in schools, John was appointed to the position of lecturer in Educational Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is currently writing his Ph.D. and hopes to graduate this year.

His rapid move to the university sector was due, in the main, to his disappointment with the pedagogical model being used in school technology education. It had, and still has, a strong emphasis on the perceived needs of industry and the development of psychomotor skills to that end. He has devoted his academic career to researching new, more appropriate models for the delivery of technology education.

John has been active in the Scottish Technology Teachers' Association (STTA), the Design and Technology Association (DATA), and has become active, from a distance, in ITEA where he acts as one of four moderators in the Hemisphere listserve. He also attends the conference whenever he can and was proud to have been invited last year to give the ITEA International Luncheon Keynote address in Baltimore.

It is, however, his research into technology education that drives him. His particular interests are in the development of technological literacy as an integral part of technology education. He comes at this from a more philosophical perspective than many technology educators. He does this by combining his interest in technology education with the philosophy of technology. He has published extensively in this area, and his latest book, Defining Technological Literacy: Towards an Epistemological Framework, was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2006.

He is currently working with Marc de Vries, Rod Custer, and Gene Martin on a new book entitled Exemplary Practices in Technology Education: Accounts and Analysis. This should be published in 2007. He is also currently acting as a section editor in the soon-to-be- published International Handbook on Technology Education edited by Alister Jones and Marc de Vries. Finally, he hopes to publish two books resulting from the PATT 18 conference that he is organising in Glasgow this year.

John acted as a consultant to the European Commission from 2002 to 2004 on issues relating to increasing recruitment into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects (STEM). He has been commissioned this year to take a lead role, as part of a European consortium, to undertake a three-year longitudinal research study called "Understanding and Providing a Developmental Approach to Technology Education" (UPDATE). This will investigate ways to improve pedagogies in the delivery of technology education with a view to motivating more young people, and in particular girls, to take up technology education.

John has delivered talks and lectures to audiences around the world and has this year been invited to deliver the "Hale Ethics Lecture" at the Department of Philosophy in the Rochester Institute of Technology. John's publications and teaching all centre around his passionate belief that all young people should be given the opportunity, through technology education, to develop a technological literacy, which will enable them to gain the necessary understanding, to lead a more fulfilling life in the technologically textured world they now inhabit.

Steve Parrott

Industrial and Technology

Education Consultant

Illinois State Board of Education

Springfield, IL

Steve Parrott is currently the Industrial and Technology Education Consultant for the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). His current responsibilities include the approval of Industrial and Technology Education programs. In addition to reviewing the programs and sequences in Illinois, Steve is the grant manager of Perkins and State funding for Chicago Public Schools, as well as Lake and Cook Counties. During his tenure, Steve has worked on the Illinois Industrial and Technology Education Curriculum Revitalization Project. Part of this project has enabled Illinois to join the Center to Advance the Teaching of Technology and Science (CATTS) Consortium. This has allowed Illinois to have an active role in the Engineering byDesign(TM) (EbD(TM)) curriculum. Steve has also participated on two Critical Skills Shortage Initiatives (CSSI), Manufacturing and Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics (TDL) for the Illinois Workforce Development Board. While working on these projects, curriculum has and is being developed to help integrate math and science concepts into these areas.

Steve serves on Illinois' Technology Education Teacher's affiliation (Technology Education Association of Illinois), serves as the Corporate Member for both SkillsUSA and TSA, and is the State Leader for Engineering byDesign(TM) (EbD") and Project Lead the Way (PLTW).

Growing up in the Peoria area, the main headquarters for Caterpillar Tractor Company, Steve's first calling was industry. Steve attended Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and received an Industrial Technology degree. Upon graduation, Steve began his professional career as an industrial engineer for Maytag Refrigeration. At Maytag Steve discovered that he wanted to pursue his second dream, teaching. Steve received an MS degree from Illinois State University in Technical Training and began his tenyear teaching career in industrial and technology education at Lincoln Community High School (LCHS). In Steve's last year at LCHS, he received the Who's Who Among American Teachers award. Leaving the students to work at ISBE was one of the hardest decisions Steve has made in his professional career in education. However, Steve remains very active with students, as he is a board member for both SkillsUSA and TSA.

When asked what he thought about being a Leader to Watch, Steve said, "Having a vision and ma\king the vision come true can only happen by surrounding yourself with talented, dedicated people. Illinois has many! Illinois' teachers, technology education teaching institutions, student organizations, and business partners and my coworkers have truly been an asset."

Mary Annette Rose

Technology Educator, Teacher

Educator, and Researcher

Department of Technology

Ball State University

Muncie, IN

After receiving a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Education from Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, OK, Annette pursued graduate studies at West Virginia University (WVU) while serving as a graduate teaching assistant in Project OPEN administered by Dr. David McCrory. In this capacity, Annette developed and implemented technology curriculum for Cammack Junior High School in Huntington, West Virginia, while conducting research on the effect of problem- solving instruction upon students' figurai creativity.

Upon completion of her Master's degree from WVU, Annette taught technology-based curriculum at Laurel Middle School, Delaware and then Norview High School in Norfolk, Virginia. While at Norview, Annette received three interdisciplinary teaching grants and was the recipient of two awards, including the "Outstanding Teacher" from the Tandy Technology Scholars in 1996 and the Rufus W. Beamer Excellence Award in 1996 for an outstanding interdisciplinary project.

In 2002, Annette completed her doctoral degree in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University and joined the faculty at BSU She carries out academic research in peer-directed learning strategies in asynchronous online environments and in strategies to build critical thinking and teaching efficacy among preservice teachers. In honor of her published research report, Comparing Productive Online Dialogue in Two Group Styles: Cooperative and Collaborative (2004), Annette received the 2005 Wedemeyer Award for Outstanding Scholar in Distance Education presented by the American Journal of Distance Education and the 21st Annual Conference on Teaching and Learning at a Distance.

At BSU, she teaches online graduate courses in educational research and curriculum development in the M.A. in Technology Education and the M.A. in Career and Technical Education programs. In addition, she teaches several undergraduate courses, including Technology Education for Diverse Populations and Energy Processing. Within all these courses, Annette emphasizes the development of critical-thinking skilis that enable individuals to assess technological innovation and make well-informed decisions about its safe use, management, and disposition based upon empirical evidence and principles of sustainability. Annette's service to the community includes helping to plan a regional fair aimed at educating and inspiring homeowners and commuters about practical products and practices to live more sustainably, especially as this relates to conserving energy and material resources.

Annette is a contributing member of the International Technology Education Association and the Mississippi Valley Technology Teacher Education Conference. She has and continues to serve the education profession through national presentations, peer-reviewed publications, grant writing, state curriculum planning, and national committee membership. In addition, Annette serves as a member of the Editorial Review Board for The Technology Teacher and a reviewer for The American Journal of Distance Education. Annette shares her professional interests with her husband, Jim Flowers, Professor and Director of Online Education at BSU.

Copyright International Technology Education Association Mar 2007

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