The US spends more per capita on education, yet lags behind many countries in math and the sciences. We, the National Engineering Honor Society Tau Beta Pi, thus feel compelled to work toward improving the trends in math and science education in the US to ensure a strong future for our profession and country. To this end, we are pushing a national initiative, code-named MindSET, whose goal is to increase the number of students who are prepared for careers in math, science, engineering and technology. As such, the program targets students who are off-track for completing Algebra 1 by 8th grade, and hence calculus by 12th grade, or who lack the motivation or encouragement to excel in math and science. These include women, minorities, and other populations that are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Without an encouraging and stimulating math and science environment, these students will be denied access to lucrative career fields. While MindSET does not specifically target students who are already doing well in math and science, these students are not excluded from the program.

MindSET aims to address its goals using a three-pronged approach:

1. Student Education
2. Parent Workshops
3. Teacher Training

While TBP chapters may host or advertise Teacher Training sessions and Parent Workshops, they will primarily focus on complementing student education through after-school or weekend programs with school kids. Thus, this guide primarily focuses on running student sessions. The K-12 programs will be assessed based on standardized metrics (see the data collection section) to determine their effectiveness. Therefore, chapters are also responsible for collecting and tracking this benchmark data.

The following are the high-level steps to organize and run a successful K-12 program.

1. Identification and planning
   1. Identify resources
      1. Officers needed to run the program
      2. Number of members and electee candidates available to volunteer
      3. Other societies willing to participate
   2. Select schools
      1. Identify local elementary, middle, and high schools in feeder patterns
      2. Establish relationship with the district and the schools of interest
      3. Contact schools and collect benchmark data, which should be sent to TBP headquarters
2. Implementation
   1. Select location, date, and time
   2. Choose modules, create your own, or recruit other societies to create some
   3. Recruit teachers and volunteers (both TBP and other societies)
   4. Advertise student sessions and register students
   5. Run sessions
3. Programs organized by Headquarters
   1. Teacher Training
   2. Parent Workshops

Your chapter should start by identifying an advisor (or alumni) who can help organize your MindSET program. You must elect a MindSET officer or chair. Your advisory board should meet to outline expectations and answer the following questions:

• Which officers will be responsible for managing your MindSET program?
  Depending on your chapter's specific needs, you may have fewer or more coordinators. An example of MindSET positions:
  • Primary Coordinator - In charge of coordinating the entire effort.
  • Fund-raising Chair - Obtain additional sources of funds, e.g. by advertising to companies, applying for the TBP MindSET Grant (http://www.tbp.org/mindset), etc.
  • Society Outreach - Reach out to other societies for volunteers, and recruit societies to create and execute modules.
• How many members or electees are available to help run Saturday sessions?
  Personnel needs are driven by number of participants - it is important to have a good volunteer-to-student ratio. The number of participants is determined after chapters have identified their schools and planned their activities. Feel free to use non-TBP volunteers as well - quality of education is a widespread concern.
• Are other campus organizations interested in getting involved?
  Identify societies that may be interested in participating in the K12 effort. Various societies - especially other honor societies - may already require their members to do service and may be on the lookout for opportunities. Do not overlook involvement of community college engineering-prep students where possible.
• Where will you host the Saturday session?
  Are campus rooms available? The K-12 students get a kick out of participating in activities on the university campus. A community college campus is also a good site.
• What High Schools, Middle Schools, and/or Elementary will you target?
  Work with the school district to select a small group of starter schools in a feeder pattern. Typically, chapters should not start with more than 4 schools for example: one elementary, two middle, and one high school which are in a feeder pattern.
• When will you start Saturday sessions?
  Typically chapters should not attempt more than 5 Saturday Engineering sessions each semester. Each session should be no more than 3 hours long.
• How will you manage the participant data?
  MindSET has standard data tracking templates on the TBP MindSET homepage. The permission for release of student information must signed by parents at the time of registration so that a record can be kept for each student participant. Math and science historical performance benchmarks should be established for the school district, each participating school, and the student participants. Attendance roll should be taken at each Saturday session. Arrangements should be made with the school districts for provision of student performance data at the end of each semester.

Unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary, chapters should seek to start their programs in the school district in which the chapter is located. It is extremely important for your chapter to establish a strong relationship with the school district. Seek to work with those districts with which your college, your chapter, and/or your advisor(s) have an established relationship. This will make it much easier to establish the K-12 partnership.

Begin your search by checking with your engineering administrators and staff in the student services area to determine if there are any K-12 projects currently underway. If so, assess whether your chapter can provide leadership for the existing project(s). Next, select potential districts based on proximity and/or student need. Then set up a meeting with the school district administrators (your chapter advisor or district director should also attend) to discuss the proposed project and your chapter’s interest in working with K-12 students on math, science, and engineering preparation. Once the school district administrators are onboard, they will assist you in arranging meetings with the school(s) you are interested in working with. Be sure to obtain the permission of the school district before contacting any schools. Before committing to a district or school, you must do background research on student performance (See Data Collection section). Your chapter must always work side-by-side with the school district, complementing their work through your efforts. Other approaches will be ineffective.

Keeping the goals of MindSET in mind, seek to work with schools where the impact of your activities can be seen. Early exposure is beneficial for student learning, therefore MindSET’s goal is to start in elementary or middle schools. However, some chapters might not have the resources to support Elementary, Middle, and High school programs. Therefore, MindSET encourages chapters with limited resources to start in middle school.

Identify elementary, middle, and high schools schools in a feeder pattern: in other words, your elementary schools should feed into your middle schools which should, in turn, feed into the high schools. Typically, chapters should not start with more than four schools (e.g. 1 elementary, 2 middle, and 1 high school). In the long term, chapters should aim to serve all schools in a feeder pattern in order to more reliably track student progress over the course of their studies and to better assess the effectiveness of the K-12 program.

Chapters have found that the easiest age groups to target are 3rd through 6th grades. Chapters may find it difficult to teach basic engineering concepts to younger students, but the students are extremely inquisitive and are ready to learn from fun activities. Tau Beta Pi Chapters have developed student modules which are available at TBP.org. Students tend to learn better with individual attention; therefore, Tau Beta Pi recommends a high mentor-to-student ratio (1 volunteer for every 2-3 students) at student modules.

(Not all of this subsection is “Planning”. Some of it is “Implementation”. Consider putting in separate section.)

Tau Beta Pi will continuously track student progress to determine whether the program is having the desired effect. If the students are not achieving the desired outcome, it may be necessary to improve or change the approach being used. Therefore, assessment and evaluation is critical to the success of the MindSET program. The program development plan includes standard metrics; however, chapters may add other metrics to provide additional performance data, and assist in determining program effectiveness.

The standard metrics we use for assessment in the middle and upper grades are

• the number of students who pass Algebra 1 by 8th grade,
• the number who pass Calculus by 12th grade, and
• student performance on standardized state tests.

We collect benchmark data at the initiation of a program. We use past and present data to compare students' progress and achievement level with 1) their school's average achievement level, and 2) their achievement levels prior to attending the program. We obtain student information by having parents sign a consent form that allows the school district to release information. You can then find the information with the help of your county math director. It will be necessary to work very closely with the schools and school districts, and to track regularly-published state data for each school. The data collection template can be found on the TBP MindSET homepage.

School districts are usually very helpful with data collection. Seek to work closely with your partner school district for this information. Typically, all the data needed is online; however, the school district will most likely have the information in a form that can be easily entered into the TBP data collection template.

The data needed falls into 3 categories:

• Start up data
  • Benchmark data for target School District and School
• Student session data
  • Attendance record for each student session
  • Feedback from students, parents, and volunteers
• Semester end
  • Math and Science performance for each student participant
  • Qualitative feedback from students and parents on student sessions
  • Feedback from teachers using kinesthetics in the classroom

Each chapter will also complete a MindSET progress report at the end of each semester. This report includes a summary of MindSET activities that semester, including the number of participating students and parents at each activity. The semester progress report template can be found on the TBP MindSET homepage.

In this section you will find suggested methods to gather the start up data on your selected school district and schools. The start up data collection template can be found on the TBP MindSET homepage.

1. Obtain a list of the schools in your county
   • To obtain a list of all the schools in your county and/or to find school location, contact info, grade level, and total enrollment:
   • Go to the National Center for Education Statistics: http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
   • From the CCD Data Tools, choose Build a table
   • In build a table section, go to Most Requested Tables tab
   • Choose school level: Contact info, total enrollment, total teachers, grade span
   • Go to Select Table Filters
   • Row Variable: Select your state
   • Other Filters:
     • Select County Name (School)
     • Select Years: All years
     • Column: Contains (enter school district name ex: Hillsborough)
     • Click Save Filter
   • Click view table
   • Click Excel
   • Click Download to Excel File
   • Save file as NCES_Report_state_county_chapter.xls (ex: NCES_Report_FL_ Hillsborough_FL_Gamma.xls)
2. Select a high school and middle school and collect basic enrollment information
   • Select schools from the list you obtained
   • Search for school specific info: Go to Data Tools
   • Visit Search for Public Schools
   • Enter School name, State, County of District
   • Click Search
   • Enter the information from this search into the MindSET data collection template, Section 1
3. Visit your state department of education site to collect more specific information
   • Find your state’s website here:
   • http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/Programs/EROD/org_list.cfm?category_ID=SEA
   • Go to your state’s website
   • Find your state’s school accountability reports (ex: http://schoolgrades.fldoe.org/default.asp)
   • Select your school
   • Enter the standardized test info in Section 2 of the MindSET data collection template
   • Find your district’s school accountability reports.
   • Enter the standardized test info in Section 3 of the MindSET data collection template.
4. Contact your selected school – do this step only AFTER meeting with the school district officials (see the section on selecting a school district)
   • Obtain info on the number of 8th graders completing Algebra and/or the number of 12th graders completing Calculus.
   • Enter the data in Section 4 of the MindSET data collection template
5. Send information to TBP Headquarters
   • E-mail completed template to TBPMindSET@tbp.org

• Other sites/methods
  • Click on Data and Statistics
  • http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/naeptools.asp
  • Click on State Profiles
  • Choose your state from the map

New students: Registration forms for new participants include contact information (including parent and emergency contact information), the student's school, and the mathematics course that the student is taking that year. The MindSET chair should request the MindSET registration form from Headquarters (e-mail tbpMindSET@tbp.org).

Student sign-in: There should be a check-in desk at every Saturday Session. Students should sign in with uniquely-identifiable information so that their attendance and progress can be tracked.

Feedback forms: Have students, parents, and volunteers fill out feedback forms for the sessions.

The MindSET coordinator should collect all feedback forms and sign in sheets and scan or enter the information for the MindSET program’s records. Suggestions for improvement should be compiled and reviewed with your Chapter Implementation Team and, if applicable, the MindSET National Management Committee (tbpMindSET@tbp.org).

In this section you will find suggested methods to gather end-of-semester data on the students, teachers, and parents participating in your MindSET program. The end-of-semester data collection template will be added to the MindSET website in the near future.

(WHAT DATA? FCAT? Student grades?)

Your chapter does not need to create a module from scratch. Check the MindSET website for existing modules (http://www.tbp.org/pages/About/Programs/K12/MindSETModules.cfm), and browse the web for preexisting activities that may be adapted to serve the needs of MindSET while respecting any applicable copyright of the original. You are encouraged to submit your modifications to existing modules to MindSET (e-mail tbpMindSET@tbp.org) so that others may benefit from your improvements. It is important to observe two important rules when developing or modifying modules.

• In order for the module to enhance the students' intuition, the math must be closely tied to the engineering activity.
• Cover a few concepts very well, as opposed to spreading your time among many topics. It may be tempting to give them a worksheet that covers 5 different (though related) ideas and covering only those that you have the time for. But this is very distracting to the students, and none of the topics really end up sinking in. On the other hand, covering just a single concept from many different angles greatly enhances intuition.
• Make sure that the cost in materials of doing the module is relatively low. Designing the activity so that the materials are reusable is a plus (the Electronic Module series on the breadboard is such an example); however, take into account the time and cost required to refurbish the material or equipment.

Determine how the presentation will be delivered. Will you use an overhead projector, power point, etc? Do not introduce too many new terms in quick succession. Use the terms frequently in a clear context so that the meanings stick. Do not clutter figures with too much information and do not teach too abstractly since students would be more likely to phase out or get confused. Keep the presentation visual and interactive. For instance, when teaching about forces and vector cancellation, one may employ three ropes tied to a central point, with two of the ropes tied (at different angles) to spring scales, and a volunteer pulling at the other end (possibly with another spring scale). This way, students could try to predict how hard the volunteer is pulling.

Design worksheets to be self-contained so that students can take them home to work on them further or keep them as reference. Ideally, these worksheets should contain all the core definitions and concepts introduced in the session. Aim to keep the students involved throughout your presentation by having them work on related worksheet problems as each concept is introduced.

Ideally, the engineering activities (though not necessarily the underlying math) would vary significantly from module to module to illustrate the wide applicability of math. Therefore, you may recruit other engineering societies to create modules, while requiring them to follow the guidelines above. For instance, the American Society of Civil Engineers may create a module on trusses and bridges to teach trigonometry and vector algebra to high school students. Make sure to give credit to organizations that help create modules or deliver sessions. If an outside organization delivers a module, supply TBP volunteers to help them and to ensure that the module is delivered effectively. Outsourcing provides TBP good publicity on campus, more sources of creative input, and more volunteers. The outside organization benefits by gaining publicity in the community, participates in a service event related to engineering, incurs little expense, and doesn’t have to recruit or organize the group of kids.

The best location for sessions is on your university’s campus. This location minimizes travel for your volunteers and cuts down on the distance you need to transport module materials. Your chapter should book all rooms before announcing the module dates. It is best to chose all dates and locations at the beginning of the semester. Provide parents and volunteers with the schedule well in advance and also give them a map to the location.

Most chapters have found that Saturdays work best for student modules, since that day doesn’t interfere with after-school activities. Modules typically take 3 hours. A good timeframe is 9am-noon. If your session runs past noon, you may need to provide snacks or lunch, which is an additional expense to your chapter. Instruct parents to drop students off 15 minutes before the session begins and pick them up 10 minutes after the session ends. Some parents like to stay for the sessions and your chapter should encourage this. Parent involvement is a key component of MindSET and many parents tell us they learn from the modules too!

Begin by targeting an age group. Identify a concept or set of concepts that are relevant to that age group and their current curriculum. Use available course curricula from the schools to identify concepts.

Example: Sunshine State Standards (Florida)

• Grades 3-5:
  • Understand and apply multiplication and division
  • Understand fractions and fraction equivalence
  • Properties of two-dimensional shapes
  • Connect fractions with decimals
  • Describe and analyze two- and three-dimensional shapes
• Grades 6-8:
  • Understand multiplication and division with fractions and decimals
  • Use ratios and rates with multiplication and divisions
  • Write, interpret, and use mathematical expressions and equations
  • Understand proportionality and similarity
  • Understand equations involving rational numbers
  • Solve linear equations
  • Analyze and solve linear functions

Once you have identified the concepts, go to the MindSET website at TBP.org to find modules, use one of your existing modules, or develop a new module.

Headquarters has sample information to provide students and parents. You can contact us at tbpMindSET@tbp.org to request brochures and letters to the parents. You should distribute this information and advertise your sessions through the teachers at your selected schools. You should also maintain e-mail addresses for the parents of student participants. The parents will help spread the word about student sessions.

Parents should either e-mail a registration form to your MindSET coordinator prior to the first session, or parents should complete the registration form at the first session (obtain the registration form by e-mailing tbpMindSET@tbp.org). If new students have not benn registered, they can be registered at their student session, but their parent must sign the registration form before they participate.

• Practice and make sure the presenter and volunteers know the material and their duties. Check that all equipment is available.
• Make sure the room is big enough to hold the number of kids attending.
• Check that all materials are ready and available.
• Make copies of worksheets and solutions.
• Ensure you have the equipment necessary to deliver the presentation (projector, computer, etc).
• Test out the location for the module – Ex. If you are launching water bottle rockets, make sure you have a field with no obstructions (trees) and enough room to not endanger others (pedestrians).

You should set up a check-in area to ensure all students sign in and are registered for MindSET. This will help ensure the safety of the students left in your care. Instruct parents to provide requested information for every student they drop off and to be prepared to show identification when picking students up. You should have 1 or 2 volunteers assigned to work the sign in/out area starting 15 minutes before the session and finishing when the last student has been signed out and picked up. Be clear on which volunteer is responsible for making sure all students are picked up.

Every parent needs to fill out a student application form to register them in the program. If the student has not previously registered, their parent must fill out the application and sign the student in. If the student is already registered, the parent just needs to sign the student in. Make sure to get a contact number where the parent can be reached. Application forms and sign in sheets can be found on TBP.org.

Each student, parent, and volunteer should provide feedback on the session and the CIT should review suggestions for future improvements. Refer to the Data collection section for specific instructions.

The MindSET teacher development module focuses on preparing and training teachers in hands-on, minds-on teaching techniques for math and science. This is achieved by use of manipulatives and other kinesthetic tools in classroom instruction. Tau Beta Pi has developed teacher training modules and will provide certified K-12 math and science instructors to deliver the training to teachers in your target schools. To schedule a Teacher training session, contact TBP at TBPMindSET@TBP.org or 1-800-Tau-Beta.

MindSET parent development involves a series of parent-focused activities that seek to provide parents with the guidance and equipment needed to support their students in math and science developmental activities. The parent-focused activities include a series of workshops and discussion sessions. These activities are designed to enable parents to navigate through bureaucratic policies and other roadblocks which may have discouraged their participation in the past. We encourage parents to establish relationships with the school system staff and administrators. In addition, we encourage parents to provide their students support when the students feel discouraged. The parent development sessions are developed by Headquarters and can be facilitated by TBP Alumni, Advisors, or school district officials.

Headquarters MindSET coordinator: Dylan Lane, 1-800-Tau-Beta, Dylan@tbp.org

TBP MindSET homepage: http://www.tbp.org/pages/About/Programs/K12/index.cfm