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. Teacher Training
3. Parent Workshops

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.

• Student activity modules
  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
• Teacher Training
• Parent Workshops

MindSET National Management Committee: TBPMindSET@tbp.org

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

TBP MindSET homepage: http://tbp.org/mindset