Project Lead The Way Essay

College engineering programs are commonly known for their strenuous math and science course loads. To prepare students for these courses, many high schools have begun implementing pre-engineering programs into their curriculum (Rogers, pg. 1). For these programs to be of any value, they must provide students with the skills they need to be successful in college. The article, “The Effectiveness of Project Lead the Way Curricula in Developing Pre-engineering Competencies as Perceived by Indiana Teachers” by George Rodgers analyses the effectiveness of Project Lead The Way (PLTW) courses, which are a nationally used set of pre-engineering courses. In the article the PLTW curriculum is broken up into individual classes, those classes are then broken up into the college success skills they are meant to provide. Teachers were asked to rate their perceptions of the competency of their students in these skills. Among these skills were construct electronic circuits, design and prototype solutions. In a survey of University Wisconsin Platteville freshman engineering majors, students were asked to give their perceptions of how well they had developed certain college skills. The findings of a survey of University Wisconsin Platteville freshman engineering majors who participated in PLTW courses in high school

In many cases, this was because they had previously learned at least part of the course material from a high school PLTW course. For example one student said that they learned to use Microsoft Excel in a PLTW class. This same program was used in an engineering class (Kiefer). Even a limited knowledge on a subject seems to help students better understand a