The Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Integrated to Unlock Potential (AMP-IT-UP) project is an NSF MSP, funded at Georgia Tech in 2012 to promote workforce development and to cultivate the next generation of creative STEM innovators. The goal was to increase middle school student engagement and interest in STEM, develop students’ 21st century skills, and improve STEM academic achievement. The major vehicle for doing this was through the implementation of newly designed curricular materials for middle school engineering classes and for core science and math instruction.  These highly scaffolded curriculum materials provide teachers with extensively piloted and tested examples of how the disciplinary content from engineering, math and science can be integrated within a project-based challenge in ways that promote three-dimensional learning.  These exemplars enable teachers to experience success in changing their teaching to be more aligned with the guidelines for good pedagogical practice laid out within the NGSS and SMP.

The AMP-IT-UP research shows that students who have taken at least two AMP-IT-UP engineering courses show statistically significant gains on state-level science and math exams and increases in cognitive and behavioral engagement in STEM and academic self-efficacy when compared with students who were never enrolled in these courses.  Additionally, the results show that implementing the math and science modules has a positive influence on teachers’ classroom practice. The curriculum is now being scaled up to schools in multiple states.  This video presentation focuses on the impact of the curriculum materials on changing teacher practice in science and math classrooms.

NSF Awards: 1238089

Grade Level: Grades 6-8

Presented in: 2019 (see original presentation & discussion)