Share:
MTT-S Committee Columns
Education Committee Prepares Student Outreach Plan
The MTT-S Education Committee is preparing a strategic plan to improve the educational outreach of the MTT to student members, precollege/undergraduate, post graduate, volunteers, the technical community, and the public.
The committee has embarked upon a strategic planning exercise, in which an over-arching goal is identified and specific tasks are devised to fulfill this goal. The “audacious” goal for the Education Committee is for MTT to become a central meeting place for microwave educators and students. Ideally, educators across the world can come to MTT to learn about the newest methods and generally use each other’s expertise to make their jobs easier. In a related goal, students should feel as if they are part of a global classroom. Another goal is to establish a venue where faculty can effectively share and exchange ideas and hone best practices for the microwave education community. There is much to gain as a Society if we share our knowledge about the education process around the globe.
The technical capabilities for educating through advanced visualization and simulation have increased exponentially in the past decade. However, the ability to effectively use these tools in the classroom remains difficult for the typical educator. The start-up costs (in effort and expense) for a typical educator lead to barriers to proper use of the technologies.
Not every faculty member has the time to create a new simulation to complement each lesson plan. However, there is much to be gained by trying to incorporate visual learners into our Society’s domain.
We propose to create a central location on the Web where educators can submit their examples, such as videos, homework problems, and animations on microwave topics.
Our hope is that students will feel that they are part of a global community, with MTT as a focal point.
There has already been a Facebook microwave community developed, and we look to expand upon this. As students are determining their career paths and potentially choosing a graduate school, we hope that MTT will be there for both advice and support.
As part of this expansion, we look to make the MTT’s sponsorship of microwave fellowships stronger than ever.
In fulfilling the goal of becoming a central meeting place for microwave educators and students, the MTT will develop and promote appropriate, authoritative material to educate and inform the profession and the general population on the subject of RF and microwave issues.
The strategies of this outreach project include giving the microwave area and the Society an increased amount of exposure to students of all ages throughout the world. The program will also seek to increase the public’s awareness of microwave theory and techniques.
The Education Committee will use several tactics to achieve these strategic goals.
• It will improve MTT Web site presence and Web site content, providing high-value content and emphasizing the Web site’s ability to promote opportunities and events with greater speed and impact.
• The committee will act to bring
the MTT to a large potential audience—high school students. Administrative Committee (AdCom) members, speakers from the Speaker’s Bureau, and Distinguished Microwave Lecturers (DMLs) should aim to make contact with this audience.
In reaching out to high schools, such topics as “Microwaves in Automobiles” could be used to attract student interest. In addition, a DML with lower-level tutorials—popular content at the science-club level—could be used.
The aim of this student-outreach effort would not be to simply redefine the cutting edge of microwave science, but also to explain how the microwave field affects so many aspects of modern life and technologies.
The MTT should create an industrial advisory educational board that would engage microwave-industry leaders to reach out to the elementary and secondary educational community. This board will have its own objectives, goals, action plans, and budget.
One example of this kind of outreach can be found in Brazil, where a nationwide professional science week involves 10,000 attendees. Some 400 students heard a recent talk on microwaves, which had great impact. How can that effect be replicated across the world?
The strategic planning group and the Education Committee welcome members inputs as we undertake this long-term planning effort. Contact Joy Laskar and/or William Chappell to share ideas on how MTT can better help the process of microwave education.
--------------
This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.