TeachEngineering
Democratizing K-12 Engineering Education
Services
Audience Insights
Audience Discovery
Segmentation and Personas
Journey Mapping
Design Principles
Awareness Campaign
Collateral Design
K-12 Engineering education is vital for bridging the learning gap, fostering technology literacy, catering to diverse learning needs, and cultivating cross-disciplinary problem-solving. TeachEngineering works to distribute free engineering curricula to schools across the country.
Through deep audience research and an endearing creative platform, our team better positioned TeachEngineering's offering and increased usage of their vast library of free resources for K-12 educators.
Challenge
The importance of STEM today, for tomorrow
STEM job demand outpaces qualified graduates
A robust engineering workforce is critical for the future: from solving the climate crisis to ensuring national security, and beyond.
The number of engineers in the workforce falls short of the need in emerging fields. Overall the field lacks both the gender and racial diversity needed to foster more creative, resilient, and innovative perspectives.
Engineering education helps close the K-12 learning gap
Engineering lessons are essential to accommodating diverse learning needs, inspiring cross-disciplinary problem-solving, and building a capable and confident next generation within a technology-dependent society.
Unfortunately, many students are underserved, with little or no access to engineering education.
Approach
Going back to school to understand what teachers think and feel
As massive digital library of free K–12 hands-on lessons, activities, and maker challenges, TeachEngineering partnered with us to reach K-12 educators to address the shortage of in-class engineering experiences.
Through a unique mix of quantitative and qualitative research, we looked closely at the state of the K–12 education system, classroom dynamics, and attitudes toward STEM education.
Insights-driven solutions
Reimagine engineering as fun and accessible, build educators’ confidence, and establish relevance for K-12
The audience discovery offered inspiration and guidance for the solutions, identifying the drivers, barriers and strategic leverage points to bringing engineering education into K-12 classrooms across the country.
The creative
'Engineer a Brighter Future'
Our team developed a campaign to increase the demand for TeachEngineering's free library of teaching tools, particularly in under-resourced schools, by helping K-12 educators see that engineering is already prevalent and pertinent to their classrooms and students.
The campaign was shared with three key educator audience segments through targeted, multichannel distribution including influencers, social media, paid online media, email marketing, and other owned digital platforms.
We showcased how everyday materials and TeachEngineering resources combine to create lively activities that highlight engineering principles found in everyday moments. These simple vignettes have encouraged teachers across the nation— no matter their STEM background—to enrich their lesson plans.
Mike Soltys, PhD, PI, TeachEngineering