The Tech Engineering for Kids (TEK) project at TTU provides innovative engineered products to children with special needs and their families and schools while offering valuable real world experience for engineering students.
TEK Mission
Enhance the proces of engineering locally and nationally, while meeting TTU's mission to enrich the lives of people in the Upper Cuberland Region of TN
Improved educational experience for engineering students
Working on complex, real-world design problems with social impact
Improve daily life, inclusion, accelerate learning for these children
Develop assistive technology that does not exist or cannot be readily obtained
Students participate in an interdisciplinary team
Leverage significant resources available at Tennessee Tech Engineering/Education students expertise
Serve as a pilot project, both regionally and nationally
How TEK Works
Pedagogical Basis
Over-arching idea: learn by doing in a relevant, guided and motivational environment
Problem -based learning (Duch, 2001)
Using problems to engage students and initiate learning on the subject matter
Contextualized learning (McKeachie and Hofer, 2002)
Students see meaning in context and process information in a way that makes sense to their own frames of reference
Service learning (Oakes et al., 2002)
Integrate community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience
TEK Partners
Tennessee Early Intevention System
Putnam County, White County, Cumberland County School Systems
