Editorial Director Paul J. Heney spoke to FIRST creator Dean Kamen forDesign World1月份的领导问题引发了人们对探索设计和工程职业教育方面的兴趣。助理编辑Michelle Difrangia和第一任总统Don Bossi之间的采访更深入地研究了第一项计划和早期教育的优势。
Bossi加入了First，大约两年半前，它代表了对科学技术的灵感和认可。Bossi说，有了该计划，他希望年轻一代将对通过各种计划和挑战学习科学和技术的启发和感兴趣。
The inspiration starts at FIRST’s Lego League Junior Program, which caters to elementary school children, then into the FIRST Tech Challenge in the middle to high school and then culmination of FIRST Robotics competition at the high school level. The key to these programs, according to Bossi, is to keep the kids inspired and engaged through the freedom to be creative and inventive during these challenges.
一名学生参加了2015年乐高联盟少年计划的首届冠军。
第一个课程的方式之一就是通过在其技术挑战计划中运行Android操作系统的智能手机来显示这些职业如何影响日常生活的方式。“实际上，我们将它们作为机器人通信和控制系统介绍，以帮助向孩子们展示，‘你知道，口袋里的东西非常强大。不t only can it be a phone and be something you send texts and run apps on, but you can actually control a device with that.’” Bossi cites the new trend of “Geek Chic” as another way to spark interest, citing television shows like the Big Bang Theory and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg’s popularity among younger generations.
Bossi还强迫行业中“软技能”或批判性思维技能的重要性。Bossi说：“我们总是说他们从中获得的最重要的事情是那种软技能或二十个第一世纪技能，这些技能确实是批判性思维，解决问题，以及团队合作，领导力，沟通技巧。”。“最终，我认为在劳动力中，这些都与您所知道的一样重要。这不仅是您所知道的，而且是您所知道的以及可以通过所知道的来实现的目标。不仅仅是科学方面。”
尽管Bossi认为，在对年轻人的教育方面还有很长的路要走，但他希望像国家流动力量协会的流体动力挑战这样的计划的增加也会引起兴趣的增加。
High school students getting their designs in place for the 2015 FIRST Robotics competition.
“It is very good that more and more of these types of programs are available out there, in the sense that I think all of these types of things engage kids in a more interesting way. These types of challenges, and again whether it’s FIRST or whether it’s any other type of challenge like that, is sort of starting to change how they think about the future. It’s interesting,” said Bossi. “We did an alumni survey a couple years ago. I think it was 89.6% of the kids who would come through our program that responded were now either in STEM Education at the college level or in STEM careers. We definitely think that these types of programs are much more successful at engaging kids and keeping them in the pipeline.”
For more of Don Bossi’s comments and insights on education, read:基于项目的教育在学生中引起兴奋
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