1. UMass Dartmouth Honors Program • www.umassd.edu/honors
In an attempt to reestablish our standing near the
top of the most competitive scientific nations, the
United States have implemented thousands of STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
programs in high schools all over the country. In
doing this, we have found that trying to stimulate
interest in difficult and often demanding scientific and
mathematical courses is very taxing. We have been
forced to look at our education system and constantly
rethink how we captivate our students. In this project,
I aimed to make a meaningful contribution to STEM
education by developing my own outreach program. I
successfully developed and implemented an
integrated career development program for high
school engineering students at Aerovox Corp, New
Bedford MA. In this presentation, I will reflect on the
various challenges and triumphs of the project.
Abstract
Objectives
Methods for Development and Implementation
The following summarizes the major outcomes of the CAPLab development
project:
• Five students enrolled in the fall and winter offerings of the course (four
students remained for spring semester).
• Homework was assigned weekly to the students, as well as brief case
studies covering special engineering topics.
• Students were provided with feedback on assignments as well as
suggestions for improvement.
All students who remained enrolled showed improvement in the following
areas:
• General engineering mathematics: understanding units and dimensions,
and using equations to solve problems were improved.
• Formatting assignments to undergraduate standards (see Figure 2).
• Critical thinking: students began asking more in-depth questions and
displaying improved effort as the course progressed
• Understanding of the college application process was refined
• Performance on homework assignments: better attention to details was
displayed by all students
Outcomes
Conclusions and Reflection
References
[1] Pendergrass, N.A., Kowalczyk, Robert E., Dowd,
John P., Laoulache, Raymond N., Nelles, William,
Golen, James A., and Fowler, Emily. “Improving First-
year Engineering Education,” Proceedings of the
Frontiers in Education Conference, San Juan, Puerto
Rico, November 1999.
Acknowledgements
I would like to sincerely thank the faculty at GNB Voc-
Tech, my coworkers at Aerovox, and Dr. Alex Fowler
of UMD.
Without the teachers at Voc-Tech, it would not have
been possible to reach the students. My coworkers
volunteered many hours to make the students’
experiences meaningful. Aerovox also kindly allowed
me to use their facilities for the course. Finally, Dr.
Fowler facilitated the development process by acting as
my advisor.
Aerovox Corp., Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School
Diarny Fernandes
Development and Implementation of a Supplementary Career Preparatory Program
for Vocational Engineering Students
A preliminary project was conducted during the Fall
semester of 2014 in order to explore the feasibility of
developing a STEM program. A simple design project
was started by Aerovox and a collaboration with a
group of junior GNB Voc-Tech engineering students
was established.
• The task was to design a prototype of a thin-shell
casing for a custom designed capacitor.
• A group of interested students were selected to
participate in the project.
• Meetings were held with the students at Voc-Tech
on several occasions in order to advise their
designs.
• The end-product was a prototype design which was
3D printed at Voc-Tech (see Figure 1).
• The students were welcomed to the company
facilities for a tour and lunch following the success
of the project.
• The prototype remains on display at Aerovox.
The project offered me a unique opportunity to explore
my own abilities both as an educator and an engineer. I
learned about the challenges of trying to make difficult
material accessible, as well as streamlining the course
delivery. It was challenging to design meaningful
assignments and deliver quality lectures to the
students. Despite these, all stated objectives were met.
Throughout the course of this project, I have interacted
with the students in order to develop a list of
recommendations for future runs of CAPLab. The
following highlight some of the most helpful feedback:
• The down-to-earth manner the course was delivered
with was highly appreciated by the students
• It would be easier and more meaningful if fewer
engineering topics were covered, but in more depth
I have also gathered my own notes for delivering the
course at a higher quality in the future:
• It was difficult to deliver all desired topics to all
students since they had varying interests in
engineering, therefore focusing on universal subjects
is a key to future success
• It is imperative to keep the students engaged in the
lectures by asking them questions and having them
drive the class exercises. This better facilitates
learning.
• Give the students a change of pace from their usual
high school lives (in other words, take them out of
their comfort zones).
• Allow them the opportunity to speak with and learn
from young professionals in engineering.
• Provide honest advice on the college experience in
order to better inform their decisions and prepare
them for what to expect from college-level
engineering programs
• Address some of the observed academic
shortcomings of the PLTW engineering program at
Voc-Tech.
Most of the areas for improvement in STEM
education were identified from personal experience. I
am a 2012 graduate of the Engineering Technology
program at Greater New Bedford Voc-Tech. After
enrolling in mechanical engineering at UMass
Dartmouth, I was able to draw meaningful conclusions
about the strengths and weaknesses of their
vocational pre-engineering curriculum, which is
accredited by Project Lead the Way.
Main areas for improvement:
• More intensive integration of college-prep
mathematics is necessary.
• There are no opportunities for students to work with
practicing engineers in the field other than their
classroom instructors.
A brief literature review of STEM educational methods
used at the undergraduate level was conducted. This
served to assist in designing a student-focused
curriculum. I designed my STEM course to follow the
integrated lab approach of UMD’s IMPULSE program1.
Introduction
Over the summer of 2015, full scale development
of an Aerovox-sponsored STEM outreach was
initiated.
• A STEM development presentation was prepared
for the engineering staff of Aerovox
• Support from interested engineers was
established and approval to proceed was
granted by the CEO of the company
• A course syllabus and schedule were developed
for the Fall Semester of 2015
• The program was named Aerovox CAPLab
(Career and Academic Preparation Lab)
• An informational session was delivered to GNB
Voc-Tech engineering seniors in the fall of 2015.
CAPLab was specifically designed to supplement
the Engineering Technology program at GNB Voc-
Tech. It was offered free of cost to the students,
and directly involved instruction and guidance from
myself and engineers at Aerovox. A program
summary is offered below:
• Both fall and spring sessions were offered, as
well as a winter intersession for fun topics.
• The program was held on Wednesday evenings
for 2 hours.
• Students were invited to a course site developed
in Google Drive, where all materials were postedFigure 1. Student-designed capacitor case prototype
Figure 2. Example of student work