Preliminary results of a freshmen capstone project to design educational modules for teachers in the dominican republic

Mission trips from Ohio Northern University to the Dominican Republic during the past three years have involved running engineering workshops for teachers in secondary-level schools. These workshops included design challenges often found in a first year engineering course, discussions on learning styles, and methods of integrating an engineering mindset into the Dominican curriculum. Given the great desire on the part of the Dominican teachers to have access to continuing education, it was determined that methods of bringing content to the teachers through online modules would be investigated, as it has a great potential to make a large impact without incurring considerable expenditures. The proposed methodology involved modifying an existing assignment in a second semester introductory programming course (where a team of students develop an educational game) to create a term project which primarily incorporates internationally-focused STEM lesson plans designed by an upper-level engineering education elective course. It was found that online modules can be developed to be cost-effective, interactive, and educational for both the developers and audience. This paper will present the "first generation" of modules and student work. Possible alterations to this assignment and methods of implementing successful modules will also be discussed.