SEI San Francisco Chapter Outreach News
By: Amin Ghafooripour, Ph.D., PE, Outreach Director

Interview with a successful High School Engineering teacher

When the world brings you lemons, make lemonade!
Education is Freedom! 

Daniel Coonce, Engineering Teacher at Westmont High School, Campbell, CA, Teacher of the Year in 2016

I was born in Los Gatos in 1958, the year the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first satellite, into space.  The Santa Clara Valley was rapidly transforming from an agricultural economy (the “Valley of the Heart’s Delight”) to a high tech economy (Silicon Valley). I went to UC Davis in 1977 and graduated four and a half years later with a BSEE.  I chose electrical engineering, not out of an inherent passion for the subject, but for pragmatic reasons.  Silicon Valley was a boomtown for E.E.’s. Jobs were abundant, and the pay was good.

After 15 years of working in the industry as an E.E. and several “sabbaticals” where I bicycle toured throughout Europe and the U.S.,  I went back to school to earn a teaching credential.  At the time, I naively reasoned that I would be a good math and science teacher because I knew the subject matter, and I liked kids.  I had a lot to learn and many disappointments to overcome to get where I am now as a teacher.

I now teach at Westmont High School in Campbell, CA.  I have been here for eight enjoyable years.  My courses are Integrated Math 1 ( freshman math), and three of the four engineering elective courses we offer at Westmont: Introduction to Engineering Design (1^st year),  Digital Electronics (3rd year), and Engineering Design and Development ( the capstone 4^th-year course). The 2^nd year course, Principles of Engineering, is taught by a friend, a colleague, Alfonso Garcia. Our engineering program consists of the curriculum from Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  The lessons are project-based, and students are encouraged to collaborate as they develop the engineering knowledge and “soft” skills that they will need as professional engineers.

Amin: What was your favorite subject to study in school?

Daniel: I always enjoyed math and sciences the most.  I liked math because I was pretty good at it (and the answers to the odd-numbered problems were found in the back of the book!)  Sciences sparked my curiosity and helped me to understand the world around me. I liked the hands-on science labs the most.

Amin: What sort of extracurricular activities do you participate in?

Daniel: I coach football, and I am an advisor for the robotics team at Westmont High School. I love to travel, and I have bicycled around Europe and North and South America for months, sometimes years, on end.  My longest adventure was a two-year bike trip from Fairbanks, Alaska to Patagonia, Argentina.  I had just turned fifty, had been teaching math and science at a middle school in inner-city San Diego for ten years, and I was ready for a change. I love the freedom of being on the road, self- contained with the minimal essential gear in my panniers.  I love to wake up in my tent in the morning, unzip the tent fly to look out and remember where I had stopped the previous night.  Breaking camp and setting forth with the cool morning air in my face, filled with anticipation of what I will see and who I will encounter on the bike ride that day.  Sometimes I have similar exhilarating feelings when I walk onto campus before school.  I suppose that is one of the reasons I love teaching.  It is an adventure. Each day presents unexpected situations.

Amin: What has motivated you to teach Engineering courses? How many years?

Daniel:  I started teaching the engineering courses in my second year at Westmont.  A teacher retired, and I took over for her.  I have been teaching the PLTW engineering courses for seven years.  It is very satisfying to be able to work with the same students for four years and to watch them mature and develop as young engineers.

Amin: How do you see the Engineering area as the future of our kids in this country? Do you think, in the STEM, or STEAM, should we focus more on the letter “E” more?

Daniel:  As an Engineer, I am biased to choose “E”.  However, I believe we need to focus on all of the above.  They are interdependent. Math is required in science, and both are foundations for engineering and technology. The creativity and aesthetics of art enhance engineering design.

Amin: I know that you have inspired a lot of students, tell us, how do you try to inspire students and help them to understand Engineering as their future career?

Daniel Throughout the four-year engineering program, I encourage the students to visualize themselves as successful professionals.  I refer to them as engineers and emphasize academic vocabulary, particularly to engineering. I teach students to think and record their ideas like engineers.  They learn how to use the design process to solve problems. The Project Lead the Way Engineering curriculum that I use is mostly hands-on, collaborative projects. Students really enjoy it. When they are having fun, I remind them that being an engineer will be like that. I take time to describe my experiences in college and as an engineer.  I tell them of the financial security and the satisfaction of designing and making things as an engineer. I think we all really want similar outcomes from our jobs and lives:  to enjoy the work, to be financially secure and physically comfortable, and to feel that the work we do is meaningful to the betterment of humanity. I try to show my students that a career as an engineer can provide those outcomes.

Amin: How do you separate different disciplines of engineering in your classes? Do you have any part of your curriculum related to Civil Engineering or Structural/Mechanical Engineering?

Daniel:  The PLTW Engineering electives that we currently offer at Westmont are (in recommended order):

1. Introduction to Engineering Design– provides a brief overview of the four main engineering disciplines (electrical, mechanical, civil, and chemical) and many for the other disciplines (aeronautical, etc.)
2. Principles of Engineering involves mainly mechanical engineering concepts where students investigate simple machines, statics, and some programming where students use Arduino’s to control small robots.
3. Digital Electronics allows students to investigate combinational and sequential digital circuit design.
4. Engineering Design and Development is the capstone project for seniors where they use the knowledge and skills from the previous coursework to identify a problem to solve and to design a solution for the problem.

Amin: What engineering software do you teach to the high school students? How do you think it will shape their future?

Daniel:  In Introduction to Engineering (IED), students use Autodesk Inventor Pro to model 3-D parts and then to create part and assembly drawings from those models. AutoDesk provides discounted or free software licenses to the schools that teach the PLTW curriculum. In return, the students get their first CAD experience using Inventor.  Apple had a similar marketing strategy to students in the seventies when they gave Mac’s to schools. Their idea was that students would later buy a Mac computer because they were familiar with it.  It was a good idea as it turned out.

I will be going back to school (via Zoom) this summer to learn the “latest and greatest” in CAD 3-D modeling software from Autodesk.  Next year I will be teaching my next group of freshmen engineers, Fusion 360, the next-generation software that combines both CAD and CAM in one program.  It is challenging to keep up with new technology.  As the saying goes: “ Just when I knew all the answers, they changed all the questions”!

In Digital Electronics, the third course for students on the engineering pathway, students use MultiSim circuit design software from National Instruments.  The software allows the students to virtually design circuits, create schematics, and simulate the operation of both digital and analog circuits.  Once they verify the desired operation of the circuit, the students can then build a breadboard prototype.   This is much more efficient than going through a box of fuses trying to troubleshoot a circuit.

I jokingly tell the students how easy they have it.  I give them the “when I was a kid…” routine.  I describe how engineers created multi-view engineering drawings “in the old days” using a T-square and a big electrical erasure. Software technology today allows students to create engineering drawings much faster and neater than the old pencil and T-square method.

Amin: What is your idea about creating a Structural/Mechanical Engineering Competition at the level of High Schools? Do you have any suggestions?

Daniel:  I am all for it!  We currently compete annually in the Chevron Design Challenge, where a team of three students from each participating high school has one day to design, CAD, and present their solution to an open-ended problem.  I would like to see more competitions supported by local universities and industry that challenge students.  I would like to see competition between students within a class and have those winners then go on to compete with teams from other schools.  I am envisioning a competition where students design a structure or machine given design constraints.

Amin: What is your idea about an outreach program in SEI or similar organizations? In your view, how should we approach the school districts to have events at schools? What would be the grades (e.g., freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior) for having these events?

Daniel:  SEI could facilitate design competitions, as mentioned above, or have guest speakers visit classes to talk about careers and pathways to obtain those careers.  There are several avenues for SEI to approach schools to organize these events.  SEI should reach out to the Career Readiness Coordinator (Katie Bennett) at the district level. That person would then forward the proposal to all the teachers who would be interested at the various school sites.  At individual schools, SEI could contact specialists that coordinate college and career activities.  At Westmont and the other CUHSD high schools, you could contact the College and Career Center Specialist.  These specialists advise students as they navigate the intricacies of college admission.  They also coordinate guest speaker engagements with colleges and industry groups. Students attend these presentations with Q & A during the daily half-hour study halls.

SEI could also contact the science and CTE department chairs at the individual schools. These chair people could then disseminate the information to the teachers whose classes would benefit the most from SEI outreach.

Amin: What is your message to other Engineering teachers and your colleagues for running this class at high schools?

Daniel:  Try to minimize the amount of direct instruction and provide more time on project-based activities where students learn the content through doing.

Amin:  In addition to being paid, how else has your career created value in your life?

Daniel:  At GasTech, where I worked most of my engineering career, I was very content, knowing that our gas detection instrumentation improved worker safety from hazardous toxic and flammable gasses.

As a teacher, I feel that I have a positive influence in motivating students to learn the knowledge, skills, and work ethic that will lead to prosperous and fulfilling careers.

Amin: What was your worst job?

Daniel:  My worst job was my first job out of college.  I worked for a large company in Santa Clara that made commercial printers.  The company belatedly wanted to break into the home printer market.  My job was to design the power supply for a dot-matrix printer.  I had been working feverishly for 18 months, trying to get my pulse width modulated power supply working optimally when our engineering department got hit with a lay-off.  Each Friday thereafter, a few more colleagues were let go.  I remember each Friday morning anxiously going to my cubicle to see if packing boxes were stacked next to my partition.  Finally, one Friday, the boxes were there!  My number was up.  I remember the shame and the sense of betrayal.  Then the H.R. person told me I would get a $3k severance check.   A week later, I was on a plane with my bicycle to Amsterdam.  A year and a half later, I finally straggled back to the U.S., broke but more worldly. When the world brings you lemons, make lemonade.

Amin: Who was the most significant influence in your career?

Daniel:  Ken Johnson was a co-founder, co-owner, at GasTech, Inc. He taught me business ethics.  Mainly, tell your customers the truth, even if the truth is not ideal.  Don’t make promises you cannot keep. Customers will trust you and keep coming back.

Amin: What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Daniel:  I am very proud of being voted Westmont Teacher of the Year in 2016 by my fellow teachers at Westmont.

I am also proud of having traveled for two years on a bicycle with my dog in a trailer in tow.  We rode almost tip-to-tip, north to south, 20,000 km. I learned a great deal about humans along the way.  The main take away is that humans across the globe are generally good.  People along my journey were usually honest, kind, and helpful.  I was vulnerable, but people along the journey seemed to have my back. My dog Bella and I returned safe and sound to Los Gatos in June 2009.

Amin: What do you like to do in your spare time?

Daniel:  I keep bees, raise chickens, garden, walk my dog, read, swim, fish, ride my bicycle cycle, and spend time with friends.  I have not had the opportunity to take a long bike ride in a few years, but who knows…

Amin: What are the main lessons you’ve learned in life?

Daniel:  Education is Freedom!  This is my mantra to my students from day 1. Education provides opportunities:  to live where you want, work where you want, and do what you want. I feel great satisfaction knowing I do what I want to do, and I can positively influence the lives of my students.