Research/Areas of Interest
Elissa is Director of Outreach and works to provide schools, teachers, other organizations, and students with engineering design opportunities. Before coming to the Center, Elissa was a classroom teacher, working with high school students with special needs. She began working with the CEEO in 1999 while teaching at a local school, bringing engineering into her English classroom. The following year she entered Tufts as a graduate student at the Center, taking classes in engineering and education, and received a MEd. Excited by the Center's work and mission, Elissa continued working at the Center.
Elissa is particularly interested in using open-ended, client-centered problems to bring engineering to elementary and middle school students, exploring ways that students with different learning styles and interests can become excited by and access engineering. As an extension of this work with students, Elissa is interested in understanding what teachers need as they bring engineering with messy, ill-defined problems into their classrooms.
Education
MEd from Tufts University with a focus on engineering education, 2002
MEd in Special Education from Virginia Commonwealth University, 1997
BA in Psychology from University of Richmond, 1990
Biography
Before coming to the Center, Elissa was a classroom teacher, working with high school students with special needs. She began working with the CEEO in 1999 while teaching at a local school, bringing engineering into her English classroom. The following year she entered Tufts as a graduate student at the Center, taking classes in engineering and education, and received a MEd Excited by the Center's work and mission, Elissa continued working at the Center.
CEEO Responsibilities:
Elissa is Director of Outreach and works to provide schools, teachers, other organizations and students with engineering design opportunities. As Director of Outreach, she also oversees STOMP and the Design and Engineering Workshops. Elissa is also program manager for Integrating Engineering and Literacy, a DRK-12 project funded by the NSF.
Selected Publications and Presentations
Milto, E., Andrews, C., Portsmore, M., & Wright, C. (2024). Introducing Engineering in K-8 Settings: Fostering Children’s Powerful Design Ideas. Routledge Press.
Ehsan, H. & Milto, E. “Engineering Education for Autistic Children: Content, Pedagogy, and Assessment.” Engineering Education for Autistic Children: Content, Pedagogy, and Assessment, Arise, 19 Sept. 2022, aaas-arise.org/2022/09/19/engineering-education-for-children-on-the-autism-spectrum-content-pedagogy-and-assessment/.
Milto, E., Porstmore, M., Watkins, J., McCormick, M., & Hynes, M. (2020). Novel Engineering: An Integrated Approach to Engineering in Literacy. NSTA Press.
Portsmore, M., & Milto, E. (2018). Novel engineering in early elementary classrooms. Early engineering learning, 203-223.
Watkins, J., McCormick, M., Milto, E., Portsmore, M., Spencer, K., Wendell, K., and Hammer, D. (2018). Data-based conjectures for supporting responsive teaching in engineering design with elementary teachers. Science Education, 548-570.
Milto, E., Wendell, K., Watkins, J., Hammer, D., Spencer, K., Portsmore, M., & Rogers, C. (2016). Elementary school engineering for fictional clients in children’s literature. In Connecting Science & Engineering Education Practices in Meaningful Ways (pp. 263-291). Springer International Publishing.