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This study investigates the implementation of a classroom response system in STEM education in a higher education context. The study used ExplainIt, a web-based classroom response system designed to support students’ self-explanations and provide instant feedback. Data were collected from 32 undergraduate students using four instruments including demographic information, self-efficacy, engagement, and system evaluation. The results showed that students reported positive learning experiences, demonstrated increased self-efficacy in STEM content, and indicated high levels of engagement following their use of ExplainIt. 

K-12 engineering outreach has typically focused on elementary electrical and mechanical engineering or robot experiments integrated in science or math classes. In contrast, we propose a novel outreach program focusing on communication network principles that enable the ubiquitous web and smart-phone applications. We design outreach activities that illustrate the communication network principles through activities and team competitions in physical education (PE) as well as story writing and cartooning in English Language Arts (ELA) classes. The PE activities cover the principles of store-and-forward packet switching, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) web page download, connection establishment in cellular wireless networks, as well as packet routing in Software-Defined Networking (SDN). The proposed outreach program has been formatively evaluated by K-12 teachers. A survey for the evaluation of the impact of the outreach program on the student perceptions, specifically, the students' interest, self-efficacy, utility, and negative stereotype perceptions towards communication network engineering, is also presented.