Using GSuite to Teach the Engineering Design Process (Part 3)

Part 1 - Engineering Habits of Mind and the Design Process
Part 2 - How GSuite Supports the Engineering Design Process
Part 3 - A Simple Design Challenge using GSuite (includes example GSuite docs)

A Simple Design Challenge Using GSuite

It's easiest to see how GSuite supports the Engineering Design Process by using an actual design challenge. Let's take the simple act of building and optimizing a paper airplane for the longest flight possible using only the materials provided. You can join my Google Classroom with all the example assignment files here. The class code is ss9zv2w.

Identify the Problem/Brainstorm/Design Selection - Google Docs

Students start by using Docs to clearly define the problem they're attempting to solve. In this challenge, a lot of students will leave out the constraint that they can only use the materials provided to them. It's important to push students to have a clear and detailed problem definition before they start designing.

Then, students work with their groups to brainstorm ideas they'd like to include in their design. As they do this, they're activating their prior knowledge and what they already know about airplane design before moving into research. After exhausting what they already know, students use the "Explore" feature in Docs to drag-and-drop images, websites, and other resources to help inspire their possible designs.

Finally, students work together to decide what aspects of their brainstorming they want to use in their prototype.

Build Prototypes - SketchUp

Prototypes can be built virtually or by hand. In the case of this challenge, it's probably not necessary to spend a lot of time in SketchUp, since paper airplanes can be prototyped pretty quickly. 

However, if you're interested in students doing some 3D modeling work, they can start with 3D Warehouse, which is Sketchup's 3D object repository. A simple search for "paper airplanes" will bring up several 3D models that students can rotate and explore.

If you'd like, groups can then work on their own designs in SketchUp, download the file (.skp), then upload it as an attachment in Google Classroom.

Test and Optimize Design - Google Sheets and Forms

Once plans are made and prototypes are built, it's time to test. Groups will launch their planes multiple times, make modifications between each throw, then track their data in a shared Google Sheet. This particular spreadsheet has a bit of conditional formatting to help them quickly see if their modifications improve their flight distance (or not).

After their first round of test flights, students will answer the questions in a short Google Form about what worked to improve their flight distance. In the Google Classroom I set up for this challenge, I gave all students access to the "Responses" spreadsheet so they can learn from the experiences of the groups around them.

Once they've reflected on their flight data and the Form responses, it's up to you and the time constraints of your classroom as to whether or not students will take another round of test flights to further optimize their airplane design.

Share the Solution - Google Slides

When all the testing is complete and each group is satisfied with their design, it's time to share. Groups will use a shared Slides presentation and add their flight distance data and reflections on their slide. They can capture images of their airplane using the "Insert > Image > Take a Snapshot" tool. 

After each group has their slide completed, it's easy to share their results with the class efficiently so everyone benefits from the experience. 

Wrap Up

At the end of the day, it will always be true that it's not about the tool, it's what you do with it. Using GSuite to support design thinking and the engineering design process encourages students to find multiple ways to solve a problem, test and optimize their designs, then share their results with those around them.

Because no matter what our students go on to do, that's a skill set every one of them will need for the future.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Using GSuite to Teach the Engineering Design Process (Part 2)

Part 1 - Engineering Habits of Mind and the Design Process
Part 2 - How GSuite Supports the Engineering Design Process
Part 3 - A Simple Design Challenge using GSuite  (includes example GSuite docs)

How GSuite Supports the Engineering Design Process

As students confront complex problems, GSuite provides a great toolkit for working through the engineering design process. The animation below shows how Google tools can support each step.

You'll see all of these in action in part 3, so here's a quick overview of each tool and its role.

Google Docs

Docs is the perfect tool for problem identification, solution brainstorming, and design selection.

With the ability to collaborate with other members of their team, the use of the "Explore" feature to find endless ideas to spark creativity, and the comments feature to discuss final design selection, Docs becomes the central hub of the group's planning process.

Sketchup

Okay, so it's not technically a Google tool anymore (Google sold it to Trimble back in 2012...here's why if you're interested), but I still have a hard time not thinking of SketchUp and Google as being linked. Google used it for about 6 years to model buildings in Google Earth until they found a better way, then sold SketchUp and moved on. 

However, with the recently announced "SketchUp for Schools Beta," schools using GSuite for Education will have access to the web-based version of Sketchup for FREE. So yes, throw the penalty flag on the inclusion of this not-technically-Google tool, but the GSuite integration lets me slide it in here with only a mild prick of conscience. :) 

Sketchup is powerful 3D modeling software that lets student design models and prototypes quickly with a small learning curve. Couple that with a promise of 3D printing ability coming soon, and SketchUp becomes an amazing tool for rapid prototyping during the EDP.

Yes, you can even build dinosaurs with SketchUp

Google Sheets

When students test their design and then work to optimize it, they have to have data. Data tells them whether or not the modifications they've made to their design have improved it or made it worse. It becomes even more powerful they have access to the data set of the entire class, which lets them compare designs and share ideas as they optimize their own work. A shared class spreadsheet is the perfect way to gather everyone's data in one place for comparison and discussion.

Google Forms

Depending on the design and ultimate end user, part of the optimization process is user feedback. With Forms, groups can create quick surveys to get feedback from classmates, teachers, and industry professionals on how they can improve their design.

Google Slides

When all the brainstorming, building, testing, and optimizing is finished, it's time to share. The ability to insert images and video into Slides lets student communicate not only their end result, but also lessons learned throughout the design process. When presentation time comes, it's also pretty handy to have one class presentation that everyone has put their work in instead of countless separate ones.

With that general outline in mind, let's take a look at a simple engineering design challenge and how these Google tools support the process.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Using GSuite to Teach the Engineering Design Process (Part 1)

I recently led a half-day training focused on how to use Google tools to support STEM activities in the classroom. Specifically, we explored the role of GSuite in the engineering design process and STEM design challenges. These posts capture the essence of that training, along with links to examples so you can modify them for use in your classroom.

Part 1 - Engineering Habits of Mind and the Design Process
Part 2 - How GSuite Supports the Engineering Design Process
Part 3 - A Simple Design Challenge using GSuite (includes example GSuite docs)

Engineering Habits of Mind

At the heart of STEM education is the idea that, no matter what content area we teach, we want our students to develop engineering habits of mind. According to the Royal Academy of Engineering, those six habits are:

1. Systems thinking
2. Adapting
3. Problem finding
4. Creative problem solving
5. Visualizing
6. Improving

Those particular skills aren't exactly nourished in our current test-crazed, convergent-thinking, multiple-choice school culture. The question, then, is how do we help students exercise these skills in the classroom and what digital tools can we use to support them?

The Engineering Design Process (EDP)

The Engineering Design Process (EDP) provides a framework to help students think through and solve complex problems. As more schools adopt STEM, there are ever more versions of the EDP available, so you can mix-and-match/pick-and-choose which one works best for your purposes. This Google image search for "engineering design process" should be more than enough to get you started. 

No matter what version of the EDP you choose, though, they all have the same basic elements, which align with the engineering habits of mind listed above.

1. Identifying the problem
2. Brainstorming solutions
3. Generating/selecting a design or plan
4. Building a model or prototype
5. Testing and evaluating
6. Optimizing
7. Sharing

For the purposes of these posts, I'll use this one from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory activity "The Sky and Dichotomous Key."

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

"It's Not the Tool, It's What You Do With It": In Support of Prepackaged #STEM Products | #30DBB - Day 18

This is day 18 of "The Thirty Day Blog Binge." Learn more

Recently, Ross Coops wrote a guest post on Tom Murray's blog titled "The Problem with Prepackaged STEM Products." His point, summarized here by me in 135 Twitter-like characters, is this: "Prepackaged STEM products can distract us from developing teachers to have an inquiry mindset and change their instruction accordingly."

Ross brings up some exquisite points about the dangers of shiny STEM things becoming the Siren's song: entrancing and preoccupying us, but eventually leaving us shipwrecked having less than what we began with. And that's accurate. A product is in no way a replacement for a change in pedagogy, a shift from traditional instruction to inquiry, or the introduction of messy, unrefined problems into our classrooms.

On the other hand, I believe these products do have value when used correctly. What if, instead of worrying about being lured away from the hard work of changing teacher mindsets, we instead saw prepackaged STEM as part of the pathway to achieving our instructional goals? Like the SAMR model, what if on our way to a redefinition of teacher practice, we saw that a willingness to start with "substitutional STEM," while not an end in itself, is a solid first step to helping teachers reach the higher levels of inquiry? We make an error in logic if we consider this a zero-sum game: providing teachers with prepackaged tools is not mutually exclusive to developing their pedagogical ability.

With the idea of using these tools as part of a teacher development pathway, here are my four thoughts in support of prepackaged STEM products.

1. Prepackaged STEM products can provide the "training wheels" to get a teacher thinking differently about allowing students to tackle problems on their own.
   
    In his post, Ross asks the question "If you're a traditional teacher putting a prepackaged STEM product in front of your students, what are the chances the product's values -- prompting of problem solving, collaboration, critical thinking, etc. -- will then start to permeate the rest of your teaching?"
   
   If we look at prepackaged STEM as a scaffold in the teacher development process, then my response is "The chances are pretty good." If leaders in the school who are responsible for teacher development agree that the end goal is to develop facilitators of inquiry, then we should be probing, prompting and questioning teachers to reflect on how the values of the product could be transferred to their everyday instruction.
   
   No, the transfer won't happen automatically, but in the same way we activate prior knowledge with our students, we now have an "anchor experience" with which we can refer teachers back to as we move forward: "Remember that time the students got stuck programming their Sphero? Remember how you chose not to intervene and let them work it out on their own? How can you apply that same idea to letting them debug their geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem and its applications for architecture?"
   
   Whatever the STEM product is, it must serve to provide a successful experience that teachers can reflect on and realize that they helped to create an environment where problem solving, collaboration and critical thinking actually happened. And through a guided dissection of the experience, they can learn to do it again.


2. Prepackaged STEM products can build teacher capacity by providing a model for the inquiry process.
   
   I taught for several years in a hands-on STEM lab devoted to giving students experience in 15 different STEM careers: robotics, web design, video production, electrical engineering, manufacturing and a bunch of other ones. Using a blended curriculum, the students were provided with "prepackaged" materials, and they were then given the opportunity to solve open-ended problems with them.
   
   As I watched students experience the different modules, interesting patterns begin to emerge. I noticed that there were points where students would become incredibly frustrated with the problem they were trying to solve, but I also noticed that if I left them alone, most got themselves unstuck. I began to learn when to prompt students to express what they were struggling with, knowing that if they said it out loud, they would typically recognize the solution themselves. I wouldn't have been able to discern these patterns without seeing the same script play out hundreds of times.
   
   What did that do for me as a teacher? When I introduced other, unscripted, "unpackaged" problems for students to solve, I knew to let them struggle. I knew when to step in. In other words, I learned how to facilitate inquiry through pattern recognition.
   
   Even though inquiry is a fundamentally messy process, it does have certain recognizable elements that teachers can plan for and coach students through. Seeing them in action countless times built my capacity to develop better, deeper, and more challenging learning experiences for my students.


3. Not everyone equates a prepackaged STEM product with the "false illusion" of "powerful instructional shifts."
   
   I'll be the first to admit that I've seen schools and districts where the shiny things (whether its edtech, STEM products, or a new reading curriculum) become the end instead of the means. But there are many, many out there from the PBL, STEM, STEAM and MakerSpace tribes who know better.
   
   It would be a classic "baby with the bathwater" mistake to discard prepackaged STEM because some have used it as a substitute for true, powerful change. Obviously, handing a student a set of littleBits and a directions booklet does not equate to a sudden closing of the achievement gap or an abrupt realignment to equity in education. But what it can do is provide access to the tools a teacher needs to get students engaged, thinking differently, and exploring the world around them. Yes, a product is not a sea-change in instructional practice, but it can be a powerful tool to get us headed in a better direction.


4. It's not the tool, it's what you do with it.
   
   Ross questions in his post if prepackaged STEM products are "polished and overly contrived" and "ignore...problem solving, productive struggle, and [the] iterative process." Earlier, he mentions littleBits, Snap Circuits, and Spheros as examples of the prepackaged products he's referring to. The thing I see in common with these products is that they have parts and directions. With those as our defining characteristics, we could easily include Lego Mindstorms EV3, Makey Makey, rocketry kits, GoldiBlox, Scratch, Code.org, this Raspberry Pi starter set, Lab-Aids kits, and pretty much anything else that provides a bit of guidance in getting students started with a tool.
   
   Just because a product has items packaged together and includes a set of directions doesn't mean that it eliminates struggle and problem solving. Actually, the fact that students are initially given a goal to reach or a product to create requires them to become better problem solvers. Watching students work with Mindstorms robots to try and create their first program showed me that, no matter how detailed the directions might be, it's very rarely going to work correctly the first time. Students then have to figure out why. The problem is when exploration stops with the creation of the product in the directions. Once a product is created, it becomes the job of the teacher to push students to iterate, refine, and create outside the constraints of the steps that have been provided.
   
   Additionally, its important to think of endless scientists and engineers whose interest in their field started with receiving a chemistry set or erector kit in their childhood. Since they contain parts and directions, they could be considered the "prepackaged STEM products" of decades past. But they became an entry point for interaction with the world of STEM, a chance to wonder about why things worked the way they did. Coming as a set did nothing to lesson their effectiveness in cultivating a scientific mindset.
   
   
   
   
   Problem solving, productive struggle and the iterative process are hallmarks of an advanced thought process, not a product or curriculum. So as long the environment is ripe for students to go "off-book" with the STEM products, having an initial structure and directions can acquaint students with the tools, as well as their possibilities and constraints, which provides them with the fodder they need to use those tools in creative ways.

At the end of the day, it's our job (as the ones who know better), to preach systematic, purposeful integration of these STEM products into our goals for teacher growth and development. Ross makes a great point when he says "we must invest in our teachers through professional development, and by establishing cultures of ongoing learning and inquiry." Yes, we certainly must.

Some teachers are already there, some teachers are working on it, and others need significant support. But all teachers and students can benefit from access to well-designed tools to spark students' imaginations and get them engaging with the lexicon of ideas that make up STEM.

#30DBB

Thanks, Texas Instruments, for Supporting #STEM in Public Schools

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