Driving innovation through project based learning: A pre-university STEAM for Social Good initiative

Abstract

The Covid pandemic is a clarion call for increased sensitivity to the interconnected nature of social problems facing our world today. A future-oriented education on critical issues, such as those outlined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and designing potential solutions for such problems is an imperative skill that must be imparted to children to help them navigate their future in today's unpredictable world. Towards this goal, we have been conducting 3.5 monthlong mentoring sessions for pre-university students in India to participate in a STEAM for Social Good innovation challenge conducted annually by the Government of India. Using digital and physical computing skills, we helped children explore creative solutions for social problems through a constructionist approach to learning, wherein they ideated and reflected upon the problems in their communities. The children learnt the Engineering Design Thinking process and worked in online groups of two or three, from concept to completion. Despite the constraints posed by the pandemic, they explored creative ways to think about design and innovation. They completed a variety of tasks by making, tinkering, engineering, assembling, and programming to grasp the intricate relationship between software and hardware. Subsequently, the children showcased their creative abilities through video storytelling to a panel of domain experts. In this paper, we present the children's perspective of their experiences through this journey, the evaluation metrics based on IEEE design principles, and our learnings from conducting this initiative as a university-school partnership model for 84 middle and high school students. The aspirational intent of this initiative is to make the children better social problem solvers and help them perceive social problems as opportunities to enhance life for themselves and their communities.

Enhancing creative cognition through project-based learning: An in-depth scholarly exploration

“…Moreover, Manikutty, Sasidharan, and Rao [ 1 ]emphasized the role of PBL in addressing complex social problems, showcasing how PBL can be used to develop creative solutions for real-world issues. Their work on a STEAM for Social Good initiative illustrates how PBL encourages students to think creatively about societal challenges, further reinforcing the link between PBL and creative thinking.…”

“…In the evolving landscape of modern education, Project-Based Learning (PBL) stands out as a pivotal pedagogical approach, aligning with the demands of 21st-century learning environments. This approach, deeply rooted in constructivist theory, emphasizes student-centered, experiential learning where knowledge is actively constructed rather than passively consumed [ 1 ]. At the heart of PBL lies the cultivation of creative thinking, a skill increasingly recognized as crucial across various domains.…”

The effect of project-based learning model on students’ critical and creative thinking skills in the ecosystem concept

“…These learning model is good, but to improve critical and creative thinking skills it is better to use the PjBL model (Issa, 2021;Santoso, 2021;Sumarni, 2020;Suradika, 2023). This is because the PjBL syntax requires students to make products that can answer essential problems or questions, making products is the highest level of bloom cognitive skills (Khoiri, 2023;Latifaj, 2023;Manikutty, 2022) and real implementation of creative thinking abilities (Wahyudi, 2021) because they are able to create something new from the results of their thinking even within the scope of the class. or school.…”

Children as Earth Authors: A Story of Creativity, Metacognition and Motivation among Indian School Children

“…Somanath, Oehlberg, Hughes, Sharlin, and Sousa (2017) discuss the resilience and collaboration between students to overcome myriad challenges during a DIY maker PBL. Manikutty, Sasidharan, and Rao (2022) found a positive impact of a PBL maker project on children's design thinking, open‐mindedness to technology adoption, self‐perceptions on competence, relatedness, autonomy, and inclusivity. However, none of these studies explored the process of creativity for the children or the role of motivation and metacognition.…”

“…However, none of these studies explored the process of creativity for the children or the role of motivation and metacognition. Furthermore, most of the studies were quantitative in nature (Alekh et al., 2018; Manikutty et al., 2022; Susmitha et al., 2018) and thereby have an inherent limitations. Quantitative instruments like a Likert Scale restrict children's attitudes, beliefs, emotion, or lived experiences to adult‐constructed meaning‐making and adult discourse and fail to capture the richness of children's idiosyncratic meaning‐making (Eisner, 1985).…”