Informed Designers? Students’ Reflections on Their Engineering Design Process

Abstract

Article HistoryReceived: 03 July 2017Assessment of students' critical thinking and problem solving in engineering is a real challenge for classroom teachers and researchers. Yet, students demonstrate evidence of learning through multiple means, including written reflections. The purpose of this study was to explore how students in grades 5 and 7 reflect on what they had learned about engineering design practices in comparison to their previous understandings. The researchers applied qualitative content analysis to analyze student responses to engineering notebook prompts that asked students to reflect on their understanding of the problem and how to design solutions. Data were collected from two classrooms (n = 47) that had implemented integrated STEM curricula. The results of this study indicate that students were able to reflect meaningfully on their engineering practices and how their understanding of what it meant to design had changed. The notebooks provided an opportunity for students to demonstrate evidence of their learning through reflection on their own design practices. The findings suggest that teachers and curriculum developers can use reflection as a means to help students connect their own learning to informed design practices, which may help students move toward being independent informed designers. Future research should consider how teachers can use notebooks to provide feedback on engineering practices Accepted: 11 November 2017 Keywords Engineering Assessment Notebooks IntroductionRecent reform efforts in science education call for integration of science, engineering, and mathematics to promote deeper levels of learning, including critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving based on content understanding (Australian Council of Learned Academies, 2013; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Development and implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) is one of the most significant of such efforts in the United States. STEM integration curricula support this disciplinary learning by engaging students in engineering design practices as a means to develop technologies through the integration and application of science and/or mathematics (Moore & Smith, 2014). STEM integration curricula provide promising opportunities for students to develop the critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making intended under the NGSS, because engineering challenges are by nature open-ended with many solution possibilities. Therefore, they add a layer of complexity to students' thinking and learning, requiring them to solve complex problems, think critically about their solutions and the evidence for their solutions, and make decisions based on this evidence. However, STEM integration and engineering challenges also add complexity to the assessment of student learning. Thus, methods of classroom assessment must enable teachers to assess student learning when there is not one -correct‖ solution and when solutions may not function as intended.Many approaches to integr...

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