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Introduction:

This exciting program for grades PreK-5 introduces teachers and students to engineering and thinking skills (tools for engineering) in an interdisciplinary project based learning environment. The program uses the engineering design process, as defined in the Massachusetts Science Framework, as a connector between students’ literature and their mathematics and science curricula. It infuses the development of thinking strategies with creative and critical thinking, provocative questions and meta-cognitive reflection, skills that are part of the engineering process. This approach is based on the definition, “Engineering is about designing useful products & processes for society using all disciplines, but mainly science & mathematics”.

Kids also must learn to think across disciplines, since that's where most new breakthroughs
are made. It's interdisciplinary combinations—design and technology, mathematics and
art—"that produce YouTube and Google," says Thomas Friedman, the best-selling author of
The World Is Flat.

If students are to function successfully in a highly technical society, then they must be
equipped with lifelong learning and thinking skills necessary to acquire and process
information in an ever-changing world

Our idea is to show you how to, in a systematic way, create an interdisciplinary project learning experiences using the design process and thinking skills as the connector.  Many of you probably have done projects around literature and other subjects, but we hope to develop a way that is systematic and provides your student the ability to participate in the process of finding design challenges in the stories they are reading.   We are creating a professional development (PD) syllabus that we model for you the methodology.  The major elements of the PD are shown below.  This web site is the work book of templates and examples for your continuous use.

Shown below is a model for a  professional Development program.

Table of Content:

Note: each of the links below open in a separate window in your browser.

Definitions, Standards
As in any new system, definitions and standard to be used need to be identified and explained.  These vocabulary words can be used as part of the learning spiral of your students.
Definitions:
Find the definitions of word that are used in this work book.

Standards:
When creating interdisciplinary learning projects around stories, the Massachusetts State Standards need to be known and integrated in the learning experience.

Goal setting for feedback and rubrics
The success of this concept relies on the students to be part owners of their learning, they must share in developing the measurement system to be used. Design with the students how are we going to measure success and provide feedback during this activity.

About Engineering ... Scientists and Mathematicians
We need to understand  what an engineer does to be able to understand the Strand 4 of the Science Framework and create these interdisciplinary learning projects.  Teachers are the engineers of learning and must see that they know more about engineering then they think. This needs to be modeled to our students so they also can see the relevance of the learning process and the specific subjects.
The essential question is "Why do I need to know about engineering as an educator?"

Design process
The design process is at the heart of this methodology. We use the definition of engineering as designing useful products or processes for society based on all disciples, but mainly math and science.

How to Connect Stories
We begin to enhance the learning process by using the engineering design methodology as a connector between literature, science & mathematics. Within this process is an infusion of thinking skill strategies, such as creative and critical thinking, questions and meta-cognitive reflection. The concept uses the existing comfort level of the elementary teachers and the student’s natural engineering abilities.
The process begins with literature, such as fairy tales, starting in the lower grades and leading to more sophisticated stories at older ages – stories that engage students. The underlining skills of the engineering design process are related to the science process, mathematical problem solving (process) and thinking skills. Thus the student is taught how to think skillfully.  "Engineering design challenges" are created by actionable items in the story and lead to inquiry based team projects that have a design theme.

Examples

Differences in PreK through 5th grade.
How do we account for differences in students over the range of grades and in some cases within grades.  Each of us is different and come at learning in different ways.  We must understand where our students are coming from and their learning style and needs.

Thinking skills
We as educators, need to infuse thinking skills into this learning process. We like to say that Thinking Skills are one of the tools of engineers. It is important to model for our students the use of thinking skills and provide feedback to them on their use.  Creative and critical thinking are key to the finding design challenges and doing a design.  Questioning is needed through-out the process as well as developing our curiosity. Meta-cognitive reflection bring in the ability to see what we are doing and change where necessary and using ( shown in a Goldilocks application) Blooms higher order taxonomy bring the ability to think about what we are doing.

Conclusion/References
SAMPLES:

1. Design with the students "How are we going to measure success and provide feedback during this activity".

2. Find a design challenge in the story by using a story map.

3. Use of a mind map and the probing questions to develop the design challenges.

4. Create the Design challenges with a thought to the math and science elements.

5. Group selection of the design challenge to work with.

6. Create the project groups where the students can collaborate, design and present their results.

7. Start the design process.  Students use creative and critical thinking to research, development and test their solutions.

PD Implementation Process: