This training activity focuses on learners’ planning during engineering design projects. Training participants are encouraged to: identify characteristics of engineering planning in elementary school learners; consider the roles of these varied characteristics in supporting productive engineering design; and discuss strategies for promoting productive engineering planning in learners through individual feedback as well as educational outreach activity design.
The activity includes examples of learners’ engineering plans from a design challenge to create a comfortable chair for Steve the Bear, a stuffed animal-sized client who works as a university professor, suffers back pain, and drinks a lot of coffee. Further background information on the example design challenge can be found in the Client Sheet document (provided to learners during the design challenge) as well as the Lesson Plan document (an outline of the design challenge created by outreach ambassadors).
To facilitate this training, first select a number of examples of Learner Planning with diversity in planning characteristics appropriate for the number of training participants. For some ideas about what these characteristics may be, consider the Example Characteristics document! This training activity involves small group discussions of example engineering plans, so one example plan per 3-6 training participants is appropriate depending on desired discussion group size. An outline for facilitating this training activity is the first attached document! The entirety of the training takes approximately 90 minutes, though it can be shortened to 45 minutes by stopping at Part 4 of the outline.
STOMP Notebooks 