Wind turbines designed by middle school students? Yes, wind turbine models.
Two middle school engineering teachers in Massachusetts have published a case study about the successful engineering curriculum they designed for their middle school engineering classes. I explored their case study as an example of students as designers.
Steven Cogger and Daniel Miley have designed curriculum for nine week semesters, and every student in the middle school participates in the classes for one semester each school year. They have had positive results, which is shown in the quantitative and qualitative data they share in their case study.
Cogger and Miley have prepared engineering lessons for their classes which pave a precise path for students to travel during 6th and 7th grades. These preparatory project-based lessons enable students to creatively solve the problems they will face during their 8th grade engineering classes, designing efficient wind turbine models. The students probably do not realize that the processes they are going through to develop their projects in 6th and 7th grades are providing them with the skills and knowledge they will need to create solutions for the problems they will be challenged with in 8th grade.
Cogger and Miley identify their 6th and 7th grade years as implementing project based learning lessons. The project-based learning presents students with a task or tasks that lead to a final product. In project-based learning, materials and constraints are defined at the beginning, which aids students in achieving the final outcome. These steps are important because they provide students the skills and information they need to begin the wind turbine in their 8th grade year.
While reading about the 6th and 7th grade lessons, I began to better recognize the differences between project-based learning and problem-based learning. These project-based lessons began by identifying the final outcome and include materials and constraints defined by the teacher. I had been thinking that designing project-based lessons would be the best way to create lessons that lead students to becoming designers. I now realize that problem-based learning would be more accurate. Cogger and Miley explain that problem-based learning is more open-ended and requires a higher level of student involvement in their learning. “Active learning is a way to introduce the design-process and engage students in the subject material, primarily in science classrooms.” Lessons that are structured on problem-based learning include complex real-world problems (like how to design an efficient wind turbine to produce energy) and are used the processes that promote student learning of concepts and principles.
Can designing lessons with consideration and possible implementation of Nussbaum’s concepts of creative intelligence be helpful? Can the concepts aid in creating lessons in which students become the designers of their own learning?
Let's take a look at problem-based learning:
Comparing the steps of Problem-based learning to the five concepts of create intelligence:
Problem-Based Learning | Creative Intelligence |
Present with a Problem | Knowledge Mining to research and gather information from past and present experiences and resources. |
Develop a Plan | Frame a story of how the problem is a problem, who it is a problem for, and scenarios for how it can be solved. |
Implement Plan | Play and Make with ideas and materials in safe environments that bring about a solution. |
Evaluate Implemented Plan | Pivot according to Nussbaum, would mean to take the solution from theory to product. However, problem-based learning does not demand a final project, it is solving a problem. |
The students certainly spend time mining knowledge. Throughout the 6th and 7th grade years they are introduced to the math, science, and engineering processes to apply to the wind turbine design. Can they frame or create a story as they look for a solution? Yes, the students can complete the wind turbine project knowing information about what powers a community but can create their wind turbine for any context and design how they like. Plan and making? Definitely. Students are given iterative opportunities to create and test the wind turbines, which they do. And finally, pivoting. Well these students might not be able to take their ideas and create a profit from them but I certain they are envisioning scenarios in which they could.
I think that more than anything this case study shows a successful way to develop students as designers. These lessons, over time, scaffold on the students’ knowledge so that they can then design. This is a good example of how to incorporate steps from project- based learning to problem-based learning that will enable students as designers of their own learning and build a base of knowledge that sets them up for success.
Cogger, Steven D., and Daniel H. Miley. “Model Wind Turbine Design in a Project-Based Middle School Engineering Curriculum Built on State Frameworks.” Advances in Engineering Education, American Society for Engineering Education.
