Engineering design that requires mathematical analysis, scientific understanding, and technology is critical for preparing students for solving engineering problems. In simulated design environments, students are expected to learn about science and engineering through their design. However, there is a lack of understanding concerning linking…

In collaborative design settings, designers communicate and explicate their ideas visually and verbally in order to reach a shared understanding. The verbal exchanges of group members engaged in a joint design task provide rich data regarding the design activities being undertaken by the group members. In addition, sketching and modelling are…

There is a general consensus that design-based research (DBR) is a genre of approaches in education research to design interventions for specific problems with the aim to gain an understanding of how they work in the problem context. While there is a considerable body of literature discussing the epistemic and methodological aspects of DBR, we…

Simplifying equations via assumptions is integral to the "engineering method." Algebraic scaling helps in teaching the engineering skill of making good assumptions. Algebraic scaling is more than a pedagogical tool. It can create a solution where one was not possible before scaling. Scaling helps in engineering proper design…

Eleven high school students participated in a one-week STEM summer camp focused on designing and building parachutes to deliver fragile objects safely. Using the Engineering Design Process (EDP) as a framework, students explored how canopy size affects performance. They applied physics concepts such as terminal velocity, forces, and acceleration,…

The growing use of programming in mathematics classrooms presents a challenge linked to implementation in general and task design in particular. This article presents design ideas for mathematical problems incorporating programming in which the focus remains mainly on learning mathematics and less on learning programming. The article starts by…

Undergraduate engineering students are commonly introduced to design in their first year and tackle a more authentic design challenge during senior year, with intervening courses focused on technical problem solving. Along this trajectory, students should acquire skills related to the development of engineering requirements, which are important to…

In this paper, we have combined a pragmatic and a sociocultural perspective on how artifacts are used in technical problem-solving. With these perspectives we explore how three mechanical engineering students build a plastic spider together, using instructions they found on the internet. Ten hours of video recordings were selected for a detailed…

Although educational robotics competitions have become a popular research field in STEAM education, there is a lack of studies concerning the design process that student teams follow to build their solutions. This study aims to propose and evaluate We!Design!ForSTEAM, an approach for supporting design thinking in the context of STEAM and robotics…

In 2013, the Next Generation Science Standards tasked science teachers to include more engineering processes in their instruction. Design thinking is one way this has been accomplished over the last decade, but other engineering characteristics might have an influence on how learners thinking through the design process. Using a pretest-posttest,…

Spatial thinking is ubiquitous in design. Design education across all age groups encompasses a range of spatially challenging activities, such as forming and modifying mental representations of ideas, and visualizing the scenarios of design prototypes being used. While extensive research has examined the cognitive processes of spatial thinking and…

The main objective of this four-year empirical research project has been to develop the experimental design skills of 12-16 year-old Hungarian pupils in Grades 7-10 of junior high school through guided inquiry, using six chemistry experiment worksheets each school year. Group 1 (control group) and Group 2 follow step-by-step instructions, but…

Research shows a positive association between skilled migration and innovation. Related literature however is largely limited to the use of proxies such as patents, and publications. There is also a lack of attention to how innovation is accomplished in practices. This paper addresses these gaps with an examination of the innovative contributions…

In this paper, we draw on recent research on so-called Fermi problems and situate the fundamental principles underlying this type of tasks and their use from a task design perspective. We use the models and modelling perspective on teaching and learning to elaborate on aspects related to the design of single-use, as well as sequences of, Fermi…

One of the popular creativity methods to solve technical problems is the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, (TRIZ), however, requires a considerable investment of time. A teaching methodology for a simplified version of TRIZ (TRIZ10) has been developed for reducing learning time and improving the creative process in solving technical problems.…