Communication skills and dialogue are key competencies of the 21st century and a condition for successful implementation and personal development in general. This requires their formation to be the subject of purposeful educational activity. At the same time, their implementation in the learning process is a complex and difficult task, requiring a…

Co-invention projects in elementary school engage pupils in complex, open-ended design tasks in a practical, hands-on way. Physical materials are an intrinsic part of design, involving trasformation of conceptual ideas into material forms, such as prototypes. These tangible objects mediate embodied thinking and act as material-social mediators of…

Our paper positions telecollaboration in the business context, in which culturally, geographically, temporally, and functionally dispersed teams -- so-called Global Virtual Teams (GVTs) -- are increasingly being used to engage an organisation's creative and problem-solving capabilities. In this virtual workplace, team members must complete tasks…

Student-directed projects motivate and educate the students, inform the public--and produce some very handsome furniture that may well become treasured family heirlooms that will live beyond their makers. In this article, the author describes how he adopted a student-directed approach in his Fine Woodworking course by setting up a two-project…

There is a battlefield where no quarter is given, no mercy shown, but not a single drop of blood is spilled. It is an arena that witnesses the bringing together of high-tech design and manufacture with the outpouring of brute force, under the remotely accessed command of some of today's brightest students. This is the world of battling robots, or…

Each year, students in Kittanning Senior High School's Principles of Technology (POT) classes have a design challenge, usually beginning with CO2-powered or Maglev-powered vehicles and progressing to such challenges as soap-box cars or radio-controlled airplanes. The author's recent POT class challenged them with the most exciting challenge yet:…

A study of 46 Israeli high school students' graduation projects involving robot design focused on engineering knowledge and skills needed, learning through reflective practice, and individual assessment of learning. Analysis of teacher logbooks and student portfolios indicated that all students completed projects, were motivated, devoted extra…

Working on an open-ended task such as designing an engineering artifact is a rich learning experience for students, although they generally receive little direct guidance and instruction from their professors. In order to be successful on such a task, students need to set reasonable goals for themselves and adopt intrinsic standards for success so…