Elementary School Design Packet

I'm still working out the details of how to measure STEM success for a kindergartener.  Mostly, I think it's about how well they worked together and how well they focused on the goal or solving the problem.  Even if the build is a fail, I consider it success if they listened to one another ideas and actually worked toward the goal (kindergartners love to explore bunny trails).  The problem is that a lot of great ideas come from exploring those trails that don't necessarily go along with the goal at hand.  I think I'll just encourage them to write down (or draw, or let me write) ideas in their writing journals (maybe we should keep engineering journals, hmmm...) to save those ideas for later exploration.

Here is a design packet I found at NASA Talk. I copied it a put in in teachers' mailboxes at my school.  I thought it would help other teachers with the same issue- which is why I'm posting it here for you.  There are a lot of great questions to inform your STEM teaching facilitating.  Plus, a pretty great graphic with an explanation of the design process geared toward elementary students.

I'll leave you with these questions I found on Mind/Shift to help inform your instruction and know if what you are teaching is really STEM:

– Does it engage students in the engineering design process?
– Do students address a real-world problem?
– Do they work in teams to solve this problem?
– Are there multiple possible solutions?
– Do students get to explore and come up with ideas on their own, without being spoon-fed?

The part about not spoon feeding students is my personal goal.  They're kindergarteners, not infants, right?