Pixel International Conferences

The world is evolving, and people and technology are evolving simultaneously; however, education and the integration of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) to school curriculums is falling behind these rapid changes. In the modern world system where technology is one of the main centers of attention, it’s crucial for technology to be added as a significant part of school curriculums to be taught systematically in classrooms for the greater development of future generations. The comprehensive idea that only students who are interested in following a career path that’s directly correlated with STEM should be concerned with the technological basis is flawed and destructive in the long run. Although the current system has certain flawed aspects, it’s never late for refinements. For this universal problem that applies to schools all over the world, there’s a simple, pragmatic and fertile suggestion: the Engineering Design Process. The EDP consists of 11 steps (defining the problem, doing research, determine solution specifications, ideating the solution, making prototypes, choosing between prototypes, detailing the chosen prototype, getting approval for the prototype, implementing, testing, iterating) that allows students to develop and pursue their projects. It has a format that can, and should, be thought everywhere and be applied to all projects no matter the field. We, as two high school students interested in robotics, technology, and developmental processes have seen and continue to see the vigorous impact the EDP had over us. Starting high school, our knowledge in robotics was limited and we had a hard time planning and using our time and resources effectively. When we met the engineering design process, this rough process of planning became very simple and clear because we had a guideline. After a short notice, we started to use the EDP not only in our robot building processes but also in other aspects of our daily lives where we were in the continuous trial to overcome obstacles. To spread this methodology which we found very useful for ourselves and to help students all over the world to benefit from this chance, we would like to share our experiences and opinions on the EDP in the 2019 International Conference on The Future of Education. We aim to perform an oral presentation where we start off by explaining the process steps, then do an active learning activity where the participants try and develop their own example where they use the EDP steps. Finally, we’ll evaluate the system’s functioning. 

Keywords: Technology, engineering, education;

References:

[1] Ertas, A., Jones, J. C., The Engineering Design Process, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1996.
[2] Lumsdaine, E., Lumsdaine, M., Shelnutt, J. W., Creative Problem Solving and Engineering Design, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, 1999.