Asset-Based Pedagogies: Leverage Prior Knowledge and Experiences
Students explore family connections to the engineering problem that are relevant to their everyday lives. They draw upon their prior knowledge and leverage their personal experiences to design solutions.
“You Are Already Like a Bioengineer!”
Students discuss what they think a bioengineer might do and share their own experiences in that area. Watch & Reflect:
Reflection Questions
Students come to classrooms with a wealth of experiences. Creating space for students to share those experiences can show other students that engineering isn’t hard or complicated; it is things they do all the time.
This space can also help a student to showcase a part of themselves that maybe would not have been known to the class. This student shares about their experience with frogs and a pond, something that might be new information to the students and their teacher and can be leveraged in the coming unit, positioning this student as an expert.
Be open to loose connections. Let students share their stories and connect it to the design challenge.
Establish a classroom culture that fosters an open and inclusive environment where students feel comfortable being themselves. Invite them to share at other times.
Provide students with quiet think time before having them share.
Related Engineering Practices: Communicate Effectively, Identify as Engineers
Featured Unit: Designing Model Membranes
“Communicating With Light”
Students discuss in small groups and as a class ways that they can use light to communicate messages, drawing on their own experiences. Watch & Reflect:
Reflection Questions
Give students opportunities to brainstorm ideas before asking them to share.
Ask students if they want someone to help them before doing so. They may just need time or they may need a scaffold.
Replace the images provided in the unit with photographs of spaces in your community. Give students a personal connection to the ideas.
As you introduce the Imagine phase, ask students which of the communication ideas they discussed in this activity might be helpful for their design.
Have students discuss with their partner how they want their nightlight to communicate.
Related Engineering Practices: Communicate Effectively, Consider Problems in Context
Featured Unit: Engineering Nightlights