Creating a Healthy Classroom Culture for Engineering

1. Creating a Healthy Classroom Culture for Engineering July 2008 LEGO Engineering Summer Institute CEEO, Tufts University

2. What’s different about engineering? • Hands-on projects • Collaboration/Teamwork • No single “right” answer • No “right” way to approach a problem

3. Collaboration & Creativity • Allow for ridiculous brainstorming • Even silly ideas can inspire great innovation • Encourage idea sharing • Not “cheating” or “copying” • Recognize Innovation • Be sure to give credit to ideas you use • Make students into experts • Expert students help their peers

4. Reflection & Learning • Embrace failure & redesign • Engineers don’t expect it to work the first time around • Reflect on why things aren’t working • Each trial leads to a design change; each design change is motivated by a trial • Emphasize end of class discussion • Motivates students to improve design • Provides a chance for student reflection • Gives you an opportunity to assess progress

5. Competition vs. Collaboration • Some thrive in competitions, others turned off • Most successful if the competition isn’t seen as “high-stakes”: no grades on the line • Some students won’t help peers if it could hurt their performance • Try competition against a standard – then your success doesn’t hurt my chances • Gold, Silver, Bronze medal ranges of performance • Provides a motivating goal without pitting students against each other