Using Google Maps to help teach Civil Engineering to Middle School Students

Using Google Maps to help teach Civil Engineering to Middle School Students

Students learn about the world’s tallest towers, focussing on the tallest skyscraper in the world, the Burj Kahlifa and the basic design principles that makes it successful. Students engage with Google Earth to take a virtual tour of the building and watch a video on how Google produced the virtual tour. Then, students are given a civil engineering design challenge. The challenge involves building a tower out of limited materials and time that will withstand a hurricane force wind. Students take an online, self-grading quiz on terms and concepts.

Key questions

• What is a civil engineer?
• What is the tallest tower in the world?
• What design considerations must a building consider to withstand the forces of nature?
• Which structural designs work better than others?

click here for the lesson.

10.4 Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative and Assessment Article Summary

9.3: 5 Technology-Integrated Lesson Plans

Why teach engineering in elementary/middle school?
There are many reasons to teach engineering in elementary and middle school.

• Children of this age have an innate curiosity about how things work and are fascinated by taking things apart and putting things together to learn how they work. By encouraging this creative and inquisitive expression we can help to keep these interests alive, and encourage them to pursue these activities in the future.
• Engineering projects integrate well with other disciplines. Using real-world, hands-on projects, students naturally engage in science and math activities, as well as all other subjects as a result of their research and investigations. From graphing data and learning scientific principles, to communicating their results with the world through multimodal approaches, students are engaged in real world, relevant applications of all subjects.
• Engineering fosters problem-solving skills collaboration, independent thinking. These are skills that are required for 21st Century careers, and should be a central part of the curriculum.
• Engineering concepts are taught through project-based experiences, which encourage students to think outside the box, problem solve and collaborate. It brings concepts from one dimension into the real world.
• Engineering and technological literacy are essential for preparing our students for careers of the future. Our society is increasingly dependent upon technology and engineering, a trend which is only growing stronger. To compete in the world market, we must prepare our students with skills that will ready them for careers, some of which don't even exist today. We must do what we can to create independent thinkers and problem solvers. Engineering is a great way to accomplish this.

click here for the unit plan

10.3 My Philosophy of Teaching

Purpose

My goal in the classroom is to inspire and facilitate student exploration and discovery. Through the use of modeling and executing integrated digital experiences, I have found it to foster creativity, innovation, collaboration and communication skills. Students learn to problem-solve, develop critical thinking and decision-making capabilities. Guided inquiry and project-based learning helps students to locate, organize, synthesize and share knowledge about real-world issues.

With much attention being given to the need for preparing students for 21st century careers, a robust education in STEM is critically important. According to the NSPE (National Society of Professional Engineers), the “continued economic prosperity and national security of the United States” relies upon a strong foundational understanding of STEM concepts and practices, and that the elementary and middle school is the prime time to lay this foundation for students.

Presentation

In the classroom, using a variety of media to present the lesson is crucial. Equally as important is students sharing what they have learned through technology, as it is an essential 21st century skill.

Staying on top of the latest trends in public school education is important to me. I also believe that it is important to be a lifelong learner. In addition, I believe in giving back to the community through professional speaking engagements and workshops.

Curriculum

Delivering learning experiences which are aligned with the CCSS and the NGSS is essential. Lessons should always begin with the desired results, followed by determining acceptable evidence. This allows for planning meaningful learning experiences and instruction that sets the stage for successful learning.

Assessments are formative and summative,  including traditional tests and quizzes, yet  moving beyond to student rubrics, project notebooks, journals, self-assessments, peer-to-peer assessments and more.

Questions I ask when planning for learning:

1. What do my students need to know and be able to accomplish?
2. How will my students demonstrate that they know and are able to do it?
3. How are my students going to learn what they need to know and be able to do?
4. How will I know that they have learned?

Classroom Environment

At the heart of a solid STEM program lies a solid foundation for student empowerment. In the classroom, the following is apparent:

• Clear expectations set by the teacher
• A well-defined and supportive framework for the learning activities which are created from instructional goals
• Meaningful technology is used to support learning
• Differentiated learning occurs consistently through a variety of learning activities
• Assessment is authentic, using a variety of modes and includes student self-assessments and peer-to-peer evaluations.

Motivation, Engagement and Conduct

Motivating and sustaining student interest, engagement and appropriate conduct is always my goal. Of course, letting the class flow and having fun is also important!

Having students who are self-directed, interested and engaged in their activities allows for deeper learning and a higher level of involvement and expression. This can be accomplished with learners of all types and abilities through differentiation and variety of hands-on activities.

Theory, Application and Diversity

As an educator, I have a firm belief in infusing all learning experiences with multiple paths to learning and and allow for different modes of presentation and assessment. Each student is different, and learns differently. Applying Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Students learn uniquely within intelligences which include visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, logical-mathematical as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal. Applying these has become much easier with the advent of meaningfully integrated technology and thoughtful planning for learning on all levels.

AR.3 Article Review - Rubrics

CBE—Life Sciences Education Vol. 5, 197–203, Fall 2006

Approaches to Biology Teaching and Learning Rubrics: Tools for Making Learning Goals and Evaluation Criteria Explicit for Both Teachers and Learners Deborah Allen* and Kimberly Tanner† *Department of Biological Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716; and † Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA 94132

In an attempt to drive higher order thinking and deeper understanding of course content, rubrics provide a way for students and teacher alike to have clarity around expectations and performance objectives. The rubric allows students to understand the standards clearly and improve their performance on the tasks. For teachers, it helps to set a guideline for assessment that has clearly defined standards, making grading more objectifiable and less opinion-driven.

In designing a rubric, one must consider first the following questions: 

“What do I want students to know and be able to do?

“How will I know when they know it and can do it well?”

“This is essential not only for developing the rubric, but also in confirming the choice of the particular assessment task as being the best way to collect evidence about how the outcomes have been met.” 

Allen and Tanner discuss the differences between constructing  analytical and holistic rubrics and the complexities of creating the right one to obtain the desired evidence that outcomes have been met.They mention online rubric sites, such as Rubistar that can be used to generate rubrics. After this, they talk about analyzing the data collected from the rubric. I found this to be a little academic, but appreciated that they talked about using double digit rubric scores to analyze a student’s responses to an essay prompt about ecosystems. I think that this is a better approach than a regular multiple choice test, because it reflects higher order thinking and connections to the real world, whereas the multiple choice test is static and flat, offering a lot less information about the student’s actual learning other than rote memorization.

The article concludes with talking about why it is good to use rubrics, from both the teacher and student points of view. Although it takes considerable time to create a rubric, it is a great assessment tool, especially given changing teaching strategies. Rubrics can help to ensure that students are being assessed properly and that the educational outcomes of the teachers are met. It also provides a tool for the student to reflect on their learning, and for students to know the expectations of the learning experience up front which can help them to succeed.

7.2 UbD Global Warming Lesson Plan

Click here for the Lesson Plan. Hope you like it!

6.2 ACTIVITY-BASED LESSON ADJUSTED TO COMMON CORE

What academic and content specific vocabulary is introduced in this lesson?

Words are chosen from article. See article for details.

What materials will I present to students:

ARTICLE: Students will read an article where scientists worked together to develop the most plausible solution to a problem. Close reading techniques and annotating will be used. Students will be able to analyze the arguments that support the claims made in the Biochar article using clear reasoning and evidence from the article. Students document the arguments made by the authors of the Biochar article; make meaning of the different solutions they proposed; argue if they agree or disagree with the chosen solution; compare/contrast the different solutions presented.

COMPUTERS: Students will research and present a real-world example which illustrates a dynamic scientific process where scientists/engineers have worked as a team to develop many solutions to a specific problem and then tested to find the most plausible solution. Students demonstrate their understanding of developing solutions; describe their example, justify their explanation, show how they reached their conclusions.

JOURNALS: Students write a letter to the scientists/engineers they studied in the real-world example above, imagining what it would be like to have been there and asking questions about how they arrived at the most plausible solution to their problem. Students consider alternatives, imagine what an historical scientist would do to solve the problem.

COMPUTERS: Students invent their own experiment, propose possible solutions, solve how they will test them and test their most plausible solution.Students present their findings, and assess their experiments through posts in their journal entries.

How will I open the lesson (motivation) and capture student interest?

PRE LEARNING ACTIVITY: Build a tower in fifteen minutes using provided materials (spaghetti, marshmallows, string, tape) that stands freely and measures the tallest in the class.

What additional individual/team/full class activities will I use to help students discover what they need to learn (suggest three)? If these are group activities, how will student groups be organized?

PRE LEARNING ACTIVITY: Small groups of three

ARTICLE: Individual
RESEARCH STAGE 1: Same groups of three

LETTER WRITING: Individual

RESEARCH STAGE 2: Individual

REPORTING: Individual

How will I differentiate instruction with multiple entry points for diverse learners?

Not necessary for pre learning activity. Article will be chunked out for differentiation with lower level readers. This is probably not necessary as my class is an honors class.

What H.O.T. (Higher Order Thinking) questions will I ask to engage students in analysis and discussion?

How did you come to your final design? Did you consider other options? Did you start with the end in mind? Did you use trial and error? Leave time for improvements? How will this help you to solve other problems?

How will I assess student mastery of the skills, concepts and content taught in this lesson?

There are several, varied experiences in this lesson that touch on many different Intelligences. Students have many opportunities to master the skills, concepts and content taught in this series of lessons. The assessments will be informal for some of the experiences and formal for the Letter writing and Research Stage 2, where students will be assessed on their presentation (ppt or other method of their choice) of their own experiments.

How will I bring lesson to closure (summary questions)?

Debriefing will consist of discussion in the original small groups, then brought together with a whole class discussion.

Classroom application/follow up

The application of this series of lessons is that students will use their knowledge and apply it to future STEM research projects.

How do I evaluate this lesson?

Honestly, in retrospect, this lesson was not as dynamic as I had hoped it would be. I found writing a lesson in this format (answering the questions, not UbD) to be counterintuitive for me.