The main purpose of writing this curriculum is to engage students at a higher level of problem-solving thinking and ideating for themselves. At the middle school stage of their academic career, many students are often simply asking questions to directly learn the answers, rather than valuing the process of finding the solution. Through this unit, students will become equipped with problem-solving skills that will shape their thinking in and outside of the classroom. This unit is designed with hopes of engaging students in a new way of thinking by pushing creativity, novelty, and inspiring students to think outside the box. Additionally, this unit will serve to teach students to value the process of problem solving to find an answer, rather than simply valuing the right results.
On a personal level, I chose to create a curriculum about the design process due to my own prior experience working in a biomedical engineering lab. During my time as an undergraduate at Cornell University, I spent three years working as an undergraduate researcher studying mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. The experience of hands-on, problem-solving based learning was the most influential learning experience I have had. I loved learning by doing and working through processes to determine solutions. Through this curriculum, I hope to demonstrate to the students that the process is often most important for scientific discovery. Students will learn the skills that I learned through research in the middle school classroom.
Additionally, it is the aim that through this unit students will gain access to understanding what the field of engineering is, and more specifically biomedical engineering, as they work through the design process. Our district has now adopted the Next Generation Science Standards, also known as NGSS. There are three levels of NGSS: Crosscutting Concepts, Science and Engineering Practices, and Disciplinary Core Ideas. The Science and Engineering practices are designed to build skills that all K-12 students should leave the science classroom knowing. These eight skills are: 1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering), 2. Developing and using models, 3. Planning and carrying out investigations, 4. Analyzing and interpreting data, 5. Using mathematics and computational thinking, 6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering), 7. Engaging in argument from evidence, 8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information.