The Roles of Engineering Notebooks in Shaping Elementary Engineering Student Discourse and Practice (RTP)

摘要

Over the past decade, engineering has steadily made its way into K-12 education; national and state standards now include engineering as a discipline that children should engage with1. Real-world engineering design challenges are open-ended-multiple solutions to the problem exist2. A challenge engineering introduces into classrooms is how classes can be structured so that they afford students the opportunity to think creatively and generate new solutions as they engage in the types of conversations and deliberations that occur in engineering teams. An engineering notebook offers one possible solution. Real engineers are often trained to use an engineering notebook to document and structure their work. Providing classroom students with a notebook offers opportunities to organize their behaviors, make reference and use of data, and structure their activities. An important goal of engineering education is to engage children in actual practices of engineering. Notebooks may be able to do this on two levels-they model the importance of recording information and, at the elementary level, can provide scaffolding that engage students in engineering practices.