Design Assessment: Consumer Reports Style

摘要

Often technology education teachers are guilty of being like their students, preferring to have students build prototypes and make artifacts instead of assigning a nonbuilding activity. However, providing students with class activities that help them build their capacity to effectively design is essential. The activity presented in this article will allow students to hone their skills in identifying design constraints and criteria, learn through study of existing designs, and experience engineering design techniques for optimization (decision matrix). These are all essential skills for building their capacity to tackle larger design activities.