Download the Complete Paper as a PDF file
Developed by:
Jackson Pace, Tony Bertucci, and Alicia Ruch-Flynn
Lyndon Baines Johnson High School
Goals and Objectives:
Science and Technology (SciTech) was written with several goals. The course is hands-on science and engineering, which will prepare students to perform in industry and university work environments with industry level evaluation. The course requires students to use high levels of thinking. To create a class management system that requires students to develop self-reliance and strong professional ethics, the course design mandates group interactions in thought, written word and physical performance of models. The course engages students in meaningful group, peer, and self-evaluation. The activities develop a system where students experience the joy of true authorship of ideas that only comes from making one's own ideas work in the real world. Within our community of students, teacher, industry and the Austin community at-large, the structure creates and fosters interaction with engineering in a long term and meaningful way. The course imparts a useful set of content skills and process skills preparing students for applications in physics, engineering, and design.
 To accomplish our goals we visited several schools, held interviews with engineering representatives from firms in our community, and interviewed post-secondary science and engineering professors before settling on our current curricula. Surveying the traditional approach to science and engineering curricula, we decided the traditional model sequence had to be reversed. Traditionally, terms were memorized, concepts explained through a teacher-centered or book-centered delivery system and applications are rarely approached in any effectual way. Students never apply the learning to create products to prove they have command of the material. Students rarely produce products that would be of high quality and withstand industry level evaluation. We decided to flip the traditional model. Instead of terms-concepts-application, the course starts with an application. Conceptual understanding comes due to the parameters of the application and terms follow naturally. Our "constructivist" view of curricula establishes that concepts are built in the context of a complex application. In the traditional sequence, information is delivered in a thinking pattern of storage only and not retrieval for application. By having an application drive the information acquisition, the pattern for retrieval is established from the onset of thinking. This establishes that evaluation of an individual's learning achievement is based on what they can produce with the new ideas; * not on the amount of information they can store through memorizing. Producing products of agreed-upon quality with the new ideas is the core of evaluation. Without a change in the evaluation method, no course is different from the traditional method of content delivery.
Course Sequence:
At the beginning of each semester (the course is an accelerate block course; that is, we teach it for two consecutive periods during our 7 period day and one semester equals a year of curricula), we develop a mechanical engineering challenge that the students will have to complete. The course is based in general design process on a "four step" design process: conceptualization, design, layout/construction, and evaluation. The actual time and performance sequence for the course is available in tabular form within the full project PDF file.
Alignment of Learning Objectives with National Standards:
Texas initially used the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) objectives for validity analysis of curricula. The SciTech objectives match all requirements of TAAS as well as its successor, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). Since both TAAS and TAKS correspond to National Standards for education we assume national compliance. The specific correlation to TAKS would not fit in space provided. The course was submitted to Texas Education Agency as replacement for Texas? physical science course for 9th and 10th grades and was approved as an honors course in Texas.
Project 2061 authored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) lead to a project Texas for Authentic curriculum development. Our Curricula model is a derivative of the model proposed by Dr. Carol Steussy's Coordinated Thematic Science II Model. SciTech is a non-linear model with performance objectives arranged in a circular pattern. Each circle represents the project aspects of the course. The circles(i.e. projects) intersect spokes in the pattern. Each spoke represents a universal science skill required by TAKS and the national standards. The correlation of SciTech Objectives to TAKS occurs in the performance objectives written at the intersection of the circular project objectives and the "spoked" science skill objectives.
The curricula development process was written up in a masters thesis, Amplifying Teacher Voice of Curricular Reform in Science Education: Three enabling Characteristics of an Exemplary Teacher Workplace by Melissa LeBoeuf Tothero MA at the University of Texas 1995 Supervisor: James P. Barufauldi. The Thesis develops the characteristics required in a public school setting to develop authentic curricula.
Project Description:
The ideas for the challenge are new every course cycle. We solicit ideas from former students, professional engineers, and our teaching staff. The challenge begins on "Kick-off" day when the challenge description and its design parameters are described to the students. The students then develop individual conceptual plans (ICP). The ICP's are the individual students' solution written in their individual logbooks. The ICP's are reviewed with the teacher where the teacher evaluates the idea for it's completeness and legality according to the parameters. The students are placed in groups of 3 (with some groups of 2 permitted, but no groups of 4 or higher) where they share the ICP's with each other. The groups develop a group conceptual plan (GCP) after evaluating the 3 ICP's brought to the group. The GCP is submitted to the teacher, who evaluates whether the plan meets the parameters of the challenge. It is important to note that the teacher interactions is purely as referee of the rules and intent of the challenge and in no way does the teacher add conceptual ideas from the teachers experience. The solution ideas must come from the group. The group of students writes a design plan that includes: design evolution, mathematical models of function, three view orthographically projected CADD drawing, Bill of Materials verifying the cost of materials, and setup and operation instructions in english and second language.
 The contents of design plan are written in to the Final Design Report (FDR). The content of the FDR's are presented in an oral presentation to a visiting board of professional engineers from the engineering community of Austin. We contact them through email and they volunteer for three days of student design presentations at our school. Each group's design is evaluated for design feasibility by the engineers Sample questions from the SciTech design evaluation form use a scoring scale of: 5 for excellent, 4 for good, 3 needs some improvement, 2 needs much improvement, 1 not acceptable. Three sample questions of the eight questions on the form follow: 1. How likely is the design to perform the assigned task? 2. How easy is this device to manufacture? 3. How clear, complete, and accurate is the device drawings? Space is provided on the form for comments after each question.
Using the information developed from the engineer critique, the students modify the FDR for teacher approval to build the prototype. Before building the prototype for testing, the students go through safety. The prototype is bench and course tested until it works (see jpegs of students at work). Once the prototype works, three final devices are built. Each final device is course tested for consistency of function using time of function and consistency of results for data. The data is analyzed using Student T-test statistics to determine the statistical confidence they have in the consistency of function each of the final devices. The statistical confidence in the consistency of performance of the devices is equated with the quality of the design idea rendered by the group. The evaluation is based on the duration of performance not just on one single test. The evaluation is based on the comparison of more than one device's function again proving the validity of the design idea. All documentation culminates in the groups Final Report (FR).
Brief Lesson Plan:
The general teaching style we employ requires student responsibility and student concentration on the evaluation parameters prior to design and can be illustrated through a lesson plan description. The "Kick-Off" lesson plan includes the basic elements of our course. At the time for the Kick-Off, the students have been developing conceptual, computer, and physical skills in the initial skill development section of the course leading to the "Kick-Off". They are aware that success in the course is based on successfully completing a design that can perform the physical challenge consistently. We discuss the term success before we kick-off. Basically, there are two kinds of success in SciTech; Grade success and successful performance. If the device works, that is pure performance success. But, documentation of the idea and the evolution of the idea?s development is an important part of the grade success. One of our standard mottoes reads, "If it is not written down, it never happened!" This means that if the device works and you never wrote down one item about the development and who's idea it was, as far as this class goes, it never happened! Documentation is as important if not more important that the device working. Conversely, if the device never worked but the idea development is documented perfectly you might have some grade success without the pure excitement of seeing one of your ideas work in the real world. And we as teachers have experience that indicates if you could make an A in the course without the device working, you will have great disappointment.
Leading up to kick-off, students and teachers in the building have a high interest in the new challenge. Former students ask our current students casually, "What is the challenge this semester?" Or later after kick-off, torturing them with, "my challenge was harder than yours", or equally terrorizing, "Man, yours is the hardest I have ever seen!" The exact challenge parameters and the course itself is the "best kept" secret at our school until the Kick-off. We hand out a kick-off sheet (displayed below) on the same day in all classes for that semester.
Contact Information:
Jackson Pace
Lyndon Baines Johnson High School
7309 Lazy Creek Drive
Austin, TX 78736
E-mail: jpace@austin.isd.tenet.edu |
