Kids Engineer!

I plan on continuing to implement and document the PK-6 Elementary Engineering Curriculum I have been developing.  That is clear.  What is less clear is the direction to go with my associated research.

Many intriguing possible areas have come up but I will need to focus on a couple of them.

1. How does interest and engagement is robotics relate to the creative play/fantasy play we see in children?  How does this relate to the work of Erikson, Gardner (Multiple Intelligences), Vigotsky, and Piaget?
2. Is there a clear developmental progression in creative play/building/engineering interest/development of PK-6 children?
3. Why is robotics so engaging, especially to students that either need more challenges or (generally) boys who have learning or attention issues but are very successful with hands on building projects.  How does this fit in with the Activated Learner research from the Moore Foundation?

I am thinking that due to my own limited resources, I may wish to track a small number of children starting from PK or K and with the use of video of their work and video and written interview and reflections, develop some case studies of children’s engineering development over 7 or 8 years.  I will also pursue grants and collaborations that support this work.  I would love to get some feedback on which of the 3 areas above would be most helpful in your own work.

I received this analysis of the student robotics quotes from graduate student Lama Jaber.  I found it to be an excellent summary.  Here it is.

First, at an affective level, the robotic experience seems to be
triggering very good feelings, coming both from it being a fun
experience, an empowering and challenging experience, and an
opportunity to feel a  sense of achievement (I did it!) and ownership
which seems really rewarding to these kids, and finally as something
that is different from the rest of the school work (it is interesting
that this was pretty prevalent in kids’ responses)

Second, on an epistemological sense in terms of how one gets to know
something or gets to learn in robotics, their experiences seem to
promote a view of learning as figuring things out, relying on one’s
efforts rather than on an outside authority (book, or teacher…),
integrating skills and knowledge from various domains such as math
science, and writing (though this was maybe mentioned only twice, I
found it pretty powerful!), also an appreciation of persistence and
failure as a central and desirable aspect of learning: failure as an
opportunity for a new way of thinking and opening up to new
perspectives.