Wicked Problem Project

Description of Opportunity
At the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year I began teaching a new engineering course as part of the Project Lead The Way (PLTW) program. This is a program that allows students interested in the engineering field as a career get exposure to different areas of engineering such mechanical, electrical and architectural engineering. The course I teach focuses heavily on the design process and the students work frequently in design teams to come up with and present solutions to the problems they’ve been presented. In the class I have had business professionals as guest speakers from local businesses and manufacturers and they’ve talked a lot about the business they do with companies from other states and other countries. The business professionals have explained that often times the collaboration is done via video conferencing. Teams in different locations work together, communicate daily, set expectations, duties and deadlines without ever meeting face to face. These sessions allow for much of the same benefits as face-to-face meetings but are big time and money savers on the part of the industries. My goal is to be able to set up similar videoconference collaboration opportunities for my students with other classes teaching the same (PLTW) curriculum.

To make my plans a reality I have a few things working in my favor. First the computers in my classroom have been upgraded so that there is one for each student and all of them are equipped with webcams and Skype. Second, through the PLTW network I have access to teacher forums that I can arrange time for collaboration with teachers around the country. In our separate classrooms we the teachers will be able to introduce the chosen design problem to our own students, then we can assign groups of students to work with one another. Once the groups have been assigned they can meet either via Skype or another instant messenger program if the collaborating school does not have access to webcams. Students would be able to share files through email and work together through division of labor to create a presentation using PowerPoint or some other presentations software that sums up their final solution. At the beginning of the project the students will work with team members to establish a frequency and method of communication (Skype).

In researching the issue of electronic vs. face-to-face collaboration I was able to find several articles through the Google Scholar search feature.
• http://www.dastous.us/edtechadvocate/2.pdf
• Asynchronous Computer-mediated Communication
versus Face-to-face Collaboration: Results on Student
Learning, Quality and Satisfaction by ROSALIE J. OCKER AND GAYLE J. YAVERBAUM

In the above articles there is a pervasive trend that online collaboration has not adversely affected the level of communication or information flow between parties involved when compared to face-to-face collaboration. The findings show that one drawback is the level of connection or the “intimacy” of the collaboration experience is diminished when done online compared to face-to-face.

Over the course of the CEP 812 I hope to initialize the early stages of this project. I will put a “want ad” in the PLTW forums looking for teachers interested in a collaboration project and share how I’d like to have our classes work together on the one of the design problems that they must solve. Given the time constraints of this course the final design solutions created by the students may occur after the conclusion of this course. After the conclusion of CEP 812 the students will complete their final design solutions and work with their partners to create presentations to be shown to their respective classes. Something that should make this project more workable is that all PLTW courses use the same curriculum so any teacher that I am able to collaborate with will be using the same material I am. The design problems that the students address are typically laid out to be completed over the course of two weeks so I would look to keep that same time frame.

The success of the project can be gauged by several metrics. The first is the successful completion of the given design problem in a specified time that meets any given constraints. I have finished products that the students created without the benefit of the new collaboration experience and I can look for improvements in quality. Also, feedback from the students can be used to determine the value gained from the unique collaboration experience. The feedback from the students will be used to see whether there was shared quantity of work, open communication throughout the project, and if team guidelines were followed throughout the project. Ultimately I would like to see that the level of communication between the students was not adversely affected during their new collaboration experience.

Application of TPACK

1. What is the TP knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how does the technology you have chosen support the teaching strategies and methods you have chosen?)
I have chosen to do a project that relies heavily on both collaboration and application-based learning. In my experience these two pedagogies have proven effective ways of teaching and when students are finished with projects the material they learn takes on meaning. I like to do projects in which the students are actually applying what they learn. In the engineering field in which I teach I really feel this is the only effective way to teach, the students need to understand what the work environment will be like in this field after they graduate. I also make use of student collaboration. Engineering seldom work alone and are typically split into teams to tackle specific problems. I have chosen technology that will facilitate the use of these two strategies. The students will have access to laptops with webcams and Skype for real-time communication with their collaborating partners at other schools. While perhaps lacking the intimate face-to-face communication collaborating via webcam will give the students the feel of what its like to work in the business world in which long distance collaborating is becoming more common to save on travel costs.

2. What is the TC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically does this technology make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible? Be sure to think about representation.)
With the goal of having students successfully use the design process in design teams the new technologies the students will use will make long distance collaboration a smooth operation. If the students only had access to basic email or blogs to communicate back and forth lots of time would be wasted in determining workloads and goals for the projects. But having webcams to Skype back and forth students can get instant access to group members to troubleshoot problems that will inevitably pop up over the course of their design work. Developing the skills to collaborate electronically via webcam will give these students a leg up as they enter the workplace and are able to show their bosses they can be effective communicators in a variety of mediums.

3. What is the PC knowledge for the solution? (i.e., how specifically do your pedagogical choices make the content in your problem more intellectually accessible? Be sure to think about how the student will experience the content given these instructional strategies. The goal by the end of this project will be for the students to understand the design process and how design problems are solved in teams. To truly be effective the content that students will be learning needs to be experienced. A student will not be able to recite a lecture word for word, or a passage from a book word for word, but if you ever ask a student what he or she did over the weekend you get a minute by minute breakdown of everything that happened. That is because they were living it and experiencing it. Content needs to be experienced in the same way and that’s what this project does. Instead of me telling the students “in the real-world you would be working in design teams” they are actually collaborating with a group with defined goals and workloads much like what would be taking place in the business world. Instead of taking a written test about what design teams do in the work place when the project is done and the students reflect on their experience they will be able to describe what they did when problems arose or how they created their final presentations.

Implementation
In my project I am seeking to implement a distance collaboration project with my engineering students, in this project they will use webcams as a means to communicate with another school while working on a specified design project and its something I hope to have completed later this spring. To this point there have been a few highs and lows in getting the project up and running. First I had to go through some wrangling with the schools technology guys in order to get approval to use Skype. Other problems include finding a teacher to collaborate with that has the same access to webcam conferencing tools that I do. I am now working with a collaborting teacher in Vermont to hammer out a schedule for the project and to date we haven't run into any major stumbling blocks. Somethings other things have gone well, I did a test run of Skype with my students conferencing with each other and it worked with no problems. The students seem genuinely excited about the idea of the project. I remain fully confident that the project can be fully implemented this spring.

Findings and Implications

As discussed in part C my project is progressing forward, and I am on pace to put everything into action in April. I have been able to to coordinate a collaborating class with a teacher in Vermont and we have had a test Skype session with very few problems. The coordinating teacher and I have shown our students how to set up Googledocs to share information and goals with one another, and we are still on schedule to begin the actual project in late April.

Having developed this project basically from scratch I now fully realize what a huge undertaking it has been. Fortunately now that a lot of the ground work has been laid when I do this project or a similar one in the future I'll already have a lot of the curriculum for it created. All I'll need to do is find a collaborating teacher who is willing to try something new.

In order for a project like this two work it a few things are necessary. First, obviously is the access to necessary technology that allows videoconferencing without any hiccups or internet interruptions. Second, the students need to be introduced to it and they need to buy into it. The students should be excited about the opportunity to video conference with students from other schools and take part in a project they haven't experienced before. Third, the teachers have to be organized and fully on board. This project requires a fair amount of prep time to schedule meeting times and set deadlines and if either of the teachers aren't fully committed the students will suffer.

Upon the completion of the project this spring I hope that it goes well enough that I haven't been turned off to this type of collaboration. No matter I have invested a lot of time in this project and it is certainly something I will do again. Depending on the quality of work the students create with their collaborators maybe I will change the time constraints placed on the students to finish their necessary design work. I look forward to the students reactions and suggestions for a smoother implementation the second time around. It would be great if my collaborating teacher is one that I can work with on a regular basis and we can develop a comfort level with each other.