3.5.6 Creative engineering and design in action: Designing and evaluating learning activities connecting engineering and creativity
This presentation will focus on activities connecting creativity and engineering and students’ perceptions of the activities. A design-based research framework guided this inquiry. Middle and high-school students enrolled in a summer program for gifted and talented students participated in engineering courses and completed surveys on their experiences. Curriculum materials and student artefacts were evaluated for inclusion of creativity indicators. Results indicate that the activities and student artefacts addressed several creativity indicators; however, few of the students mentioned creativity development as one of the benefits of participation. Implications for gifted programs emphasising creativity will be discussed.
Author(s):
Nielsen Pereira
npereira@purdue.edu
Purdue University
United States
Assistant Professor of Gifted, Creative, and Talented Studies at Purdue University. His research interests include the design and assessment of learning in varied gifted and talented education contexts, understanding gifted and talented student experiences in talent development programs, and conceptual and measurement issues in the identification of gifted and talented populations. He currently serves as Associate Editor for Gifted and Talented International and on the editorial board member for the Journal of Advanced Academics and Gifted Child Quarterly. He taught English as a second language for 12 years in public schools and language institutes in Brazil.
Mehdi Ghahremani*
Mehdi Ghahremani is a doctoral student and graduate research assistant at Purdue University. His research interests include physics education, creative and critical thinking, and conceptions of giftedness.
Shawn Jones*
Assistant Professor of engineering and a Fulton Exemplar Faculty member in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. He teaches context-centered electrical engineering and embedded systems design courses, and studies the use of context in both K-12 and undergraduate engineering design education. He is PI on several NSF-funded projects related to design, including an NSF Early CAREER Award entitled “CAREER: Engineering Design Across Navajo Culture, Community, and Society.” He has also been part of the teaching team for NSF’s Innovation Corps for Learning, and was named one of ASEE PRISM’s “20 Faculty Under 40” in 2014.