WISENGINEERING: A WEB-BASED ENGINEERING DESIGN LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

In this paper we introduce WISEngineering, a new curriculum delivery, assessment, and feedback system that uses engineering design to teach science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) concepts to middle school and high school students. WISEngineering is a free, open-source environment that supports STEM learning by guiding students through informed engineering design projects 1. WISEngineering includes learning modules that involve extensive hands-on engineering for real-world problems and integrate computer-aided design (CAD) and digital fabrication technologies. Here we present three facets of WISEngineering that we predict will make it well suited to teach STEM concepts: (i) engineering authenticity, (ii) student-documentation that drives learning and assessment and (iii) whole-class and peer collaboration. We describe the design and development of WISEngineering and its theoretical underpinnings. We will briefly describe the partnership of teachers, researchers, developers and engineers that created and refined the environment. Finally, we report on preliminary usability studies with undergraduate pre-service students.