Kindergartners' engagement in an epistemic practice of engineering: Persisting and learning from failure (fundamental)

Abstract

Especially but not exclusively motivated by the Next Generation Science Standards, engineering has joined more traditional subjects like literacy and mathematics as a part of kindergarten education [1]. The inclusion of engineering in kindergarten brings numerable benefits, including opportunities to apply creativity, learn to work in a team, engage in the hands-on practice of making, explore the designed world, and practice trying and trying again to solve a problem [2, 3]. It is the space between trying and trying again that is of interest in this paper where we explore how 53 kindergartners tested their first try design attempts, were prompted to engage in failure analysis when their designs failed, and planned their second designs.