Impact of teaching engineering concepts through creating lego-based assistive devices

Abstract

LEGO robotics is not all that new to the classroom. Teachers have used the toolset to teach STEM subjects in exciting and hands-on ways. Sure students appear to be more engaged and appear to be learning, but how does such a curriculum impact students' attitudes and knowledge? How do you design such a curriculum of robotics to also appeal to female students? These are questions this study attempts to answer. The study involves a 15-hour robotics unit that has groups of students design, construct, and test an assistive device they create using the LEGO robotics toolset. The curriculum was designed to address specific standards from the Massachusetts state curriculum frameworks. The assistive device theme was chosen to appeal to both males and females for whom engineering has, traditionally, not been appealing. The curriculum was then taught by a pair of teachers who had been trained in the LEGO toolset and curriculum in a two-week summer professional development workshop, which addresses yet another question. Can a teacher novice to LEGO robotics effectively teach such a curriculum with just two weeks worth of training? To answer these questions, the teachers from the summer professional development workshop (n=12, female=6, male=6) were interviewed and given knowledge surveys before and after the workshop, and a seventh grade classroom of Boston Public School students (n=24, female= 14, male= 10) were given attitude and knowledge surveys before and after the unit. The attitude survey assessed the students' perceptions of both science and engineering while the knowledge survey assessed questions modified from the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). The results of the study revealed significant achievement on the knowledge assessment and, somewhat surprisingly, a much more significant increase in the females' perception of the usefulness of engineering as opposed to the males'. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2007.