Innovative designs through diversity & project-based learning

Instead of traditional lectures, college engineering students voted to collaborate with a middle school known for diversity and experiment with project-based learning. The results were showcased at an engineering exposition and covered by CBS news.

These two demographics may otherwise never have met or had anything in common; yet, after two months of collaborative design, they formed bonds that will carry throughout their lives.

This was an engineering course at the Shiley-Marcos School of Engineering, part of the University of San Diego. USD's mission and values include academic excellence, service to the poor, and global leadership. To that end, we worked with Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Middle School in City Heights, a densely-populated neighborhood of San Diego, with multiple refugee centers and estimates of 30-80 languages spoken within a few miles. Classrooms often have different languages spoken, and more than 90% of students receive free or reduced lunch.

Students collaborated for two months, commuting to the inner-city middle school to co-design robotic cars. Each car was a unique creation between teams of college and middle-school students, using computer-aided design tools to design laser-cut car bodies that were controlled by embedded software in Arduino micro-processors. Each college team was tasked with making their design "user-friendly," accounting for design challenges from their middle-school partners.

Not bad for middle-school kids!

Project-based learning focuses on results rather than test scores, which is important for diverse neighborhoods where standardized tests don't represent the skills and creativity of kids who may be english-language learners. Project-based learning provides an equitable way for them to demonstrate their ability to collaborate, innovate, and document evidence of delivering results that are stronger than any written test.

The middle school kids joined us on campus to compete with their cars at an engineering expo that was covered by CBS news, with the dean of engineering speaking on how Engineering can inspire kids when made fun and relevant.

Click the image to watch the 50-second video.

This project was even more remarkable considering that USD tuition more than twice the median annual income of of a family of four in City Heights;. Tuition is ~ $56,000 per year, yet a few miles away the median income of a family of four is $24,000 in one of America's most expensive cities. Despite these differences, the college engineering students and middle school kids had fun helping each other learn real-world skills while developing empathy for people we'd otherwise never meet. 

The college students gained deeper learning of complex engineering topics thanks to the real-world challenges of designing products for others and the public display of their work, especially with the "user-centered" design requirements being unique for each team.

The college students emphasized that they also learned how engineering can be used to bridge gaps in society. This is especially important given how these students will be future innovators, managers, or leaders making choices in tomorrow's workplace.

Tomorrow's global economy will depend on diverse people coming together to solve common challenges. Going forward as a society, if we combine higher education learning with middle school outreach, using real-world design techniques, we may inspire more kids from under-represented demographics to pursue college careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Plus, we can facilitate relationships across diverse racial and socio-economic populations that otherwise never interact. Both goals are important if we want an innovative, equitable society that benefits all of us.

THANK YOU FOR READING, AND THANKS TO:

The principal of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Christina Alton, and I collaborated, quickly, to make this happen. USD provided grant funding to build an innovation lab at OLSH so that all students could have space and tools to work hands-on, USD Ministry provided shuttle vans that were waiting outside of classrooms so that students could go between campuses seamlessly, and parents volunteered to drive the middle school kids to USD.

THERE'S MORE TO BE DONE...

Contact me to discuss ways to scale real-world, authentic education nationally.