Empathic Design: Thinking about Design Needs in Communities through STEAM Integration

Purpose & objective

Participants will hear about a yearlong interdisciplinary project that integrates humanities, science, design, and technology and be inspired to identify lessons for similar integration in their own curriculum.

Specific classroom management strategies will be shared to help participants think about how they structure their lessons and handle materials.

Participants will deepen their understanding of building empathy through design work in the context of science and humanities through our specific examples and the crowdsourcing of shared examples.

Participants will have access to a crowdsourced collection of resources and ideas for integrating design thinking into STEAM lessons.

For evidence of success, we will discuss formative and summative assessments that demonstrate student growth through the process of this project.

Outline

5 minutes - Use Padlet to poll the audience to see what grades and subjects everyone in the room works with, their role (coach, teacher, administrator), and their experience designing lessons incorporating computational thinking, design thinking, empathy, and science.

5 minutes - Introduce ourselves and our unique class that combines K & 1 Science, Design & Technology. Talk about the ISTE and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) that we utilize in our computational thinking (CT) lessons and the importance of introducing CT to our youngest students. Discuss why CT is meaningful in science classrooms as teachers are tasked with engaging students in science and engineering practices. We will also explicitly discuss our intent to elevate an existing humanities project through STEM integration and the attention given to building empathy and increasing awareness of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.)

5 minutes - Share the goals of our project. Outline the overall goal and supporting goals (building empathy, thoughtful community planning, exposure to the SDGs, exploring the essential question, ‘What makes a community?’, reinforcing science concepts, building computational thinking skills, designing for the laser cutter)

10 minutes - Provide outline/timeline of elements of this year-long interdisciplinary project (exploring members of a community, field trips within local community, designing houses for classmates, designing models of community elements, exploration of animals/plants’ needs in science class, introduction to the UN SDGs, improving parts of the community design to accommodate animals’ needs and build a more sustainable community)

10 minutes - Spotlight the laser cut house design project, share details of the design process, how students build empathy for their “client,” create multiple designs, learn how to give and receive feedback, and make improvements based on that feedback. Students also learn about the process of prototyping with a laser cutter from sketches of their house facades.

5 minutes - Participants will turn and talk to other attendees and discuss how they might incorporate building empathy through designing for others into their curriculum. We will ask them to share back any highlights from their discussion using Padlet.

10 minutes - Spotlight the animal needs focus of the design project. We will share how we integrated the SDGs and computational thinking concepts into the prototyping and testing of students’ designs, with class robots modeling how animals might interact with the community. We will highlight the skills learned and where the ISTE standards and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) converge, as well as discuss how we assess evidence of understanding of CT concepts, both summatively and formatively.

5 minutes - Share learner outcomes from the project highlighting the elements of the year-long study of communities.

5 minutes - We will use the final five minutes for independent reflection and time for Q&A. Participants will be invited to return to the Padlet space to share their takeaways from the session and any remaining questions. They can also use the Padlet as a space to connect to others for future collaborative projects.

Supporting research

This project can potentially support the educational technology field by contributing information related to work at the elementary level. Empathic Design: Thinking about Design Needs in Communities through STEAM Integration aims to improve engagement and access to computational thinking (CT), empathy development, and a deeper understanding of our role in a local and global community. By integrating CT and design topics in first grade, we provide a foundational opportunity to develop CT practices for all students, especially those underrepresented in CS. The benefit of this integration has been described at the high school level (Bain, 2020). This strategy further attends to equity because our lessons leverage a student-centered focus. The reciprocal nature of the science and CT practices are explicit and promote student understanding of these skills in both disciplines, as noted through research at the high school level (Rich, 2022). The impact of this project is extended due to the connection with an existing humanities project and the use of a design challenge to emphasize empathy and the needs of communities (James et al., 2018). Creating cross-curricular connections deepens student engagement and addresses multiple learning targets. The community design component of a preserve area introduces students to UN sustainability goals (UN, 2023), and designing systems to support the various community members provides opportunities to apply authentic understanding in a context where empathy is emphasized.

References:
Bain, C., Wilensky, U., (2020). Vectors of CT-ification: Integrating Computational Activities in STEM Classrooms. Poster presented at SIGCSE ’20, March 11–14, 2020, Portland, OR, USA

James, J., Svihla, V., Qiu, C. (2018). Using Design Challenges to Develop Empathy in FIrst-Year Courses. Paper presented at ASEE Conference. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10276980

McGowan, V., Klein, E., & Morrison, D. (2019). Engaging Students in Computational Thinking During Science Investigations. STEM Teaching Tools Initiative, Institute for Science + Math Education. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. Retrieved from https://stemteachingtools.org/brief/56

National Research Council. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Committee on a Conceptual Framework for New K-12 Science Education Standards. Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2012). A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/13165.

Pinder, N. (2022) Understanding problems with computational thinking: decomposition.
ISTE blog. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/computational-thinking/understanding-problems-computational-thinking-decomposition

Rich, et.al. (2022).High School Science Teacher Use of Planning Tools to Integrate Computational Thinking. Journal of Science Teacher Education. Vol 33, 598-620.
Sykora, C. (2021). Computational thinking for all. ISTE blog. Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/explore/computational-thinking/computational-thinking-all
UN General Assembly, Transforming our world : the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 21 October 2015, A/RES/70/1, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/57b6e3e44.html [accessed 22 September 2023]

UNICEF, WHO, UNEP. Children in the new millennium: Environmental impact on health, 2002.