Solve a Word Problem

Evidence of Work

The Task :

For this project we were tasked with solving a world problem with our groups by using the engineering design cycle. We had to create a prototype or at least have a set plan of our prototype. For this project I was grouped with Akio Suzuki and Analiese Engler. We chose to focus mainly on solving equality. Our presentations documents are below including our main slideshow and our main prototype which was a slideshow and a document.

World Problem Presentation

teacher plan

social media racism lesson

Description of Process :

To start, our group knew that equality was a huge subject and we would never be able to solve all equality with just one solution. We wanted to focus on one small area of equality, so we started doing some research about things that we might be able to solve.
We found a lot of good sources and data tables and decided to focus mainly on racism on social media because it was something we could relate to and we felt a solution may be attainable.
Next we brainstormed over 20 solutions to our problem. Our top 3 were making a club in school, going on our school's morning announcements, and teaching younger kids. We ended up going with teaching younger kids about the problem.
We decided on making a activity and reflection for a fifth grade class to do together. We also included a teacher plan so the teacher knew exactly what to say, and tips on how it could run smoothly. We did some more research on fifth grade activities and plans to make sure we were on the right track.
Once we made the prototype, we couldn't exactly test it, but we went over the slideshow directed at the class with our group and played the activity together.
Lastly, we made a new slideshow explaining our prototypes and how they will help teach kids about racism on social media, which was the slideshow we presented to the class. Our presentation and prototypes are above.

Content

Engineering Design Cycle

Identify Need - We chose to solve equality. Of course, we got this down to racism on social media a little later.
Research Problem - To research the problem, my group and I made annotations for 3 articles and 1 data table each. We found these sources by searching up key words and making sure that they were trustworthy sites and relevant to our problem.
Brainstorm Solutions - Once we had all of our information about the problem, we brainstormed as many solutions as we could. This included a lot of bad ones, but we also came up with some good ones.
Select Solution - We selected the solution that we thought would solve the problem the best and have the best outcome. As I talked about earlier, we thought about making a club at our school or going on the school announcements. But at the end of the day, we knew that younger kids would care about this a lot more than high school kids. We chose to create a prototype to teach fifth graders about social media on racism.
Create Prototype - We created a lesson plan for a fifth grade class and a teacher plan to go with it. We had to do a bit more research for this part to be sure that this was a typical activity for a fifth grade class.
Test and Evaluate Prototype - Unfortunately, we didn't have a fifth grade class and teacher to reach out for to test our prototype, but we did play the activity together as a group.
Redesign - After we played together a few times, we noticed some flaws and wanted to add a little more information to make it the best it could be.
Plan Audience and Presentation - Once we finished our prototype, we made another slideshow to present to the class. We had to make it relatable for our classmates yet knowledgeable at the same time. We included our thinking behind the prototypes, fully explained them, and told the class a little more about the issue going on.
Present - Lastly, we presented! I thought it went well and flowed nicely.

Reflection

I had a really good time working on this project and I think I learned a lot. I think our group worked really well together. We had great communication and came up with a lot of good ideas together. I think we were a little overwhelmed in the beginning, but once we knew what we had to do, we got everything done well and on time.

For this project, I think I did really well in the Cultural Competence section. Most of our project was based on discrimination online, so I feel like I learned a lot more about racism and different cultures in general. I looked at a lot of data tables and did a lot of research about the issues different people face. Also, I think I did well in the Communication section. I had good communication with my group, but I also think I did well communicating our group's ideas to the class. I listened to my teammates ideas and included some of my own. We were always talking about what we could do to better our prototypes and presentation. Another part of communication is writing. I wrote most of the teacher plan and worked a lot on the other two presentations. I think I elaborated a lot during our presentation to the class, and I hope my main points got across.

On the other hand, there's always things I can work on. To start, I feel like I could work on the Conscientious Learner section a bit more. In the beginning of working on our project, my group and I felt overwhelmed by what needed to be done and didn't completely get what we were supposed to be doing. Instead of asking for help and trying to motivate my group, I kind of just sat there and tried to annotate an article that I didn't even know if it was relevant to our problem. In the future I would like to make clarifications if I don't understand something, and try to make goals and the start of the project to keep myself and my group on track. I also need to work on the Critical Thinking section. Along with what I said above, I want to be able to feel comfortable questioning stuff I don't understand. Also, I feel like in our presentation we could've done a better job at supplying a little bit more reasoning behind our prototype and who we came up with our solution.

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