Grand Challenge Journaling and Brainstorming
Does gargling work?Copyright Alberta Health http://www.health.alberta.ca/health-info/influenza-what-can-you-do-7.html
Students journal their thoughts and responses to the questions associated with the grand challenge question presented in the associated lesson. For the Generate Ideas" step, they answer the questions: "What are your initial ideas about how this challenge can be answered? What background knowledge is needed? Have you tried this before?" After students have individually written responses to these questions, the class brainstorms together to reach consensus on the main ideas that need to be explored to solve the challenge question.
This activity follows the engineering design process at a very basic level, as students brainstorm, research and work together to gather information and better understand all aspects of a problem. Once several ideas have been investigated, enginees examine what they have learned as a group and develop potential solutions to reach a common goal. This often engages several engineers from different fields who come together to develop a solution.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Compose and write response to a challenge.
- Brainstorm and use cooperative learning to evaluate plans of action regarding a challenge.