Engineering design process in STEM education: an illustration with the topic “wind energy engineers”

Abstract

Abstract As STEM education has many strengths, it has been studied applied by numerous educational institutions around the world. Recently, STEM education has been paid more attention in Vietnam, but the design and organization of teaching STEM topics are still inconsistent, causing difficulties for teachers while teaching. The engineering design process (EDP) is a decision-making process, often repetitive, in which basic scientific, mathematical and technical concepts are applied to develop optimal solutions to meet the goals targeted. Among the basic elements of EDP are the development of objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, formulation, testing and evaluation. Teachers can easily apply EDP in classroom projects or activities, and it can also provide a way to develop new curricula. Applying EDP helps teachers improve their students’ problem-solving ability as well as introduce students to technical fields. With these characteristics, EDP can be applied in STEM education. Therefore, this study proposes the use of EDP in teaching STEM topics in Vietnam. The experiment was conducted at the Viet Bac High School - Thai Nguyen Province with the subject “Wind Energy Engineers” in teaching Physics for Grade 10th. By evaluating the performance of students’ tasks, consulting experts’ opinions on the teaching process that had been designed, and the initial results show that it is possible to use the engineering design process in STEM education in high schools.