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  • Does It Have to Touch?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit beginning ideas about types of forces. The probe is designed to reveal whether students recognize that forces can act both in direct contact with an object and at a…

  • How Do Technologies Change?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how technologies change. The probe is designed to see if students are aware of the way nearly all technologies change over time.

  • Talking About Forces

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit beginning ideas about forces. The probe is designed to reveal whether students generally identify forces as pushes and pulls.

  • Criteria and Constraints

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about criteria and constraints. The probe is designed to identify how students determine the criteria and constraints of a problem and whether one is…

  • Is the Sun a Star?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the Sun and stars. The probe is designed to uncover students’ ideas about the nature of stars and their recognition that the Sun is an average star…

  • Making It Better

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about different ways to optimize a design that has been successful in the past, but that still needs improvement. The probe is designed to see if…

  • Is It a Technology?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about what is and what is not technology. The probe is designed to find out if students have a broad understanding of technology as defined in the…

  • Who Needs It?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about who needs to be consulted when solving a problem (the client). The probe is designed to reveal the extent to which students recognize that the…

  • How Do Engineers Solve Problems?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about how engineers use an engineering design process to solve problems. The probe includes some common misconceptions about engineering design, and is…

  • Block Diagrams

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about block diagrams. The probe is designed to examine how students interpret a block diagram, and to determine whether they recognize that technologies…

  • Pizza Problem

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about researching a problem. The probe is designed to determine the extent to which students are aware of the need to learn as much as possible about how…

  • Force and Motion Ideas

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to comprehensively elicit students’ ideas about the relationship between force and motion. The list of possible answers includes several distracters that are based on learning…

  • Reasons for Success

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about the use of evidence and reasoning to support a claim. The probe is designed to see if students apply systematic methods of reasoning from evidence…

  • Project-Based Learning: Principles to Sustain Student Learning and Teacher Change in Practice - Part 1

    Professional Learning Unit |

    Have you wanted to implement a Project-Based Learning (PBL) unit in your classroom? Would you like to introduce PBL curriculum in your school? Multiple Literacies in Project-Based Learning (ML-PBL), an open educational…

  • Who Engineers?

    Lesson Plan |

    The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit students’ ideas about engineers. The probe is designed to reveal how students think about who is an engineer and the kind of work engineers do.

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