Learning at Elk Grove: Intro to Engineering

By Patrick McGing, Merlyn Manoj, Kaelyn Rittle, and Mark Heintz

I was fortunate to visit Pat McGing's Intro to Engineering course a few weeks ago.  I asked him and a few of his students to document the learning that took place that lesson and what they hoped to learn in future ones.  From my outsider's perspective, there was a high level of student agency present.  The students were focused and working with purpose.  They rarely deviated from the task at hand and that was evident by the amount of time student spent on the task at hand.  

More importantly, the teacher and the students were all learners.  The teacher was learning right alongside the students.  Because the student projects were so different, it was impossible for the teacher to know the answers to all of their questions.  Rather than giving the students the answers or saying he did not know it, he worked with the students to come up with the solutions.  The equity in the partnership between students and the teachers reminds me that everyone is a learner and together we grow so much more than by ourselves.  Watch the short clip of student focus and the partnership between student and teacher.  Aftwerwards, be sure to read the reflections that follow.  

Teacher Perspective: Patrick McGing

What did learning look like in the lesson?

Learning looked like collaboration.

Students in this Introduction to Engineering Design section are at many different points in a project. Many students were working with their peers to solve problems, demonstrate, or just assist in a minor way to help a peer along. I could look around the classroom and see multiple students leaning over to their neighbor or getting out of their seat to assist a classmate. Therefore, the teaching did not come from me but from students peers.

• Learning looked like students building skills in smaller areas of Autodesk Inventor with 3D modeling or 3D assemblies.
• Learning looked like students building communication skills.
• Learning looked like students building time management skills.
• Learning looked like students recalling previous knowledge to aide in their current project.

What do you hope to do for the next time?

I hope for students to have a better grasp and understanding of assembling parts in Autodesk Inventor. Many of the students helping each other during the lesson were helping students assemble parts. Something I have tried in one of my other courses is having students develop a step by step “protocol” for troubleshooting specific problems. This helped students actually attempt troubleshooting a problem with already brainstormed solutions and gave them better success in solving a problem on their own. I would like to try this in my introductory course so that students could better persevere through problems.


Student: Merlyn Manoj

What did you learn this lesson?

During this project, I learned how to use my manage my time since we worked on our project independently. It was a bit hard though because if you were falling behind you would have to go to the lab outside of class to catch up with your peers. This project also gave me a lot of freedom since we had to create our own parts, and even though it was frustrating at times because you can’t just follow a plan right in front of you when things are going wrong, it was fun having that creative aspect in our project.

What do you hope to learn for the next time?

I want to learn more about Inventor rather than the basics of it. I think learning how to figure out a solution to a problem rather than just asking a friend or a teacher right away would be a great skill to have.

Student: Kaelyn Rittle 

What did you learn this lesson?

I’m not sure I can say I learned anything new from this unit because most of what we did included skills I learned in the past. However, this unit granted a lot of freedom as to what we were allowed to create, and I would say the design process was the most challenging for me. My project is slightly different in that I have two cranks whereas pretty much everyone else has only one which makes spacing everything just a little harder. I have 5 parts - three in the back and two in the front and measuring everything out so that they wouldn’t hit each other involved a lot of trial and error. This was difficult because whenever I’ve worked on Inventor in the past, I was either following a sheet with the dimensions given to me or I was physically measuring parts as I went along.

What do you hope to learn for the next time?

I think it would be fun to work with other features on Inventor that I haven’t used before. As far as I know, I’ve only used the very basics of it, and maybe exploring it more will help me further understand the program in case I were to ever use it in the future.

Student Voice: Models of Student Work

By Mark Heintz

I have been going around school stopping students at random to hear what they feel teacher's do that impacts their learning.  It is so important to continually ask the population we serve to get their feedback on what helps them master the content and skills we are trying to teach.  The responses have been so insightful into what works for each of the unique learners that enter our classroom and can continue to drive the methods we use to instruct them.  Once I captured the student's voice, I tracked down the teacher to share and get their input on the practice that was highlighted. 

The student I asked in the video highlights the way Mr. Asmussen uses different levels of student samples to improve students writing ability. 

Here is Mr. Asmussen explaining the impact and process of using student samples in his instruction.  

Writing in Science

By Mark Heintz

I have been attempting to visit all the core sophomore courses my students take.  I want to see the purpose of writing and how teachers teach it and then use it in all the core classes.  I had yet to see a chemistry class and was fortunate enough to visit Colin Rice's honors chemistry course.  The two of us share a lot of the same students and I heard they wrote a lot in his course, so I asked if I could visit. He graciously accepted.

In chemistry, the teachers use writing as a summation of labs.  But, it serves a far greater purpose. Prior to the class I visited, the students completed a lab on closed systems.  The students collected data and completed a lab packet. Today, the students wrote about their findings in the lab.

Although all of the students had collected data, some of the students did not complete the lab correctly.  There in lies the genius of the writing. While Colin cared about the lab and the data the students acquired, he cared more about the explanation of the data to prove a concept.

A pair of students did not produce data that would prove the hypothesis.  They knew their data to be incorrect.  Colin told the girls not to worry about the inaccuracies of the data.  Instead, he told the girls to explain what went wrong in their lab. Furthermore, he wanted them to to write why the data they acquired could not be a part of a closed system.  If the students could explain the errors in their writing, they would have to understand the concept in a very in-depth way!  The critical thinking involved was amazing! What is great, is that all the students will have slightly different data and be attacking the writing from different view points.

After talking to Colin, we realized that our thesis/main idea/claims were nearly identical.  We both require students to use very specific evidence to support a thesis.  But, the best part was the reasoning.  We both desire the same critical thinking from the students.  We still have work to do on making the students see the parallels, but it was a great first step!

Differentiation with technology

by Kirsten Fletcher

When I think of differentiation at EG, there is one teacher that automatically comes to mind.  Cliff Darnall has been teaching Japanese at EG for over 20 years and he frequently has 2 or even 3 different levels in the same classroom.  Imagine having 5 preps spread over 3 periods!

In Mr. Darnall's classroom, students are often divided so that one group works independently and the other receives personalized attention. Then they switch. All students benefit from manageable periods of total immersion and independent work.

Students working on a formative quiz

When I arrived to observe, one group was completing a formative quiz in the hallway while a second group was in the classroom discussing a listening passage. Because Cliff had built a good rapport with all students, he trusted one group to work independently and was able to give the other group very directed, personalized attention. He maintained a lengthy, input-based discussion in the target language and all students were engaged.

Mr. Darnall explaining target vocabulary with gestures and props

Students move into teams to begin Quizlet Live

Half-way through the class, the hallway group returned to receive personalized instruction from Mr. Darnall. The first group moved on to playing Quizlet Live*. In order to pull this off effectively, Mr. Darnall had to trust his students to run the game from his computer while he projected visuals on the screen to discuss with the other group. Students in the Quizlet group were clearly comfortable with this. They automatically moved into teams. When one game ended, they restarted the game and shuffled teams. All groups that I observed working independently were on task and collaborative.

Students run the game from Mr. Darnall's computer and
re-start it after discussing first round answers.

I give Mr. Darnall so much credit for the way he manages his classes. He must establish strong relationships with his students early on and instill in them a sense of purpose to get them working so well independently. Building on the foundation of class rapport, he is able to take risks like constantly trying new technology and turning it over for the students to run on their own. Thank you, Mr. Darnall for being such an inspiration!

*Quizlet Live is an interactive game that takes vocab cards created in Quizlet and allows students to compete in teams. See this blog post or this instructional video for more detailed information. When Cliff Darnall plays, Quizlet Live recognizes that his cards are in Japanese, so the team names appear in the target language! This works for other languages too.