Final Project

Project Overview

Teams in the 2024 TETL Course will work on a semester-long design project in partnership with Allergic to Salad, an education provider, to design, build, and test tangible learning technologies and curriculum for teaching electronics and computing to middle school students. The teams will learn and apply research, analysis, and design methods as they work with Stacey Ornstein, the founder and executive director of Allergic to Salad. Through gathering, consolidating, and reflecting on the findings across their engagement with Stacey, the teams will refine their design problem and iterate on their design solutions. 

Allergic to Salad

The organization operates in NYC across all five boroughs running cooking classes that cover core STEM content through K-12 (kindergarten through 12th grade) in-school and after-school programming. The organization is looking to expand their hands-on offerings to support learners in engaging activities that connect engineering concepts with real-world concepts. Students teams will therefore contribute to the development of tangible technologies and learning activities that integrate into a hands-on computing and electronics curriculum.  For this class, we will focus mostly on middle school students but explore what adjustments can be made to accommodate different age groups. 

Goals for TETL Teams

Allergic to Salad is intending to pilot the designs starting in the winter. In order to make sure the designs are up to their needs, the TETL teams will need to do the following:

  1. Pick a learning goal to focus on for the semester and for reference you can check out NYC curriculum resources and the NYC Science Scope and Sequence for grades k-8.
  2. Highlight and define the specific learning objectives that will be addressed within each of the learning activities developed. 
  3. Design and build tangible technologies and corresponding learning activities to facilitate learning. 
  4. Explore how the activities and technologies can be adjusted to meet the needs of elementary & high school learners. 
  5. Connect to a “real world” concept and make it hands-on.
  6. Think about the structure Stacey presented in class:
    1. “5 Ingredients” + activity plan
    2. Hypothesis/What is going to happen?
    3. Building 
    4. Reflection/Did it go as planned? Why? Why not? What happened?

Each Team Will

  • Break up their learning goals into learning objectives
  • Do secondary investigations to understand educational resources, activities, and technology that already exists to teach and learn the concepts they are designing around (landscape analysis) 
  • Refine a design problem that articulates the learning goals, constraints, and opportunities that you will leverage within the design
  • Choose a lesson format for design & implementation. Lesson formats:
    • Remixable Components & Technologies — components can be broken down after class period and reused.
      Example: Littlebits or Legos  
    • Finished Take-Home Product — students can take home a finished product at the end of class. Example: Light up card
    • Finished In-School Installation — students work together to create a functional installation which can stay in the classroom for a period of several weeks. Example: Air pollution monitor/display  

Work Within Known Constraints

  • Teachers & Learners: One instructor, one teaching aid, and 20 middle school students   
  • Costs: No more than $25 in disposable supplies and no more than $300 in reusable equipment
  • Timing: 45-60 minutes including set-up and clean-up
  • Learning Goals: Each of the learning goals needs to be grounded in the science standards within the NYCDOE’s Scope and Sequence in order to communicate the value of the curriculum to the organization’s partnering schools. 
  • Allergic to Salad Values: Activities should all be fun and engaging, stimulate interest in STEM, focus on student ownership

A Note on AI Tools

Using AI generative tools for curriculum development is not permissible or educationally effective, as it undermines the crucial connection between theory and practice. AI tools often lack the nuanced understanding of learning sciences needed to create meaningful and contextually relevant curricula, which are essential for truly engaging and effective educational experiences.

Milestones & Deliverables

Across milestones, group members should rotate roles:

  • Primary Research Lead
  • Secondary Research Lead
  • Engineering/Design Lead
  • Instructional Design Lead
Milestone #1 – Prepare Interview Protocol – due 10/15 [Partner Visit]
  • Prepare an Interview script with the questions you want to ask
  • Reflect on the answers
Milestone #2 – Interview Analysis – due 10/21
  • In teams, complete some sort of interview analysis from Stacey’s visit
    • Affinity Diagramming/Clustering  
    • Coding the interview 
    • Rose Bud Thorn – Working Opportunities Issues 
  • In group, do initial problem brainstorming, establish a potential topic domain and learning objectives
Milestone #3 – Early Prototypes for in class – due 11/04
  • Prepare a 5 min (max!) presentation with an annotated bibliography about topic of interest using at least 3 academic sources. (Please also note alternative topic interests if still unsure about your ideas).  
  • Three low-fi design prototypes for early feedback session with Stacey 
Milestone #4 – Early Activity Design – due 11/11 [Teachers Visit TBA]
  • Draft of curriculum activity plan based on in class feedback
  • Put a rough budget together of materials needed 
Milestone #5 – Higher Fidelity Prototypes – due 11/18 [Teachers Visit TBA]
Milestone #6 – Evaluation Form – due 11/25 
  • Prepare a draft of a feedback and evaluation form for the Students to fill out on the day of your activity. We will critique those in class on 11/21 and you will hand them out on 11/28. 
Milestone #7 – Final Activity Design – due 12/02 [Testing with Students]
  • Final prototype of both curriculum activity and supporting materials for testing with real students in context. 
Milestone #8 – Final Presentations – Due 12/09
  • Final presentations & reflections from user-testing, changes your would like to make in next iterations, open challenges etc.  
Milestone #9 – Final Deliverables – Due 12/16 
  • All final project documentation
  • Final iteration of activity plan + materials (if you were to hand this off to an educator to follow)
  • Final Report due 
  • Lesson Plan and Instructor-facing Resources: Create a folder with your group name in the final project google drive. Students should produce a 2-3 page instructor-facing brief following a structure, which includes (you might follow the structure in here)
    • an overview of the lesson and background information about the topic area
    • supplies and budget (distinguish consumables from reusables)
    • steps to complete and time required for each step <– images are highly recommended 
    • key learning objectives and goals
    • possible variations based on context, age group and/or instructor skillset/personal interests 
    • plan for summative and formative assessment to be completed by instructor
    • Students should be confident their lesson meets the following criteria: tangible, intersects with Science Scope and Sequence: grades 6-12 and/or grades k-8, meets classroom logistics, engaging, creative and fun!  
  • TETL Group Documentation: Add to your group folder in the final project google drive.
    • Students should produce and document example artifacts following their curriculum. Documentation may take the form of images or video.
    • Document assumptions in design and potential pitfalls, blindspots, remaining questions or unknowns
  • TETL Individual Documentation: Please complete self-assessment google form 
    • Individual Self-Assessment: each member of the group should assess what they learned in the process and how this impacted their design decisions. Students should identify how they contributed to the project in a specific way.