feature article

STEM habits of mind:

enhancing a PBL design challenge—
integrated STEM instruction approach
It is the intent of this article to contribute to ongoing discussions
among educators, employers, parents, and all those concerned,
to seek the goal of interdisciplinary STEM instruction.

Introduction lenges will require a new scientific workforce equipped with

a skill set of new technology and interdisciplinary thinking,
In order to maintain the United States’ global competitive-
in a culture that is increasingly embracing STEM concepts
ness and create new and innovative solutions to solve global
as a vehicle to address these challenges.
challenges, more and diverse numbers of STEM graduates
need to be attracted and retained in technical disciplines
(Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the
Habits of Mind
21st Century:An Agenda for American Science and Technol- Habits of mind are described as
ogy, 2007). According to the U.S. Department of Education characteristics and practices of what by
(2015), current national statistics reveal that there continues individual people do when con- Paul A. Asunda
to be a great shortage of math and science teachers in fronted with challenges that have no
comparison to the number of students who will actually opt clear resolution (Costa, 2008). These and
for STEM-related careers. As such, solutions to global chal- practices enhance the way people John Weitlauf

34 technology and engineering teacher November 2018

 STEM habits of mind: enhancing a PBL design challenge—integrated STEM instruction approach
produce knowledge as a consequence, highlighting a critical
thinking process comprised of skills, attitudes, past experiences
etc. that are classified into 16 habits. Costa stated that these
habits of mind incorporate the following dimensions:
1. Value: Choosing to employ a pattern of intellectual behav-
iors rather than other, less productive patterns.
2. Inclination: Feeling the tendency to employ a pattern of
intellectual behaviors.
3. Sensitivity: Perceiving opportunities for, and appropriate-
ness of, employing the pattern of behaviors.
4. Capability: Possessing the basic skills and capacities to
carry through with the behaviors.
5. Commitment: Constantly striving to reflect on and improve
performance of the pattern of intellectual behaviors.
6. Policy: Making it a policy to promote and incorporate the
patterns of intellectual behaviors into actions, decisions, and
resolutions of problematic situations.
These dimensions can be viewed as essentials that teachers can
utilize to make sense of their instructional practices when plan-
ning to impart in students the 16 habits of mind.
Lucas and Hanson, (2014) posited that to comprehend how
successful engineers think and act when faced with challenging
Figure 1. Cross walk between STL design process and Habits of Mind
Figure 1: Cross walk between STL design process and Habits of Mind
Grades 9-12 Design Process from Standards for Technological Literacy as described by Hailey, Erekson,
Becker and Thomas (2005)
Habits of the Mind
Defining a problem
Brainstorming
Researching and generating ideas
Identifying criteria and specifying constraints
Exploring possibilities
Selecting an approach and
developing a design making a
model of prototype
Testing and evaluating the
design specifications
Refining the design
Communicating process and results
Creating or making it
problems, educators need to ask themselves: What do engineers
do? How do they think? How do they approach problems? How
is what they do similar to, but different from, how a scientist or a
mathematician sees the world? What does an engineer have in
common with an artist or a designer or a technologist or a politi-
cian or a team sports player? What, in short, goes on in the mind
of an engineer when he or she is in full flow doing engineering?
To this end, Lucas and Hanson reported that engineers do think
and act in certain distinctive ways referred to as Engineering
Habits of Mind [EHoM]. These habits are systems thinking, prob-
lem finding, visualizing, improving, creative problem solving, and
adapting. There has also been parallel thinking about Scientific
Habits of Mind (SHoM) as well as Mathematical Habits of Mind
(MHoM). Lucas and Hanson further shared that SHoM and
MHoM seek to describe ways in which mathematicians and sci-
entists think about problems, rather than the discipline-specific
math or science content that is taught. Gurung (2009) proposed
teaching disciplinary habits of mind. According to Gurung, these
are a discipline-specific set of dispositions or ways of thinking
that describe how a professional practitioner in a given field
seeks to understand the world. These disciplinary habits of mind
become an interpretive lens through which the practitioner views
and seeks solutions to complex problems. Brent, Deaton, Tang,
Problem finding
Visualizing
Improving
Creative -problem solving
Adapting
November 2018 technology and engineering teacher 35
STEM habits of mind: enhancing a PBL design challenge—integrated STEM instruction approach
and Handley (2012) were of the view that, as students develop
and practice these disciplinary habits of mind, they will become
better equipped to succeed in rapidly expanding science and
technology fields. Then, does this mean STEM habits of mind can
be realized through an interdisciplinary STEM approach?
The rich products of engineering and technology education as a
field provide a platform for the integration of STEM subject areas,
providing all students a STEM-geared curriculum as they engage
in practices that exemplify the habits of mind through problem-
based learning (PBL). For example, when teaching about energy
and power concepts, teachers can utilize a wind turbine design
lesson to help develop students’ STEM concepts that mirror
habits of the mind. As such, a Wind Turbine design lesson could
be based on simulation, including engineering and scientific
practices that model wind speed extrapolation, potential assess-
ment, voltage data collector, and blade design modelling.
Engineering and technology education educators plan PBL
instructional approaches around Standards for Technologi-
cal Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology, (ITEA/ITEEA,
2000/2002/2007). In contemporary society, the standards move-
ment has birthed the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as
well as Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The CCSS in
Math and English Language Arts articulate the knowledge and
skills students should master at every grade level from kinder-
garten to twelfth grade (Common Core State Standards Initiative,
2014). Similarly, NGSS accentuates the integration of engineering
design into K-12 classrooms and requires that teachers address
eight science and engineering practices, which are: Asking
questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineer-
ing); Developing and using models; Planning and carrying out
investigations; Analyzing and interpreting data; Using mathemat-
ics and computational thinking; Constructing explanations (for
Figure 2. Wind tunnel simulation exercise.
36 technology and engineering teacher November 2018
science) and designing solutions (for engineering); Engaging in
argument from evidence; and Obtaining, evaluating, and commu-
nicating information. The standards are written as performance
expectations built around three dimensions that seek that each
performance expectation combine a relevant practice of science
or engineering with a core disciplinary idea and crosscutting
concept appropriate for students of the designated grade level
in the context of specific content (NRC Framework, 2011). Figure
1 correlates a Standards for Technological Literacy (STL) design
process that integrates dimensions of NGSS with elements of the
engineering habits of mind.
Problem Finding: Encourages learners to build on previous
knowledge, connect new knowledge to existing knowledge, and
appreciate the relevance of STEM concepts to their everyday
lives. In the wind turbine lessons, students could be introduced
to conceptual knowledge of fluid mechanics and Bernoulli’s
principles through modeling and simulated exercises. This will
encourage them to utilize science and engineering practices
as they think as engineers by conducting experiments utilizing
scientific and engineering practices to explore characteristics of
the wind and the wind turbine, including blade design.
Visualizing and Improving: Helps students integrate their under-
standing by modeling how ideas are connected and organized in
new knowledge networks. Students engage with a wind tunnel
and learn that a green design should harness renewable energy
such as wind as much as possible, and how a wind turbine
reacts to the changes in the wind speed. They use the wind tun-
nel (Figure 2) to simulate, evaluate, and optimize different blade
designs and how this harnesses wind energy. For example, they
determine tower arrangement and which blade design arrange-
ment is efficient with regard to energy output before building it.
This provides students with multiple representations of scientific
 STEM habits of mind: enhancing a PBL design challenge—integrated STEM instruction approach
phenomena and highlights how features of the phenomena inter-
acting can make thinking visible.
Creative problem solving helps students learn from others by
developing and designing the wind system by working in teams
to promote collaboration and peer discussion about the instruct-
ed concepts. Students complete the wind turbine design activity
based on the optimization analysis generated through multiple
testing cycles (Figure 3). This enables them to develop criteria
for and refine their own understanding and utilize engineering
design principles to create a wind energy system and conduct
lab experiments to determine which turbine blade arrangement
gives the most power for specific conditions. The results of these
experiments serve as evidence for students to suggest improve-
ments to the design that can generate sufficient energy to power
a small device. Grouping students in pairs has been found to
be particularly beneficial for the exchange of ideas (Gerard, et
al., 2009). For example, in previous years, the authors allowed
students to work in pairs to design their scale model wind fields.
In the most recent implementation of the curriculum, student
groupings were modified to teams of four. Larger groups al-
lowed each team to utilize more generators than years past. This
allowed for a larger possible number of design configurations.
Shifting the number of students in a team was also done to allow
for the delegation of tasks (research, testing, construction, data
collection, observation and analysis, wiring, etc.). Groups were
originally set at two students per team in an attempt to ensure
that all students would be task-oriented and also help to miti-
gate student disengagement. However, when the group size was
increased to four, the authors did not observe disengagement.
On the contrary, students seemed to focus on their assigned
duties and worked collaboratively. This kind of peer collaboration
fosters knowledge integration.
Figure 3. Student wind turbine designs.
Adapting. At the end of the lesson students utilize design cri-
tique procedures to help refine their understanding of completed
works by encouraging monitoring and reflection upon ideas.
Students then generate a report on the design of a wind turbine,
including energy generation and best blade design procedures.
Based on the results of their experiments and investigations,
students reflect on their ideas by refining these design recom-
mendations.
Could STL integrated with NGSS and CCSS be a common ap-
proach to STEM habits of mind? An Integrated STEM approach
to instruction has been viewed as an innovative way of think-
ing about teaching across STEM disciplines. Riskowski, et al.,
(2009) stated that, rather than focusing on learning in isolated
curriculum areas, an integrated program is based on developing
experiences around a particular theme that is relevant to stu-
dents’ learning, giving them opportunities to be active learners
who research, interpret, communicate, and process learning to
both others and themselves. Engineering/technology education
problem-based projects tend to be interdisciplinary and focus on
evidence-based explanations. Problem-based projects should
be designed for the application of math, science, and engineer-
ing technology performance tasks, integrating the conceptual
ideas of the NGSS, CCSS, and STL standards. These standards
advocate for the integration of engineering design into engineer-
ing and technology education and, as a consequence, accentu-
ate STEM habits of mind. An internet search for engineering and
technology education course projects will yield a repertoire of
learning activities that teachers may repurpose and utilize in the
teaching of problem-based learning activities through an inte-
grated STEM approach. For example, websites like tryengineer-
ing.org/lesson-plans (www.teachengineering.org/curricularunits/
view/cub_creative_curricularunit; www.stem-by-design.com/
November 2018 technology and engineering teacher 37
STEM habits of mind: enhancing a PBL design challenge—integrated STEM instruction approach
use-mini-lessons-to-launch-stem-projects/; www.envisionex-
perience.com/blog/hands-on-engineering-activities-for-your-
classroom; http://changetheequation.org/work-based-learning-
engineering-activities) among others imply that the engineering
technology teacher, as well as the science and mathematics
teachers, will need to collaborate and arrange learning experi-
ences that foster STEM habits of mind through PBL. These
activities should be designed to help students learn to identify
the knowledge and skills needed to develop and promote STEM
habits of mind through design challenges that engage students
in completing the PBL activity to a tangible product.
Conclusion
This article highlights the habits of mind popularized by Costa
and correlates them with Standards for Technology Literacy, Next
Generation Science Standards, and the Common Core State
Standards. An argument has been presented that these stan-
dards could be the basis of a common approach to STEM habits
of mind through authentic challenges that promote PBL-integrat-
ed STEM instruction. It is the intent of this article to contribute to
ongoing discussions among educators, employers, parents, and
all those concerned, to seek the goal of interdisciplinary STEM
instruction. Such a strategy may provide students with oppor-
tunities to deepen their knowledge, expand their repertoire of
technical skills, and enhance their appreciation of thinking tools,
processes, and strategies to solve 21st century global challenges.
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Paul A. Asunda, Ph.D. is an assistant profes-
sor in the Department of Technology Leader-
ship and Innovation at Purdue University. He
can be reached at pasunda@purdue.edu.
John Weitlauf is a secondary teacher in Ox-
ford, IN and is involved in PLTW, the Phoenix
Contact Nanoline Contest, and Super Mileage.
He can be reached at jweitlauf@benton.k12.
in.us.
This is a refereed article.
Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction
prohibited without permission.