This innovative practice work in progress paper presents Biologically inspired design (BID) to transfer design principles identified in nature to human-centered design problems. The Biologically Inspired Design for Engineering Education (BIRDEE) program uses biologically inspired design to teach high school engineering in a way that uniquely engages students in the natural world. For high school students, identifying natural systems’ analogues for human design problems can be challenging. Furthermore, it is often the case that students focus on and transfer superficial structures, rather than underlying design principles. Based on the Structure-Behavior-Function (SBF) design ontology, we developed a modified cognitive scaffold called Structure- Function-Mechanism (SFM) to assist students and teachers with identifying functionally similar biological analogies and identifying and transferring design principles. In this paper we describe SFM and its importance in BID and our observations from teaching SFM to high school teachers during a multi-week professional development workshop in the summer of 2020. Based on teachers’ work artifacts, transcriptions of discussions, and focus groups, we highlight the challenges of teaching SFM and our plans to scaffold this important concept for students and teachers alike.
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GETTING BEYOND THE HAIRY HOUSE: USING STRUCTURE-FUNCTIONMECHANISM TO ADVANCE BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED DESIGN PEDAGOGY
In this case study we report on the use of a Next Generation
Science Standards (NGSS)-aligned form of Structure-Behavior-
Function, called Structure-Function-Mechanism (SFM), to teach
four high school engineering teachers an approach for
Biologically Inspired Design (BID). Functional theories of
design describe a natural way in which designers solve design
problems. They provide support for case-based and analogicalbased
reasoning systems and have been used successfully to
teach BID to undergraduate students. We found that teachers
instructed on BID practice and pedagogy using our modified
theory were able to grasp the structural concepts and looked for
clear markers separating mechanism (behavior) and function.
Because of the systems-of-systems nature of most biological
entities, these boundaries were often subjective, presenting
unique challenge to teachers. As high school engineering
teachers look for methods to enhance their pedagogy and to
understand multidisciplinary content, these findings will inform
future curriculum development and professional learning
approaches for engineering education.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1907906
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10343764
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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