"Help Me Build": Making as an Enabler for Problem Solving in Engineering Design

Solving engineering design problems requires the students to explore and understand the solution space to think creatively. Most of the current teaching practices of problem-solving in the context of engineering design are very structured not allowing much room for exploration. "Making" is the act of building or adaptation of objects to understand the functions of our environment. It involves opportunities to order the immediate environment around oneself which can serve as a cognitive function to provide insight into multiple solution strategies. In this doctoral research, we propose to build a learning environment (LE) to support the learners in learning the key skills and processes essential for making. With the help of some maker-studies, we will try to identify the key skills and strategies that they apply while making. In studies with novice makers, we will try to determine the challenges faced in learning and application of such skills. The findings from these studies will guide the design of our LE to support the learning of making.