Engineering and scientists uses a complex semi-formal process to develop innovative products that bring value to users. While we know a lot about how people become fixated on past solutions and how the scienctific discovery process and the engineering design process can each be structured to lead scientists and designers to new solutions, much remains to be understood the process of insight and innovation, particularly regarding the cognition that underlies it. We brings the theories and methods of cognitive and social psychology to unpack the complex events of design that occur in the real world.

Design-based learning (DBL) is a form of project-based learning in which students learn what they need to learn in a just-in-time fashion while trying to design something. In my group, we build 6-to-8-week-long DBL units for middle school and highschool math, science, and technology classrooms. These units use engineering design processes as a foundational structure for the units—this structure improves the design outcomes and provides an organizaton of the math/science learning that happens inside the classroom. However, we need to add additional supports into the process to maximize learning in this classroom setting. We are currently exploring a particular form of DBL called Model Eliciting Activities, in which students are pushed to a deliver a general model design specification rather than just a particular solution; these MEAs surface student thinking to the instructor and themselves, provide a more authentic push for understanding of general relationships, and can help develop mathematics as a thinking tool.

NanoDesign. Engineering is now taking on the design of objects building upon emerging nano-science. This kind of design poses new challenges for designers, as they must manipulate objects at the nanometer-level, but work towards outcomes at the centimeter or larger level (e.g., changing myosin properties to influence heart muscle properties). The work across huge spatial scales is challenging because the properties at the nano-scale do not map directly onto the emergent systems level properties. We are building simulations of particular systems, studying the cognitive processes of various groups who will need to do design work in this area, and developing design environments that leverage the simulations to support the cognitive challenges for various groups.

Design Dimensions. Why do some educational curricula move to scale well while others do not? We are studying critical processes related to dimensions of time, goals, context, and scale. The work involves retrospective studies of four successful cases, participant/observation of ongoing large scale curriculum design cases, and interview studies across larger numbers of science curricula design projects.

Robot Algebra/CS2N. Robotics curricula designed to strengthen algebra and computer science skills in urban middle and high school students. This work is done collaboratively with Robin Shoop at CMU's NREC. CS2N website

STEM Reasoning

Advanced Analogical Search with Integrated Function and Form: The Verrocchio Project: Much research has shown that a major component of creative ideation is based on the incorporation of analogies in concept generation. The Verrocchio Project seeks to improve our capabilities in concept generation through collaboration between the disciplines of Cognitve Psychology, Computer Science, and Engineering Design to provide new tools for design by analogy. Our approach is based on a representation that associates functional and geometric information. We combine a linguistic search for functional similarity with a multi-level search for geometric similarity to automatically identify and present analogies to the designer. The initial application for the Verrocchio Project is the design of sustainable energy-using devices for developing world applications, a domain that is ripe for innovation. Our initial search space is the USPTO utility patent repository.

Design Tools to Cognitive Processes to Innovation. We have collected data (~30 hrs/team) from semester-long product realization teams (approximately 60 teams across three yrs of data collection) to understand how the artifacts and tools in the design environment shape cognitive processes like analogy and mental simulation to in turn influence the quality of final solutions.

Integrating Social and Cognitive Processes in Discovery and Innovation. Innovation and discovery involve individuals working successfully together in teams. Prior research has typically studied social teamwork variables in isolation or individual cognition variables in isolation. We have examined a very large quantity of video data collected from a recent highly successful case of science and engineering, the Mars Exploration Rover. From this video record, the project traces the path from the structure of different subgroups (such as having formal roles and diversity of knowledge in the subgroups) to the occurrence of different social processes (such as task conflict, breadth of participation, communication norms, and shared mental models) to the occurrence of different cognitive processes (such as analogy, information search, and evaluation) and finally to outcomes (such as new methods for rover control and new hypotheses regarding the nature of Mars). We are also doing analyses of cogntive and social processes in the large data set of successful and unsuccessful teams in an engineering productive innovation class.

STEM Learning

BLOOM (Biology Levers Out Of Mathematics). The project brings mathematics as a thinking and learning tool into high school biology instruction through the use of engineering-based modules focused on core biology topics. The modules will be developed by a collaborative team involving learning science, mathematics education, and biology expertise. The modules are designed for large-scale urban settings and we will study the ways in which teacher materials and various web-based tools can support high quality implementation at scale.

Connecting Research and Teaching Through Product Realization (RET). We work with high school science teachers in the summers to provide them with innovative engineering design experiences (over in the school of engineering with Amy Landis, and with Sondra Balouris from Health and Rehabilitation Sciences). We also work with the teachers to build design-based learning projects do be implemented during the school year in their high school classrooms.

The 21st Century Research and Development Center on Cognition and Science Education. Can we improve science education through cognitive science principles of learning? Cognitive science has now been around for 40 yrs as a strong discipline. Have we progressed far enough to make a difference in real world applications? ln this center-level effort, we team across Pitt, Penn, and Temple to systematically modify and test our cognitive-science based modifications to popular instances of hands-on and textbook based middle school science curricula and then conduct large scale efficacy trials of the resulting materials.