Developing a Model to Support Collaborative Engineering Projects: Student Uncertainty as a Productive Resource for Engineering (SUPER-E)

Engineering design in K–12 classrooms is inherently uncertain as students tackle open-ended problems and team dynamics. Building on the Student Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource (SUPeR) model in science, informed by engineering design education theory and teachers’ design activity and discussion in a professional development, we developed the Student Uncertainty as a Productive Resource for Engineering (SUPER-E) model. SUPER-E is a four-phase framework that maps uncertainty across the engineering design process. It supports teachers to anticipate when and how uncertainties emerge across each phase and offers teachers a structured yet flexible tool for leveraging student uncertainty as a productive resource. Next steps involve classroom-based implementation with middle school students.