Developing Coordination and Organizing Skills in K-12 Students through Systems Engineering Projects (RTP)

Geling Xu; Mohammed Tonkal; Chris Buergin Rogers

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Conference: 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Publication Date: June 22, 2025
Start Date: June 22, 2025
End Date: August 15, 2025
Conference Session: Engaging and Empowering K-12 Students through Collaborative STEM Projects and Inclusive Outreach
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE)
Page Count: 10
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/56258
Download Count: 1

Paper Authors

biography

Geling Xu Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach

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Geling Xu is a Ph.D. student in STEM Education at Tufts University and a research assistant at Tufts Center for Engineering Education and Outreach. She is interested in K-12 STEM Education, Engineering and Technology Education, Robotics Education, MakerSpace, LEGO Education, and Curriculum Design.

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biography

Mohammed Tonkal Tufts University and Kind Abdulaziz University

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Mohammed is a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering with a research focus on teaching systems engineering to k-12 students. He has completed a master’s degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Southern California. He also holds another master’s degree in engineering management at King Abulaziz University. He has previous experience in working on large projects in various engineering fields. This study is a continuation of that work at the college level.

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Chris Buergin Rogers Tufts University

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Chris is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University with research in engineering education, robotics, musical instrument design, IoT, and anything else that sounds cool..

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Abstract

Building a complex multi-systems engineering project required coordination between individuals from different engineering disciplines (Jonassen et al., 2006; Trevelyan & Tilli, 2007). To help K-12 students learn how to work in real engineering environments and prepare for the future, it was important to teach them how to coordinate and organize their projects (Pleasants & Olson, 2019). To support K-12 students working on systems engineering projects and help develop their systems thinking skills, we developed and implemented a project management board (Brennan et al., 2023) along with methods designed to aid students in completing various tasks and collaborating on a large-scale project. In February 2024, we ran a workshop with 13 elementary school students during a school break camp in Massachusetts, where they worked together to build a Smart Model of a City over four consecutive days. The students were divided into five sub-teams—Power, Roads, Buildings, Vehicles, and Trains—and then collaborated to integrate their builds into one cohesive Smart City.

On the third day of the project, we asked four students, one from each group, to meet in a separate room to come up with tasks for the entire project. In this paper, we focused on the task development group’s conversation and design process to analyze how students worked within this group, shared ideas, and coordinated with other team members to assign tasks to both subgroups and the class as a whole. Additionally, we observed students having high motivation, everyone focusing on their duty and remaining engaged.

Based on our initial analysis, we found that the structure of the systems engineering project and the use of the project board supported students in developing their coordination and organizing skills. We found that: 1) students were able to coordinate, define their roles, stay focused, and complete their duties with less teacher supervision; 2) students from different subgroups were able to sit together, share, and listen to each other, understand the other teams’ roles in the overall project, and collaborate effectively as a new group to design new tasks; and 3) students in the task development group successfully negotiated and assigned tasks for their subgroups. This approach allowed students to apply their knowledge and solve complex problems together. In situations where there was too much material to teach all students, rather than covering every topic in depth, this method supported students' teamwork and shared understanding, preparing them for real-world collaborative problem-solving.

Citation
Format

Xu, G., & Tonkal, M., & Rogers, C. B. (2025, June), Developing Coordination and Organizing Skills in K-12 Students through Systems Engineering Projects (RTP) Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . https://peer.asee.org/56258

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Building a complex multi-systems engineering project required coordination between individuals from different engineering disciplines (Jonassen et al., 2006; Trevelyan &amp;amp; Tilli, 2007). To help K-12 students learn how to work in real engineering environments and prepare for the future, it was important to teach them how to coordinate and organize their projects (Pleasants &amp;amp; Olson, 2019). To support K-12 students working on systems engineering projects and help develop their systems thinking skills, we developed and implemented a project management board (Brennan et al., 2023) along with methods designed to aid students in completing various tasks and collaborating on a large-scale project. In February 2024, we ran a workshop with 13 elementary school students during a school break camp in Massachusetts, where they worked together to build a Smart Model of a City over four consecutive days. The students were divided into five sub-teams—Power, Roads, Buildings, Vehicles, and Trains—and then collaborated to integrate their builds into one cohesive Smart City.

On the third day of the project, we asked four students, one from each group, to meet in a separate room to come up with tasks for the entire project. In this paper, we focused on the task development group’s conversation and design process to analyze how students worked within this group, shared ideas, and coordinated with other team members to assign tasks to both subgroups and the class as a whole. Additionally, we observed students having high motivation, everyone focusing on their duty and remaining engaged.

Based on our initial analysis, we found that the structure of the systems engineering project and the use of the project board supported students in developing their coordination and organizing skills. We found that: 1) students were able to coordinate, define their roles, stay focused, and complete their duties with less teacher supervision; 2) students from different subgroups were able to sit together, share, and listen to each other, understand the other teams’ roles in the overall project, and collaborate effectively as a new group to design new tasks; and 3) students in the task development group successfully negotiated and assigned tasks for their subgroups. This approach allowed students to apply their knowledge and solve complex problems together. In situations where there was too much material to teach all students, rather than covering every topic in depth, this method supported students&#39; teamwork and shared understanding, preparing them for real-world collaborative problem-solving.
AU  - Geling Xu
AU  - Mohammed Tonkal
AU  - Chris Buergin Rogers
CY  - Montreal, Quebec, Canada 
DA  - 2025/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Developing Coordination and Organizing Skills in K-12 Students through Systems Engineering Projects (RTP)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/56258
ER  -