The Design Compass: A Computer Tool for Scaffolding Students' Metacognition and Discussion about their Engineering Design Process

This paper reports on the Design Compass, a classroom tool for helping students record and reflect on their design process as they work on and complete a design challenge. The Design Compass software provides an interface where students can identify and record the various design steps they used while performing them, and add digital notes and pictures to document their work. In the Design Log view, students can review steps taken, and print the record of work done, which can be shared and discussed with their instructor or classmates. The paper describes the concepts underlying the creation of the Design Compass, its features as a metacognitive tool and how it works, and provides scenarios of its use as a teaching and assessment tool with eighth-grade technology education students, and in teacher professional development workshops.