Curricular Design - 21st Century Learning

• Which component(s) were addressed?   Critical Thinking & Communication
• What learning activities did you plan, and why did you choose them?   
• Critical Thinking:  Students are understand the basics of structural engineering. They are learning about different loads/forces on buildings and how those loads affect the structure of the building. They are analyzing beams and determining the shear and moment forces acting on the beams. I demonstrated several beam analysis and now they are working through beam analysis of their own. Next they will be using this information to design beams for a building.
• Communication:  Students researched, created a notes sheet, and gave two minute presentations on commercial utilities such as natural gas, electrical, storm sewer, sanitary, water, and telecommunications. They communicated what they learned about their utility to the entire class answering thoughtful questions relating to how the utilities are provided and connected to buildings during construction.
• What were the results of the activity?
• Critical Thinking:  Students are still working through this very difficult concept. They are starting to understand the connections between analyzing the beam and designing it for a structure. This activity/lesson is going fairly well with the students starting to grasp the concepts after some re-teaching.
• Communication:  This lesson did not go as well. Students struggled with understanding and being able to research the utilities and see the connection between the utilities and construction since they are unfamiliar with construction methods. 
• What impact do you think integrating these components had on the learning?  Applying critical thinking has been very effective for the learning. The communication lesson needs to be revamped.
• What did you learn as a result of trying this?  Both of these components are important to learning and teaching.