Keep the following tips in mind as you prepare an engineering design challenge for your own classroom:

• Bring the class together as they begin each step of the engineering design process to review the details of that step and ensure students know what they will be doing and why they are doing it.

• Circulate with prepared questions to assist students as they work in their groups. For example: What happened to one criterion when you changed another criterion? How do you decide which criterion is the most important?

• Have a plan for occupying students who finish early. They can start thinking about their redesign, clean up, help other groups, etc.