Towards a Reverse Engineering Pedagogy (REP) in Physics Classrooms

Applying physical principles is important for designs of various products with tailored performances. However, one of the long-standing issues of the students' design projects (or school's interdisciplinary projects) is the post-hoc imposition of the knowledge learned in their content subjects. This post-hoc imposition significantly diminishes the authenticity of designs through the lens of first principles provided by science and mathematics, but also reflect the fact that many students could not see the connections between these physical first principles and their design decisions and therefore could apply them in their designs. To overcome this problem, we propose the concept of reverse engineering in physics classrooms. This work describes the framework for our proposed reverse engineering pedagogy (REP), where students embark on a series of activities, where they (i) dissemble the device, (ii) analyse the inner physical principles of the device and its components, (iii) appreciate the design principles involved in such device, (iv) augment their understanding of the physical principles by repeating the process through a virtual dissection, and (v) incorporate the process in their own design projects. We will also discuss how such approach may be implemented in a physics classroom, as well as its significance in contributing to a design-centric learning environment. [This paper was published in: Lee, Y-J, Park, J. (Eds.), "20/20 Vision for Science Education Research: Proceedings of the International Science Education 2021" (pp. 119-134). Singapore: Natural Sciences and Science Education Academic Group (NSSE), National Institute of Education (ISSN-2630-5445).]