Let the Making Begin!

This summer I spent a fair amount of time reflecting on last year, which was my first in the STEM Lab. Moving from the regular classroom to the lab required a tremendous shift in how I thought about planning and pacing my lessons. Instead of planning for one grade, I was planning for 6 grades. Instead of twenty-something students, I had five hundred. Overall, I feel like last year went pretty well, but there were also things that I definitely wanted to improve.

One revelation I had was that many of my students had great difficultly with tasks in which multiple outcomes were acceptable. For example, one such task was to build a vehicle that could carry 2 wooden blocks the length of the table. Most students had one of two reactions. Many seemed unable to believe that they had free reign over the design and kept asking if each element they added to their vehicle was OK. The others embraced the freedom and went all out adding everything and the kitchen sink to the vehicle, usually forgetting what the vehicle was supposed to be able to do in the process.

In order to improve their creative confidence and design thinking, my emphasis this year in the lab will be on making and creating. I have read a number of interesting articles recently about maker education and invention literacy which outlined the benefits to students when they are encouraged to to create rather than just consume. Most importantly for our work in the lab, making naturally draws together the skills needed for a deep understanding of science, technology, engineering, and math. In addition, making requires students to practice creative problem solving and other content areas can easily be incorporated as well.

So, after that lengthy introduction, how did we begin making? I adapted an activity from the Dallas Museum of Art's Center for Creative Connections. (It is a space at the DMA geared towards children and families that involves them in crafting and drawing with different materials.) Students were provided with a wide variety of up-cycled and reused items. There was cardboard, paper clips, fabric scraps, yarn, toothpicks, tissue paper, and so on. After giving a brief overview of the types of materials available and reminders to conserve as much as possible, the students were instructed to create something. Their object could be abstract or representational, based on a feeling or experience, fancy or minimalist. The only constraint on their creativity was time.

With the week only half over, I am amazed by the what I have seen so far. There have been challenges in generating ideas and making plans before cutting/gluing, but the students have done a great job persevering. Even more impressive has been the amount of cooperation and collaboration that has been displayed. The students are eager to share discoveries they have made about certain materials and techniques the help others to bring their visions to life. They are evening helping each other generate ideas about what to build. I overhead this exchange during a 2nd grade class: "I can't think of what to make!", "How about you make a boat? That's what I'm making.", "OK." And off they went, each building their own unique visions of a boat.

However, the best thing I have heard a student say this week was this: "I wish we did this every day at school."