Sketchpad | Exploratorium

Balance exploration with Brazilian educators - Part 3: Reflect as educators

17

Sep / 21

17 Sep / 21

Posted by Ryoko

This is Part 3 of a series of blog posts. If you haven’t already, read Part 1 here and Part 2 here!

Engage as educators to reflect on the experience:

After the hands-on exploration period, we did not forget about the educator’s hat that we had set aside. The following are excerpts from the comments that the BCLN members made while reflecting on this activity from the perspective of an educator.

>> "Changing hats is important to experience the activity first as a learner first, and afterwards, to reflect as an educator. Direct experience with the materials as a learner is an important first step in tinkering, and it will help us better support our students as they have similar problems and paths."

>> "Learning happens when things don't go right. Learning from mistakes is really important, but we also need activities where we can make mistakes as part of the process and have the opportunity to not get things right at the first attempt."

>> "We need teachers who are open to many different solutions/answers. This is not like a test where there is only one right answer."

>> "When bringing tinkering activities into school, we want to make sure that tinkering is not just a fun activity that is used only as an introduction or a dessert. Tinkering should be *fully* integrated in school practice, not just added as something fun."

>> "Process over product. Document the process, not the final product. Documenting the process will help you remember what happens during the process, which you might forget later."

Overall, we had an amazing time collaborating with the BCLN team. We chose balance exploration for the first R&D theme because it exemplifies one of our tinkering tenets, which is “Process over product.” The fact that balancing sculptures are ephemeral and do not last long may also play a role here. It encouraged us to take pictures of the process, and taaught us that there is more to learn and tell about the process than the finished product. It was fantastic to hear those reflection comments from the BCLN educators in the end, and we're excited to continue prototyping activities that can be used for professional development training for teachers as an introduction to tinkering/creative learning.

One last thing that should be mentioned is that tinkering takes time. We allocated 1.5 hours for this R&D session but it got extended to 2 hours. Although a two-hour time slot may appear long on your Google calendar, we really need to allot ample time for both tinkering and reflection. And in fact, even after this R&D is over, we are still grappling with what we experienced at this time.

This project was made possible through generous support from the LEGO Foundation.

Balance exploration with Brazilian educators - Part 2: Engage as learners to explore balance

17

Sep / 21

17 Sep / 21

Posted by Ryoko

This is Part 2 of a series of blog posts. If you haven’t already, read Part 1 here!

Engage as learners to explore balance:

Simple joy

Ann was trying to build her balancing sculpture higher. She used two keychains as anchors, and put them close to the center. After looking at Veronica’s exploration, she learned a technique of using cardboard connectors. Then, she positioned the pencils upward.

“Wow! I really didn’t think it was going to work! It’s a total surprise!” - Ann

Veronica also had a delightful moment, when she succeeded in attaching a tiny paperclip to the top of her swinging sculpture.

Material discovery

One of the goals of this R&D session was to find good materials to support tinkering with balance exploration. It was interesting to see how everyone brought different household items for various purposes.

(A & B) Nathan brought a glass cup filled with coffee beans and placed a marker inside. It became a base for his balancing sculpture.

(C & D) Having a ball underneath the platform provided a good starting point to explore balancing!

(E) The wire in this image is made of paper clips. Marilia unfolded the paper clips and used them as wires.

(F) Ellen brought a skimmer from her kitchen which has so many holes that she can stick anything in it. We called it a “kitchen pegboard”!

(G) Fabiani connected a few matchboxes in her balancing sculpture.

(H) Fabiani also found that Play-Doh (the pink one) is very useful because you can use it as a weight or connector.

Veronica found a new material for connectors (Styrofoam)

Veronica “These allow you to connect in different directions. They are flexible and allow you to turn, twist, and change the angles of the materials, and they will find a new balance.”

Process over product

Marilia

“You make something, and it collapses, you start over again and again -- it’s very process oriented.”

Fabiani

"It’s interesting to get different processes and results using the same materials."

Fabiani experimented in a variety of ways, including making a seesaw sculpture and a balancing sculpture both with similar materials.

Ann “Look at Ellen’s balancing sculpture. It’s moving in many different directions!”

Ellen “The process was fun, but regarding the product, I’m not sure what I made.”

Sebastian “This is why we do this. Because it’s the process that is important to our learning, not the product.”

The comments above all provided interesting insights into the process of tinkering. The process of tinkering is iterative and messy. You're experimenting with phenomena with your hands without fully knowing what will happen, but the materials are honest. They give you feedback, and then you’ll adjust your plans based on what happens to your project as you go. We believe that is the most interesting part in tinkering.

So then, how can we highlight such a learner's process instead of the product?

Use of Padlet for celebrating the process over product

We want learners to talk about tentative ideas and their works-in-progress [process] more than what they made [product]. Padlet is a virtual shared workspace where we can share photos and texts when we work remotely. It is easy to use and encourages cross-pollination of ideas and instant collaborations (we can see when anyone uploads something on the wall). We like to use Padlet as a shared wall of messy tentative ideas rather than as a gallery of beautiful final outcomes. For that reason, we encourage ourselves to take photos often and post them on Padlet as we go.

The facilitator's voice could also determine whether the use of Padlet is intended to highlight the process for learners. If you'd like to emphasize the process rather than the product, you could actively share the learner's discoveries, struggles, and small successes with the group. Take pictures or encourage learners to document on their own. What you say as a facilitator can also help to clarify the Padlet's role: It's a place to collect half baked ideas, not a place to display the final outcomes.

Later on, we also used those photos and documentations to reflect on our experiences.

>> Read Part 3 of this blog series "Engage as educators to reflect on the experience"

This project was made possible through generous support from the LEGO Foundation.

Balance exploration with Brazilian educators - Part 1: Changing hats

17

Sep / 21

17 Sep / 21

Posted by Ryoko

We had a joint R&D session to explore balance with our Brazilian partners as part of a collaborative project for LEGO Tech & Play (continued from this post). It was a great opportunity for both the TS team and the BCLN (Brazil Creative Learning Network) team to spend time together prototyping and exploring how balance activities could be used for future professional development training for teachers in Brazil.

Learner’s hat and educator’s hat:

Whenever we share an activity with educators, we ask them to put on a learner's hat instead of an educator’s hat. We know they usually work as teachers, facilitators, or researchers, but while trying out an activity with us, we encourage them to set aside their usual hats and just be learners. This is important because we want them to simply engage with the phenomenon at hand, be curious and enjoy the activity, as we believe that exploring real-world phenomena is an essential first step toward a meaningful tinkering experience. While exploring, they don’t have to ask questions like “What are the learning objectives?” or "How can I connect this activity to the curriculum?” Rather, we spend time simply playing with the phenomenon and the materials as learners first. Later, we ask them to put back on their educator’s hats and reflect on the experience through an educator’s eyes.

Shared experience:

This is how we looked as a group of learners when we had the balance exploration activity over Zoom. This represents our joint R&D session really well, with each of us fully engaged with the phenomenon and the simple materials. While working, we wanted to be able to see each other’s exploration. Pointing the camera downward is one of our tinkering tips while working remotely. In that way, everyone can see what others are working on, which often generates more questions and conversations around the topic.

balance exploration project page (I won't go into detail about the prompts and materials that we prepared for this R&D session, but in general, we referred to this project page "Balance Explorations," and each of us brought materials from home that could be used in the exploration. )