Engage: Revisit the grabber activity from the prior workshop. Rethink the activity through the lens of youth. Brainstorm a list of approaches or designs that youth might create for their prototype. For each approach and design, consider where failure might occur from the viewpoint of youth. This might include unexpected outcomes, lacking skills and/or knowledge, not trying or not trying again, when comparing self and/or prototype to someone else, etc.

Reflect and Discuss: (a) How easy was it for you to put yourself in the position of youth? (b) How was this similar to and/or different from your experience with this activity during the prior workshop? (c) Did you consider youths' potential emotional state? Why or why not?

Plan for Workshop 2: We provided you with questions above (Reflect and Discuss) that you may want to pose to educators after the activity/task. How might you facilitate a discussion around youth's failure experiences? Will you use the same activity from the prior workshop or begin with a new and different activity to facilitate this discussion? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this approach?

Engage: Consider the making activity that will be a focus of the FiM project. Engage in the activity, thinking through where youth might experience failures (e.g., materials, lack knowledge of how to use tools, testing prototype). 

Reflect and Discuss:  (1) Where might youth experience failure during the activity?  (2) Where should experiences with failure be avoided (e.g., adult scissors for child-sized hands) and where should experiences with failure be fostered and supported? Why? Consider how the available materials, tools and human resources may also lead to experiences with failure. (3) How might the age of your participants influence your plans for failure-rich moments?

Plan for Workshop 2:  We provided you with questions above (Reflect and Discuss) that you may want to pose to educators after the activity/task. Brainstorm other questions around experiences with failure you might pose to your educators before, during, and/or after the completion of the activity. One partnering site suggested having educators record themselves when they think failure is happening. What might be the advantages and/or disadvantages of this? 

Engage: Consider the following scenario within a Physics of Roller Coasters workshop developed by The Tech Interactive: Danny, Quinn, Juniper, and Rosa are fourth graders having difficulty with their roller coaster. They have built their structure and attached their track, but are visibly frustrated and having difficulty getting the marble to stay on the track.

How would you respond to youths' failure moment? Why?  How might your response be dependent on the youths' emotional state?

Reflect and Discuss: (a) How might your response be similar and/or different from others in your organization and educational team? (b) How often do you consider youths' emotional state when they experience failure? What verbal and non-verbal cues do you attend to? (c) What if these students were sixth graders, would you respond differently? Why or why not?

Plan for Workshop 2: Brainstorm ways to generate a list of strategies regarding how to attend, interpret, and respond to youth's failure moments. We encourage you to utilize and/or adapt activities in the Workshop 2 resources developed by our partnering sites to support your thinking. In addition, we suggest you write down the list of strategies on a large sheet of paper to refer to during check-in sessions, as well as reflect upon during Workshops 3 and 4. Here is an example of "hot tips" created by informal educators at The Tech Interactive.