Activity 1: Brainstorm Web - FAB

STEM|FAB Studio: A Teachers’ Lounge for Learning and Making

Activity 1: Project Brainstorm Web and Curriculum Alignment

To guide you through designing a FAB LAB Project Unit Plan we will follow the Steps of the FAB LAB Teacher Studio Design Process. Each Mini-Course Activity will address two or more steps in the process leading to a completed STEM FAB Teacher Unit to implement in your classroom. The STEPS for the FAB LAB Design Process are influenced by the Engineering Design Process, the Scientific Method and the creative/artistic process.

Connect National and State standards and competencies to hands-on learning opportunities that demonstrate student mastery of content knowledge, skills, documentation and presentation. Identify three ore more Standards/ Benchmarks/ Competencies across multiple subjects that you would like to address and complete generate a STEM FAB Project Concept Web (Document 1).

Planning Stages Document:

MSWORD
PDF

STEP 1: ASK & IMAGINE

[ASK] Begin to think about what you would like your students to accomplish with this FAB LAB Project. What challenges, problems, or subject matter content would you like them to address through completion of the STEM FAB Project? This central question [ASK] will evolve over time with criteria, constraints, assessment methods, materials usage, and machine accesses.

You may use this document to start but the text boxes may be a little tricky!

MSWord Doc: [LINK]
PDF: [LINK]

[IMAGINE] Create a Brainstorm Web that branches out to illustrate the various parts of a STEM FAB Project. [IMAGINE] bubbles from the central idea [ASK] should be based on the different components of the project (ie. Content, Subjects, Sections, Parts). From each [IMAGINE] bubble one or more learning activities or investigations should be determined as activities for students to complete that address knowledge or skills students need to have to complete the entire project. These learning activities should be dedicated activities derived from subject area standards, benchmarks, competencies, and skills denoted by at star. Assessment of each benchmark will be ongoing and re-appear in the [Evaluate] stage on the process.

You may use any of the suggested methods to complete STEP 1:

the attached word document (Brainstorm Web)
an online Google Doc
2D design software that creates bitmaps, jpegs or gifs
concept map programs (http://popplet.com/, mindomo.com, mindmiester, Padlet.com
Even a paper sketch that can be scanned and posted can be used
please contribute ideas or links to other methods in the comments section below

Examples Brainstorm Webs:

Insert link to example 1
technologystudent.com - Clock Brainstorm Web [PDF] [website]
Insert link to example 3

STEP 2: POSTING YOUR WORK

Much of the strength of the FAB LAB Foundation is the documentation and access to useful resources, plans and tutorials provided by the international FAB LAB network. To complete Activity 1 (Steps 1 & 2) generate a way to share the digital version of your [ASK] and [IMAGINE] brainstorm web. You can have a single page that simply has a break or horizontal line divider between each Stage of the Process.

You may use any of the suggested methods to complete STEP 2: