Embedded Files
No two people learn in the same way, so why would it make sense to assess all students in the same fashion? It doesn’t, which is why the students at Woodland Forrest are allowed to demonstrate their learning through a variety of methods and formats. Our focus is always aimed at getting students to produce content rather than merely consume it. The majority of our STEM activities are project based, and we try to create rubrics or have culminating presentations that can illuminate an individual student’s journey through the learning process. At the onset of a STEM unit or activity, students and teachers collaborate to set clearly defined outcomes and goals. By engaging students in this goal-setting process, we are trying to instill a capacity for self-assessment and reflection. Many of our projects include students keeping video diaries, journals, or activity notes along the way. These attributes and attitudes are inherent in the engineering design process, where students ask questions, devise a plan, reflect, and make adjustments to solve problems. The EDP allows our students, in real time, to evaluate their progress towards preset goals. Systems, connections, algorithms, and designs are either working, or they are not. So, as students code a robot, design a prototype, or build a circuit they are forced to self-assess on the viability of their project. When satisfied with the viability, students determine the mode in which they will present their project. Typically, this is done in a classroom setting, where students will share their findings or finished project with their peers. On special occasions, we involve our stakeholders in this process by having students present for their parents or at school-wide events. One of the hallmarks of STEM Night is the public display of student-led demonstrations. To extend learning beyond our campus walls, we look for competitions and events that align to our STEM goals. We are extremely proud of the fact that in recent years, Woodland Forrest has won the Canstruction Engineering Challenge multiple times and took first place in the Governor’s App Challenge this year.
Instruments
Through collaboration between our music teacher and our general education teachers, our 1st and 4th grade students made instruments. Our 1st grade students focused on learning about pitch and vibrations during their sound, light, and sky unit, so they built instruments to demonstrate different pitches. Their learning goal was to construct a device that would play 3 different pitches of an instrument. Our 4th grade students' task focused more on circuit building. Their learning goal was to construct a device that transferred energy from one form to another. Both groups used MakeyMakey and scratch to enable their instruments to play sound. Students were able to self-monitor during each part of the engineering design process. Our 1st grade students were able to test different pitches and select the sounds that best fit their instrument. Our 4th grade students were able to tell when a circuit was not transferring energy and debug their problem based on a sound being produced or not.
Sunglasses
Sunglasses
Sun blocking your eyes? We have you covered! Our 1st grade students are supposed to learn about materials that allow differing amounts of light to pass through. Our teachers wanted to provide students with a real world and their world assessment for this standard so with the help of our STEM coordinator, they came up with the idea to have students engineer sunglasses for our principal. Students were taught the necessary vocabulary and explored various materials the weeks before the assessment. The week of the assessment, students used the engineering design process to build their sunglasses. They drew plans, tested available materials with flashlights, measured our principal's head, asked his favorite color, and constructed the glasses. Once their sunglasses were finished, they wrote an opinion piece on why our principal should choose the glasses they designed. Students used self-assessment and monitoring skills to change out materials as they did not work for their design. In their writing, they used what they discovered during the unit and EDP as evidence. Our principal went to each classroom and helped the students choose a winner based on ability to let some light pass through (translucent), durability, fit, and prototype that matched the blueprint best. Students were able to assess their own glasses and other’s to choose the best glasses for the principal. After reflecting on the lesson and speaking with the tech coach, teachers plan to have students design their glasses on TinkerCad next year (with some 5th grade help) to improve the lesson. We now have 3 working 3D printers, so students will be able to print their prototypes. Students will draw their glasses, upload the plan to TinkerCad, 3D print, and build.
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