STEM advancement in the Classroom
Heather Sanderson
Eastern Connecticut State University
June 14th, 2018
In Honey and Kanter’s Design Make Play Growing the Next Generation of STEM Innovators, the authors stress the importance of allowing students to be creative and have fun in the classroom in order to have success in science. Honey and Kanter explain that the design process “engages students as critical thinkers and problem solvers” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.4). They explain that makers tend to have “deep engagement with content, explorations, problem-solving, collaboration, and learning to learn” and that play “encourages a diverse ecology of different engagement strategies” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.4). When a teacher can put together lessons that implement designing, making, and playing, they are setting up a creative, hands on learning environment which will allow their students to achieve at high levels in the science classroom.
This is my first year piloting the new NGSS curriculum and I have paired 4 engineering projects with content taught. One of the first lessons of the year is the design process and how important it is to test your prototype and continually try to improve upon the design. Honey and Kanter state that while a student may be engaged in the engineering task there is often a lack of support when it comes to “optimizing a design solution” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.25-26). I have found that redesign is the one area where I need to spend more time and encourage my students more. I find that once my students have put so much work into a functioning prototype they want to stop there. I do grade them on their redesign, but find this is an area where I need to focus more to help my students grow in their application of the design process. Honey and Kanter believe design is “a powerful way to kindle a desire to learn the content” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.36). I agree that introducing a design project to solidify content knowledge taught can be successful in the classroom. I have been implementing an ice cube challenge to reinforce my student’s knowledge of heat transfer and I have been delighted to see the depth of the understanding they gain from this challenge. They understand where they need to put certain materials to protect the ice cube from conduction of heat from the hot sand and also what materials will protect from the heat lamps radiation. In the past when I just taught heat transfer with worksheets and textbooks I saw so much more confusion on the topic than I do now. Finally, I agree with Honey and Kanter that “design based learning has the potential to engage reluctant learners” and have seen engagement and academic success from some of my most disruptive students, as well as many of my special education students (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p. 5).
Honey and Kanter talk up the making approach of tinkering which is “playful, experimental, iterative style of engagement, in which makers are continually reassessing their goals, exploring new paths, and imagining new possibilities” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p. 164). While I find this tinkering a bit hard to implement in the classroom because of curriculum that needs to be taught and the time constraints, I do see the value of presenting students with materials and seeing what they come up with. I believe creativity is lacking in our youth today because parents tend to overschedule their children’s day which leaves no time for them to come up with games or do craft projects. Honey and Kanter report that “there is increasing skepticism that even those who succeed academically are not the kind of creative, innovative thinkers and doers that we need” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.8). I notice that many of my level 2 students come up with better designs then my level 1 students in design challenges. The level 2 students are more willing to take risks and think out of the box, while my level 1 students play it safe because they are scared of failure and a potential lower grade on the assignment. Recently when my students were building earthquake proof structures one of my lower level groups used pipe cleaners on their walls instead of popsicle sticks like everyone else was using. Their building was super flexible and when stationary looked like it would fall down, but when tested on the shake table it survived, to the surprise of the class who thought there was no way it would work. We need to encourage this creativity, and as science teachers we are in unique position to provide reluctant or lower level learners with hands on making activities that can increase their confidence and academic success.
Honey and Kanter declare we are in a “play crisis” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.95). Statistics show that between 1981 and 1997 children’s playtime dropped 25% and that those levels have stayed there between 1997 and 2003 (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p. 95). Also, according to a report by Elkind in 2008 “recess has been eliminated in thousands of schools in the United States to allow for more time for academic study” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p.95). Honey and Kanter state that play “aids in managing stress and promotes resiliency” (Honey and Kanter, 2013, p. 96). In my classroom I have seen a dramatic increase in the stress levels of my students and many are so stressed that they have diagnosed anxiety conditions. I do not think that it is any coincidence that this uptick in stress has coincided with the overbearing helicopter parents managing every second of their child’s day, as well as the uptick in screen time with the handheld devices that children have constant access to. Children are simply left with no time in the day to play. As a middle school science teacher, I am happy to try to come up with some tinkering activities I can implement next year hopefully during our state testing, where the students stress levels are the highest, to give them back some time to play in a constructive way.
References
Honey, M., & Kanter, D.E. (2013). Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators. New York: Routledge.