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3. Field Activity 03

This week I worked on teaching my students how to solder and laser cut to make lamps.

Project Description

Design Challenge: Design and build a lamp/light with non-addressable LEDs and an on/off switch. Constraints: * Design and laser cut the body of the lamp * Use a non-addressable LED light strip, 3V battery pack, and a switch in your lamp. * Solder connections within the circuit.

Objectives: Students will review basic electronic circuits, learn to solder, and use a laser cutter safely.

ScopesDF link to lesson plan https://www.scopesdf.org/scopesdf_lesson/light-it-up/

class project

teacher_example

laser cutting

Feedback from Students

  • Challenges students faced were primarily about time and time management. We lost about 4 days this quarter due to inclement weather, so a few students felt very rushed. Other opportunities for critical thinking included: using the mutimeters to trouble shoot their soldering, if the lights did not work. Most issues were with reading the + or - in the battery packs or accidentally burning too much of the LED strip when soldering.

  • Successes - all students left with a completed lamp, while some were cut out of cardboard because they only had time for a first iteration. All students were able to solder a circuit and connect their LED light strip to a battery pack. Since simple circuits and soldering skills were the primary learning objectives - I say it was a success!

  • Questions students asked were primarily procedural, especially if it was their first time using the laser cutters. Students asked if they could keep their projects - and the answer is YES.

  • Alignment of activity with learning objectives. The project aligns with 2 Learning Targets in our 9th grade Physical World Concepts Class: LT13: Investigate and describe properties of light and their real world applications (such as polarization, resonance, and the Doppler Effect) LT14: Draw simple circuits and use Ohm’s Law to calculate and describe the quantities of voltage, current and resistance in those circuits

  • Alignment of assessment with learning objectives. While we are not assessing the physics standards directly we are assessing the applications of those standards in the process of using a multimeter (which requires understanding of a simple circuit, including resistance, current, and voltage). Creating an edge lit acrylic lamp also exemplifies reflection and refraction which are properties of light.

The rubric used is a checklist in FabFolio which requires that students submit evidence that they have demonstrated proficiency for each criterion in a skill. Evidence can be submitted in any digital format including pictures, video, code, SVG files, etc. Here is an example of how a students successfully submitted evidence for all available skills in thei project. rubric_checklist

Reflection Questions

1. Collaboration: Reflect on how you worked with colleagues or FLA participants during the Field Activity. What steps did you take to involve collaborators? How did this collaboration influence the outcome of your final lesson plan?

I feel like I got a lot of help from my small group FLA meeting. Ideas about how to brainstorm with students to get them to think deeply about what they wanted to feel or think when they use their lamp. It moves to what kind of mood do they want to set with that creation. I got idea and used them with my students and plan to use the idea again.

2. Instructional Challenges: What challenges did you encounter or anticipate while teaching this lesson? How did you address or plan to address them? Were there, or do you anticipate, specific areas where students might struggle with the technology or content?

Students seem to struggle with electronics. They haven’t studied circuits since middle school and usually have had zero hands on experience with circuits even if they remember to concepts. We also struggle with the timefram allowed for this project. The original schedule has 3.5 weeks, however, with snow days and unforseen schedule changes, we often loose 4 or 5 days.

3. Diversity: How will you accommodate and support students with diverse learning levels, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds in this lesson?

I feel like students with diverse perspectives and cultural backgrounds are accomodated well by the personalization in this project. Students have full creative freedon in the design of their lamp, including the engraving and color choices. We did a lesson about expressing feelings with images (suggested by Erika in our FLA small group - yay, collaboration). This activity was used to help students brainstorm images and colors they wanted in their lamps to express their feelings.

4. Teacher Growth: How has this experience influenced your approach to integrating technology, such as digital fabrication, into your teaching? What new skills or strategies have you developed as a result?

Since this is my third iteration of this lesson, I feel like I have finally gotten a few things going really well with the workflow if this project. Breaking the work into smaller more manageable chunks has made a huge difference. We have provided more scaffolding for students who need to use makercase.com. The next time we teach this lesson I will also make a handout with steps to use the multimeter. Students are getting confused as to which test (Ohms, Amps, or Volts) uses which setting on the machine.

5. AI Usage: If you used AI, reflect on how it can be leveraged to enhance your teaching. How does collaborating with AI compare to collaborating with a colleague?

I did not use AI for this lesson plan.