1. Week 01

This week we talked about Problem Based Learning vs Project Based Learning, and built a press kit using the laser cutter. Notes on the lecture at my blog

Reflection

1. How your press-fit can be utilized in education? How other teachers could use it?

2. What has been your experience using Project Based Learning / Problem based learning in the past? What were the main challenges? How DF can support Project Based Learning / Problem Based learning?

Almost everywhere that I have written curriculum for claimed to do Project-Based Learning, but generally they meant “Learning that ends in a project.” In a few cases, I fixed the language, in others, I tried to edit it into true project-based learning.

For an example of the latter, I created a clubs curriculum that was focused around a topic or issue that the students wanted to create about. This was a club situation, so not all students would be there every day, and not all students would be anywhere near the same level of experience. We could not even truly assume that the instructor had any experience. On the first day of class, students discussed a problem in the world / their classroom that they wanted to raise awareness about. Then, based on their interest in learning and the level they were at, there were a bunch of self-guided lessons for them to follow to learn how to make a game in Scratch or JavaScript or a website or something of the sort. Each day’s learning was grounded in “You are making this game / website / art piece for the purpose of raising awareness about this issue.” All instruction was online and self guidedd. Towards the end of the club, the instructor would put together all the ideas on to one, awareness-raising website (or have one of the students who was studying HTML do it).

This still feels like a bit disingenous - the lessons would have been the same regardles of what issue they chose. Also, it still involved going through a whole bunch of lessons. While it started with a problem, it wasn’t exactly problem based learning because the learning itself was pre-planned, and not directed by the problem itself. As a curriculum developer, I wanted to bring true project based learning to students, but there was always a tension with what it would be easy for a teacher who didn’t have much experience to implement. We wanted to make it easy for volunteer instructors and overworked teachers, while providing the engagement of a goal. Also, we do have specific learning goals - finding the space to give students a self-directed engaging project that also teaches to very specific learning goals can be hard.

In my own classes, I can deal with a lot of different projects at once, and understand where each of the things are going. I gave one of my classes a project that was “Design a game you want to create” (almost everyone based it on an already existant game, which is what I initially meant, but one group chose to design their own game, which is particiularly cool). I taught them about object oriented programming breifly, we worked on what a UML diagram for the games they would make. I promised them everything we learned afterwards would help them make their games. Once again, there has been a lot of “afterward” where I’m just teaching discrete concepts, and I’m even considering a smaller project to give students something to bring all of these ideas together with. Part of the reason for this is that true projects are putting a lot of different information together, which is one of the joys of teaching through them. After each thing I teach, I ask the students to write in their design journal how what they just learned is related to the games they want to create, and how they can use it. Generally, their design journals do not have the most information about any given thing, but the ones that outline ideas seem connected back to the games. It’s possible this is enough.

Problem-based learning I think really has to be its own course - the learning goals are made by the problem and it’s solution which was co-decided with the students, rather than “I am trying to teach Computer Science.” My school gives my class a decent amount of freedom, however, so I am doing a problem-based learning unit for trimester 2 (sort of). Students spent the first trimester learning about different things the Circuit Playgrounds could do, on board and with externals. I started this term by letting them brainstorm whatever project they are interested in working on for a full 12 weeks as a full class. One class is doing a fashion show, another is creating a concert, two are making scenes that light up and make sound, and one is making a video. The “problem” here is the “project” they are choosing to create. They have an audience of their peers to impress. Each project required slightly more than the students already knew; I work with each student / group of students individually to help them find what the need for their specific parts of the project. Some of them learned new sensors, others new technology that made music. All of them are learning about project management through kanban boards, backwards planning, goal setting, communication in stand up meetings and throughout. Again, this poses challenges as I can’t plan one lesson for the entire class, but the engagement factor is definitely worth it. Engagement does wax and wane throughout the project, but that is true of adults in jobs as well, and learning to navigate this waxing and waning interest and the different levels of productivity that creates, and how to manage time accordingly can be a key part of problem based learning.

Digital Fabrication is a tool, in the way that a hammer is a tool, and programming is a tool. Students need to know that a tool exists in order to consider how they might use it. You can teach Digital Fabrication so that students know that it exists before they work on their problem and / or project, or you can teach them how to use the digital fabrication tools available to them when they reach that part of the problem and / or project. My students this year mostly look Digital Fabrication 1-2 years ago. The project I described in the previous paragraph gave students some time to think about how they could use the digital fabrication tools for their most recent project, in addition to the physical computing aspects I taught them in the previous term. One student built a car using the laser cutter. One class is largely 3D printing the town. Digital fabrication often results in higher-quality products, and the students are more delighted with what they can create.

1. When organizing DF activities with kids, What are the aspects that you think should be prepared beforehand? What aspects can be improvised?

As I mentioned above, Digitial Fabrication is a tool in a toolbox. It is helpful to know the tools available, so that when students need them you can let them know the tool exists, and you can help them use that tool. The exact implementation can be completely up to the task and the students and improvised. I for instance told the student to consider lasercutting the car model instead of trying to find a hole puncher that would punch in the right spot of separate cardboard. Another student realized later that they could have lasercut something. Some students think of the 3D printer immediately, others I remeind that it exists as an option. Since some of my students are very familiar with the tech, they are able to help the students who were not here a few years ago learn it. So, know the tool is available, know when it might be useful, and improvise for when it actually is, letting the students drive the use.

While it is helpful to know some common errors that might occur, and where to look to find information about them, it is also very useful for students to see that you don’t have all the answers, and learn for themselves how to learn. When students have questions I often respond with “Honestly, I would look up the error message” and I show them how I google it. I show them how I fast forward through different tutorials to see what they tell me, while I help debug. It is sometimes harder to teach students how to learn when you are already very familiar with the tool itself “Oh, you just didn’t make that red” and more helpful to say “I don’t know why that would happen, let’s google it together!” This is a fine line to balance with frustration - for some moods I just want to help make sure students experience success of some kind. When you do already know the answer, it is helpful to have been metacognitive - what is the quesiton that you tend to ask yourself to solve this issue? Can you ask the student that directly? If you are debugging more than they are, say out loud what you are doing to debug and why. If you don’t know how to debug beforehand, you’ll have an issue when students run into errors. The actual process of debugging itself at that point can be totally improvised on the spot.

It can also be helpful to have a backgound in what resources are actually useful. For my students using Processing, I know the documentation is fairly good at providing examples and explaining what it is doing, but I also know what will sometimes be over my students head. I know what sorts of programs ChatGPT writes, and what some common pitfalls of using it might be. I know what my students have programmed before and what notes they have taken, so I know when to send them in the direction of things they have already done. I have read a couple of Processing books that are available in the classroom, so I know when to send students that direction. However, students will always respond to each of these differently, and sometimes we’ll run into things that none of these things cover. So, be prepared with resources to send people, but improvise on which to use when, and sometimes use improvised ones.

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