4. Field Activity 02

My term 2 project for the physical computing class invovles them creating a full-class project. This involves soldering, 3D printing, sewing, laser cutting and building circuits, depending on the individual needs of the project. You can see the lesson plan at this Scopes link. It definitely takes more than 3 hours, and I didn’t prototype for myself first because they’re each working on entirely different projects. It is also slighlty more “Digital Fabrication by students” than “with students.” I do also intend to write and run a lesson where the students are designing something to embroider which is more of a case of picking one digital fabrication tool and teaching programming with it, so it’s possible I’ll replace this with that after I’ve run it.

Reflection

1. Student Engagement: How did your students respond to the use of digital fabrication technology? Did it increase their engagement or motivation? Why or why not?

My students have mostly used 3D printers and laser cutters 2 years ago for a required course at our school. They generally actively enjoy doing it. The students who weren’t at this school 2 years ago still have my class in a room surrounded by digital fabrication tools, and were excited to have me and their peers help them figure out the tools. I think students are excited by using tools, but also by the professional-grade quality they can achieve with teh digital fabrication tools, which makes them more interested in making everything else also good.

1. Student Learning Outcomes: How effectively did the digital fabrication component help students achieve the learning objectives? Were there any unexpected learning outcomes?

Having a specific desired outcome that they knew they would share with an audience always motivates students. It grounds everything they learn in something they need now rather than some nebulous future. As I mentioned above, digital fabrication makes the product seem cooler and more professional, so they’re more likely to also care about everything else.

1. Instructional Challenges: What challenges did you face while teaching this lesson, and how did you address them? Were there any specific points where students struggled with the technology or content?

Students are doing a lot of things in this class that they have never done before, and they are different things based on the project or the part of the project they are working on. The fun thing about an open-ended project is that students struggle, but often at different times, so you can work with the student whose struggling in a particular moment. I also make sure to have a list of possible resources I can hand a student so that not all things are being solved by me directly, and they learn how to learn for themselves. Additionally, my FLA instructor is in the school with me, so when the students run into an error that I do not have time to debug, or can’t figure out, he is often very helpful.

1. Teacher Growth: How has this experience changed your perspective on incorporating technology like digital fabrication into your teaching? What skills or strategies have you developed as a result?

The excitement students ahve for the digital fabrication tools makes all the overhead more worth it in explaining how to use them and helping students debug. I am usually a Computer Science teacher, so I am very used to helping students learn for themselves and debug – this was not new on that front – but it is exciting to see how using the tools can help encourage students to be more excited about the CS content as well.