3. Field Activity 03

Scopes Lesson Plan

Solar power car for primary! https://www.scopesdf.org/lesson-plan-builder/?post=15606

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?

A: During this field activity, I worked closely with our fellow FLA participant Cici, who is our Fab Lab instructor. I approached her after working together with the grade 4 teacher during a collaboration meeting in which we found out that he is doing a unit on the transfer of energy in his Unit of Inquiry classes. Since in the grade 4 UK curriculum, there is an entire section on circuits, this would be a perfect time to collaborate. I told the G4 teacher what we could do in STEM class, including circuits and making this car, and he found some other energy related activities and projects for students to do to show their learning. Since they were doing more basic activities, we decided to use STEM class to make something more advanced using renewable energy and laser cutter technology.

1. 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?

A: As always, the hardest challenge when doing anything involving materials is purchasing the materials and requesting the budget to get your money back. Luckily, Ms. Cici has turned into an expert on this and was able to help by purchasing the cars and getting refunded. But, while teaching the lesson, my biggest prediction of what could go wrong was a student being unable to put the pieces together, or accidently breaking a piece of the car, making it unable to work. Reminding students to push gently on the laser cut materials and never to put too much pressure onto any piece, especially one made of wood, helps to avoid beaking things as well. Finally, since all these students are EAL learners, it is important to slowly breakdown difficult vocabulary like sustainable and renewable, and highlight their key differences using examples and pictures.

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

A: One simple way to help all learners is by correctly seating students around the classroom. When one student who is strugging sits next to an advanced friend, they will naturally seek help and help each other. Make sure students that are easy to lose focus do not sit in the back of the classroom, or near students that distract them. If students have physical inabilities which might hinder their ability to do the fine motor skill things, assist them by popping out each piece for them, and maybe putting the small pieces together for them ahead of time. For students that struggle in English, ensure that all difficult vocabulary is clearly explained with photos, maybe translations, and examples. If needed, differentiate the activity so that all learners can have individual goals that they can achieve.

1. 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?

A: I wish I could say that in the future, instead of buying the kits, I would be able to make the car kits to be laser cut at my school, but with the current state of the laser cutter and program needed to use the laser cutter, this is not possible. Through this course, I have learned a lot about different programs that students can use on their iPads to create, even if we do not actually print their materials into the real world. It still is an incredible feeling for the students to make their own 3D projects online with Tinkercad, or program a story using Scratch or ScratchJr. While we didn’t laser cut the car materials or build an engine, the students still said “this is the best STEM class ever!” when they were making the car. Before DF became more common, buying a kit like this to make a solar power car would cost hundreds of dollars for one, but now it is cheap and accessable for our students, no matter if we make it in our school or buy it from outside.

1. 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?

A: I did not use AI for this lesson, but I have used it before in teaching in a few ways. The most common way I have used it is by typing in something like “Show me 5 activities I can do with grade _ students that can help them understand the learning objective of _____.” Collaborating with a colleague is more valuable as you know exactly what their learning goals for their students are throughout units, where AI won’t know that. The more connections we can make in the students mind, between classes, results in a stronger memory of the content and hopefully more understanding of the key concepts.