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Week 10 (Module 4 Field Activity)

Process

  • I adapted a previous lesson plan of making musical instruments by adding a sustainability component and an assessment rubric to elevate the design to higher levels if the student felt up to the challenge.
  • I created my own example. I researched how they worked and designed a kazoo on Tinkercad from scratch. After printing it, I made sure the parts fit properly.
  • Afterwards, I made the membrane of the kazoo by upcycling a plastic bag and cutting it out of it. This way I had a functional part made of a recycled material, adding a sustainability component to the project.
  • The instrument worked as expected, so then I tested it with my colleague as a learner, since my students are still on the process of working on the project. He made a recorder with a 3D printed fipple and a project scrap PVC pipe body.
  • The recorder worked and was tuned! We had to use a heat gun to soften the PVC pipe since even after various measurements we had trouble fitting the fipple with the pipe.

You can see more about the project, including the assessment used, on my SCOPES lesson plan by clicking here!

Reflection

I’ve got feedback on my project and rubric from both my colleague, with whom I tested the lesson, as well as an AI agent, to have different points of view on the matter. Both had differing opinions on how well the project and assessment rubric complemented the learning outcomes. My co-teacher thought the project was open-ended but complex enough to encapsulate all the learning outcomes proposed and understood the rubric wasn’t for grading but more of a general elevation list for future improvement, while the AI agent was very rigid and wanted the project and rubric to cover exactly what the learning outcomes said as literally as possible.

I’m inclined to work in a middle ground between the two. As the designer of the lesson plan, I feel the project and rubric works for its purposed, but in the future there’s some changes that can make for a more in-depth activity. Particularly, the AI suggested having categories for how well sound is understood, like making sure you can properly adjust pitch and volume in the instrument while knowing why its happening, which would be a bit too advanced for the age range I’m working with but its implementation can help to adapt this lesson for older learners, as well as making sure more than one digital fabrication is implemented, which I believe is a good observation.

I feel the inclusion of the sustainability aspect to be a bit forced on the project, but it works for the purpose of having the student come up with creative sustainable solutions and implement in a design project. I hope to revisit and make this more closely integrated in the future.