by WENDY KAUFMAN
May 01, 2013 5:15 PM
Harvey Mudd College President Maria Klawe talks to a group of newly admitted students on the campus in Claremont, Calif. Klawe has had a great deal of success getting more women involved in computing.
Courtesy of Harvey Mudd College
This story is part of our series
Editor's note: Susan Wojcicki, called by Forbes magazine "the most powerful woman in Advertising," is senior vice president of advertising and commerce at Google, where she has worked since 1999. This open letter to the girls of the world is part of the "Girl Rising" project. CNN Films' "Girl Rising" documents extraordinary girls and the power of education to change the world.
JUNE 18, 2013
Maker Spaces, Fabrication Labs . . . it’s been going on for some time now, but it’s all the buzz in education these days. And with good reason.
I’ve been thinking about all this more and more since walking in on a session called “Digital Fabrication in K-12” at Educon this past January. One of the presenters that day, a fellow named Jaymes Dec, said, “I wish every classroom was a Maker Space.”
Dec’s comment resonated with me that day. I’ve felt the same way for years. I’ve seen a raft of evidence that “Maker” type spaces can provide a platform for otherwise compartmentalized academic subjects to collaborate.
That day at Educon, I decided to take a trip, talk with Dec and the see the Fab Lab he helped create at the Marymount School in New York City. I’m glad I did.
Marymount is a private school in Manhattan, and that connotation of wealth can come with a perspective that a public school couldn’t create a Maker program like the one Jaymes Dec has built up. Dec argues to the contrary. And he’s right.
The best way to get into [the Maker Movement] is to model how we want our students to learn and build it up. If you’re interested in this stuff, just dive in and start with a simple project. Kits are a great and inexpensive way to start to build. Find something that’s scaffolded, like onInstructables.com or makeprojects.com. Dive into a kit project first as a pilot. Very often I’ll still start kids on learning projects with kits. Here’s the kit, here are the instructions, go ahead and put it together. It’s very empowering. It shows kids, “Hey, I can make something like a circuit board.” Soldering especially, I’ve found, kids love it. It’s a great skill to learn and it opens the door to many of these projects. I’ve taught kids as young as six years old how to solder.
Dec readily admits that he’s learning, too.
I’m still learning this stuff and figuring it out. I use what knowledge I do have to help kids learn to find the answers they need. I’m only a second-year teacher, too. I have a lot to learn. I’ve found that I love working with kids on this stuff, and am ready to learn. I keep focusing on getting better.
As part of that learning curve, Dec has tried some over ambitious projects.
I’ve tried to introduce Arduino right away and personally found that to be difficult. I wasn’t ready. I’ve realized the last two years that I have to start out younger and build them up with simple micro controllers. We’ve been using the Lego WeDo in elementary classes now, too, and it’s been going very well. The Pico Cricket, LilyPad and Makey Makey boards are great places to start, too. The trick, of course, is you have to start somewhere.
But who can you learn from? Where do you start?
When I asked Dec who his mentors were, who he seeks help from when he’s learning to teach, he said, “I’ve learned as much from Gary Stager as anyone else. Gary’s been at this for a long time.” Dec said he attended Stager’s Maker conference called Constructing Modern Knowledge (CMK), held in Manchester, New Hampshire every summer since 2008. Dec also mentioned a new book by Stager and Sylvia Martinez called Invent to Learn (with a great resource pageon the site), describing it as “a super practical way to get started in the Maker Movement.” I also attended CMK a couple of years ago and found it to be, as Stager called it, a “resource-palooza.”
Some other ideas include:
For a list of Dec’s Maker resources, visit his blog and also the Google Group for K-12 Makers. Stager’s many resources are on the web as well.
Marymount 7th graders designed a light kit to be an educational project for a community center in Zimbabwe.
Over his few years at Marymount, it’s evident that Jaymes Dec has certainly gained some experience. I got to sit in on one of his seventh grade classes, and it was impressive to say the least. Here’s the context for what I observed:
The seventh grade class is wrapping up a year-long service project. Every year the seventh grade does a service project for an orphanage in Zimbabwe started by The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary. Usually the project has involved raising money somehow. This year we wanted to do something more tangible. We reached out to the nuns and asked what are the issues that kids and the community are facing? What can we help with? The Sisters identified three things:
- They are teaching the children to fish, but there’s no refrigeration to store the fish before it goes to market.
- The school has no reliable Internet service.
- There is a community center with no lights, so it is not useful at night.
We examined those problems and felt that the first two needed extensive resources and fundraising. The light thing (in the community center) was something we could possibly tackle. I asked the students to research DIY solutions to Third World problems. I wanted them to discover innovative solutions out there that people were working on. One of the projects that a few students stumbled on was a called a “Sun Jar.” If you look at a Sun Jar project on Instructables, the first step is to buy a solar powered lamp, disassemble it and put it inside a glass jar. We thought we could make our own instead. We could design and make that circuit here and assemble it.
We spent all year long prototyping (breadboarding) different solar powered circuits. In the end, we’ve got one that works really well. It’s very efficient. Once we had one that worked well, we designed the circuit inFritzing, then sent the design to a circuit board manufacturer in Oregon. For about three bucks a pop, we’ve got our board. Today in class we’re assembling these devices and will take pictures of the process to document it. We’ll compile these pictures into a set of instructions. Then we’ll send these kits to Zimbabwe with the tools to build the circuits themselves rather than just ship the finished product. We see this as a longer-term solution — an educational project. I hope that we can continue this.
Now, if you have no experience in the Maker Movement or digital fabrication, that can all sound pretty intimidating. The project shows the potential of what’s possible in learning spaces like this — the merging of math, engineering, critical and design thinking, fabrication, job aids and the creation of documentation, design aesthetics . . . just to name a few.
Again, as Dec said, “You have to start somewhere. There are so many people out there to help when you have problems or need advice. Start small and keep building.”
Through my conversations with Dec, one thing became increasingly clear: Maker Spaces like the one at Marymount create bridges between traditionally compartmentalized subjects. He explained how some of the science classes were now using the Fab Lab, as were many art classes. Dec himself will be teaching fewer classes next year and working to integrate the Lab into other curricular areas. It’s a movement I’ve seen in many places where multidisciplinary projects are beginning to tear down barriers between traditionally compartmentalized subjects.
The motion in the Lab also raises many questions about school scheduling. Dec meets with some classes only once per week. “Time can disappear when kids are making things,” he said. He described how he’d love to have more time built into the schedule and meet with kids more regularly. These are some great challenges for Marymount and many other schools to address as these successful new programs grow.
Dec explained that the school has purchased a new site across the street in Manhattan and new building plans are underway. Seeing the potential that the Fab Lab has brought to education, Dec had a gleam in his eye as he explained, “One whole floor of the new building could become a large Fabrication Lab. I wish there were a quicker timeline. I’d love to move into the new building this fall.”
But this teacher is as humble as he is eager and inventive.
Almost everyday I make mistakes, but every day I do something right, too. As long as I take time to reflect, I can become a better teacher every year. That’s one of the reasons I love this job. Marymount has been so supportive of these efforts. It’s certainly raising some eyebrows with more traditional teachers. It’s great to look at what this Fab Lab makes possible in the school.
What could a Maker Space at your school conjure up? Exploring new ground, especially with students, is the key.
I’d love to hear your comments and questions on the article. Just leave a comment below. Also, any recommendations on schools to visit are greatly appreciated.
Up next, I’ll get back to telling you about the trip I took to High Tech High in San Diego, California.
An important reminder about being thoughtful and creative in structuring student use of technology.
With school districts rushing to buy computers, tablets, digital white boards and other technology, a new report questions whether the investment is worth it.
In a review of student survey data conducted in conjunction with the federal exams known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nonprofit Center for American Progress found that middle school math students more commonly used computers for basic drills and practice than to develop sophisticated skills. Thereport also found that no state was collecting data to evaluate whether technology investments were actually improving student achievement.
“Schools frequently acquire digital devices without discrete learning goals and ultimately use these devices in ways that fail to adequately serve students, schools, or taxpayers,” wrote Ulrich Boser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the author of the report.
The analysis of the N.A.E.P. data found that 34 percent of eighth graders who took the math exams in 2011 used computers to “drill on math facts” while less than a quarter worked with spreadsheets or geometric figures on the computer. Only 17 percent used statistical programs.
The federal survey data showed striking differences among racial groups and income levels. More than half of the black students who took the eighth-grade math exam in 2011 said they used computers to work on math drills, while only 30 percent of white students said they did.
Similarly, 41 percent of students eligible for free and reduced lunches said they used computers for math drills, compared with 29 percent of students whose families earn too much for them to qualify for the lunches.
In high school science classrooms, the use of technology evidently has not advanced much past the 1980s. According to the report, 73 percent of students who took the 12th-grade National Assessment science exam said they regularly watched a movie or video in class.
Such data, Mr. Boser said, suggested that technology “doesn’t seem to have dramatically changed the nature of schooling.”
Experts who study the effectiveness of instructional technology say there is potential for some digital programs to improve teaching. John Pane, a senior scientist at the RAND Corporation, said good technology allowed students to work at their own pace and independently while teachers worked with smaller groups.
Mr. Pane conducted a study, financed by the federal Department of Education, of an algebra software program created by Carnegie Learning, a math curriculum developer. He found that high school students who used the program, which was designed to accompany a teacher-led curriculum, showed gains on their state-standardized math tests that were nearly double the gains of a typical year’s worth of growth using a more traditional high school math curriculum.
Whether those gains came from the use of technology or changes in the curriculum, he said, was hard to say. But Steve Ritter, chief scientist at Carnegie Learning, said one of the benefits of the technology was that it used the principles of cognitive science to help students gain a deeper understanding of concepts rather than simply drill math problems.
“We’re not just seeing whether they got the answer right or wrong,” Mr. Ritter said, “but why they got it right or wrong.”
By Michael Thomsen|Posted Wednesday, May 1, 2013, at 8:15 AM
There is always something or someone to blame in our struggle for education reform. Sometimes it’s the “bad teachers” who get the blame. Other times it’s standardized testing, insufficient funding, or slow-moving bureaucracy. I blame grades.
Grading students, from A to F, has become synonymous with education itself. Report-card day is an American rite of passage. Yet, there’s reason to believe the structure of grading students is the biggest culprit in America’s long, steady decline in education—SAT reading scores are at a 40-year low, and one recent study ranked the U.S. 17th in education, worse than Poland, Canada, Ireland, South Korea, and Denmark. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the rigid and judgmental foundation of modern education is the origin point for many of our worst qualities, making it harder for many to learn because of its negative reinforcement, encouraging those who do well to gradually favor the reward of an A over the discovery of new ways of thinking, and reinforcing harsh class divides that are only getting worse as the economy idles.
A 2002 study at the University of Michigan found that 80 percent of students surveyed based their self-worth on academic performance—more than cited family support as a source of self-esteem. A 2006 study at King’s College showed adolescents with low self-esteem were more likely to have poor health, be involved in criminal behavior, and earn less than their peers. Since it’s overwhelmingly poor students who are prone to bad grades, a self-reinforcing loop is created. Poverty leads to bad grades and low self-esteem, which leads to more poverty and social dysfunction.
In its earliest forms, education was a Socratic practice of self-knowledge; an isolated act of enshrining religious traditions; or, most commonly, an informal transfer of skill on the homestead, with parents teaching children how to plant, harvest, raise livestock, or practice some craft passed through generations. That all began to change in 1792 when William Farish, a tutor and soon-to-be chemistry professor at Cambridge, became an early advocate of evaluating student performance through quantifying test results. A century later, the logic transformed into a letter-based scalefirst seen at Mount Holyoke College in 1897. By the 1930s, the ABC approach had been adopted by a wide group of schools and universities around the country and, not coincidentally, would be reabsorbed by a number of industrial interests, including dairy, beef, poultry, and plywood. (That’s some A+ plywood!)
These changes coincided with the rapid expansion of compulsory education in America, a legal standard that had been adopted by all 50 states by 1917. Grades were the foundation of this expansion, providing data points for a system in which one person would get a corner office and another would be lost to a life flipping burgers or changing motor oil. If you want to succeed in life, stay in school, get good grades.
The catch is that fear of negative outcomes has been repeatedly shown to be a major impediment to learning. A survey of students at the University of Cape Town found that stress and fear of failing tests led to “classic symptoms of procrastination and avoidance,” confusion and low self-esteem. “ … [I]t’s one of those things where if I have to fail a test, I’m Like, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t fail a test.’ It’s like a really serious strain,” one subject reported. Another showed the classic habit of grade-weighted failure leading to disengagement: “But I just didn’t like the fact that I had failed, so I just moved on to something else.” These responses are echoed by a number of studies that show students’ willingness to take on challenging tasks diminishes when grades are involved, but without grades, students left on their own tend to seek out more challenging problems.
A 2006 comparison in Milwaukee found that Montessori students performed better than grade-based students at reading and math; they also “wrote more creative essays with more complex sentence structures, selected more positive responses to social dilemmas, and reported feeling more of a sense of community at their school.” Some contend that Montessori schools attract more affluent and successful parents, who give their children an inherent advantage, but the Milwaukee study was built around a random lottery for Montessori enrollment. All the children in the study came from families with similar economic backgrounds, with average incomes ranging between $20,000 and $50,000.
Free schools have taken the gradeless structure even further, treating the school as an open space where students are not only allowed to self-direct but are given equal responsibility in the organization and rule-making of the school itself. The Summerhill School in England is one of the most recognizable and longest-running, founded in 1921 by A.S. Neill. Summerhill is built around the idea of creating stable, happy, and compassionate humans capable of filling any role in society—a janitor being no less a success than a doctor. In place of dedicated courses, students are free to follow their own interests while teachers observe and nudge them toward new ways of thinking about what they’re drawn to. Students with an interest in cooking, for instance, might learn the basics of chemistry by way of thickening a sauce. Those drawn to playing soccer might learn to improve their game with some fundamental principles of Newtonian physics.
Schools inspired by the Summerhill model have flourished in recent years, with free schools operating around the country from Portland, Ore., to Sudbury, Mass. The Brooklyn Free School has earned attention for its open structure and regular democratic meetings, where students debate how to handle problems like boredom and whether playing video games on the school computers should be considered a learning activity. The higher tuition costs do tend to attract wealthier families with well-supported children, but many go out of their way to provide assistance to low-income families, favoring diversity over bill-paying. The Manhattan Free School in Harlem makes do on an annual budget of $100,000 and collects full tuition from only 20 percent of its students. The Brooklyn Free School operates on a sliding scale of tuition, collecting full payment from only half of its students, with some paying as little as $20 every few weeks.
It’s a common misnomer to assume no student evaluation happens in environments like these, but in most cases free-school environments require more teacher attention than traditional classrooms. Instead of testing for comprehension of a select group of facts or ideas, teachers constantly monitor a child’s behavior, support an array of student experimentation, and subtly encourage efforts that best match the student’s abilities. In free schools failure is not a punishment for bad study habits but the sign of students testing their knowledge to see if it holds true in practice. In our soccer analogy, success wouldn’t be evaluated by students scoring goals but in gradually learning how and why the ball curves in some cases and goes straight in others, a process that would surely produce many more misses than scores.
And free schools perform reasonably well. A survey of former students at Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts found 80 percent of its students went on to college or professional school, and 20 percent enrolled in graduate programs. In 1998, 75 percent of Summerhill students who took Britain’s certificate-qualification exams passed.
Abandoning grades would be a massive shock, but holding onto them has not forestalled decay, from waves of school closures for poor standardized test results to the trillion-dollar debt guillotine awaiting college students who’ll struggle to win unpaid internships for all their hard work. Eliminating grades would not singlehandedly bring salvation. There is a whole new world of challenges and complications in a classroom without pedagogy and rank. But it would be an ideal place to start anew, to stop motivating students, teachers, and underperformers with the fear of being flunked, fired, or shut down. Without that dysfunctional ranking we could instead form a child’s education around his or her eagerness to discover, contribute, and share. An A-to-F grade scale is only a distraction from that process and in many cases an outright deterrent. It’s time to admit that system has no place in our future.
What 60 Schools Can Tell Us About Teaching 21st Century Skills: Grant Lichtman “This video is all about the odyssey of author and educational consultant Grant Lichtman, who had a unique idea. His notion was to hop in his Prius … Continue reading
From NAIS:
In order for independent schools to thrive in the 21st Century, NAIS believes that they must be sustainable along five dimensions: financial, demographic, programmatic, environmental, and global.
Schools can work toward environmental sustainability by becoming more green, reducing school and personal carbon footprints, promoting a commitment to life-long environmental responsibility, and incorporating environmental education into the curriculum.
NAIS’s Commitment
NAIS is committed to being a leader, model, and moral force for environmental sustainability in its member schools. The organization’s goals over the next several years are to:
Why is it important for schools to work toward environmental sustainability?
Consider these trends:
What action steps can schools take now?
What resources does NAIS offer to help?
Find a plethora of Green Resources (from articles and links to tools to measure carbon footprint) designed to provide general information and pragmatic solutions and suggestions related to environmental sustainability.
