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Jim Tiffin Jr

'Maker' movement inspires hands-on learning | The Seattle Times - 0 views

www.seattletimes.com/...ent-inspires-hands-on-learning

maker Maker Movement tinkering pedagogy learning constructionism article #LiquidNetworkSpill #mvifishares School Change

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • Tinkering is being promoted on college campuses from MIT to Santa Clara University, as well as in high schools and elementary schools.
  • The blending of technology and craft in tools like 3-D printers and laser cutters has made it possible for ordinary people to make extraordinary things. And many ordinary people, living as they do, more and more in their heads and online, are yearning to do something with their hands.
  • Constructionist Approach
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Aug 16
       
      This is the term that we are missing in our current MDE nomenclature!
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Yes, tinkering is now a pedagogy.
  • “You’re exploring creativity, you’re exploring design thinking, you’re developing a sense of persistence,” she says. Building something new requires planning, trying and, yes, failing, and then trying again. “These are incredibly important mind-set for today’s world,” she says.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Aug 16
       
      Music to my ears!
  • talks excitedly about students who have designed child prostheses. “That’s what they’re going to remember their entire life,” she says. “They aren’t going to remember sitting in an electronics lecture.”
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Aug 16
       
      It is about creating experiences that help students see the world as a malleable place.
  • Alexandra Garey, who graduated from Rutgers last year, credits tinkering with changing the course of her studies, and life: “I went from somebody who was majoring in Italian and European studies to someone who was designing and prototyping products and realizing any product that came into my head.”
  • “U.S. schools are very good at finding the brain-smart people,” he says. “They are also very good at finding the best athletes.” But they are not so good at finding and nurturing people who, he said, describing himself, think with their fingers.
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Aug 16
     
    A fabulous article full of stories about the impact of maker-centered learning experiences, and the growing number of places that provide them - elementary schools, high school, colleges, public. Perhaps most gratifying is the use of distinctly maker-centered AND educational terminology in the same article. A great sign of things to come!
Jim Tiffin Jr

Building A Tinkering Mindset In Young Students Through Making | MindShift | KQED News - 0 views

ww2.kqed.org/...-young-students-through-making

MindShift makered #LiquidNetworkSpill #mvifishares mistakes pHail Learning mindset maker mindset growth mindset

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • the physical space for tinkering matters much less than the mental space that you create for young makers.
  • To be effective tinkerers, students need to achieve a state of mind in which they are primed to play and make joyful discoveries.
  • telling a group of little kids that it’s okay to make mistakes is not an effective way to deliver your message. The droning voice of the teachers in the Peanuts cartoons springs to mind! To get kids to internalize your message and truly take it to heart, you have to show them in a wide variety of ways what you really mean.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Nov 16
       
      Like the pHail Boards and the FailUp Zone.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Barney Saltzberg’s Beautiful Oops. This short book features mistakes repackaged as something awesome! For example, a torn piece of paper becomes the smile on an alligator. Young children respond to the simplicity of the “mistakes” and the delightful revelation of the reworked mistake into something beautiful and surprising.
  • Modeling that it really is okay to make mistakes is vital.
  • I let students see me flustered and then (hopefully) recovering. I invite them to help me diagnose what went wrong, which they LOVE.
  • Taking public risks and making public mistakes not only helps normalize mistake making, it inspires enthusiasm for collectively problem-solving and collaborating.
  • Posting quotations about or pictures of mistakes can go a long way toward reminding kids that you’re serious about the value of mistakes.
  • Failure and discovery are so closely linked, so connected and interrelated, that it is very hard to distinguish between them, especially when failure leads directly to discovery and vice versa.
  • To help students understand the messy process of creation, I ask students to track their progress during any project (much more about this in chapter 6). Tracking a project’s progress helps illuminate the many mistakes along the way.
  • Peer-to-peer sharing also opens the door for collaboration and collective problem-solving when a student is unsure of how to move past an obstacle.
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 19 Nov 16
     
    Article summarizing ways to encourages students to think of mistakes as learning opportunities.
Jim Tiffin Jr

Project-Based Learning Through a Maker's Lens | Edutopia - 5 views

www.edutopia.org/...h-a-makers-lens-patrick-waters

PBL MakerEd Edutopia Project based learning article #LiquidNetworkSpill

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16 - No Cached
Bo Adams liked it
  • A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      A nice list-style definition of a Maker.
  • A Maker, re-cast into a classroom, has a name that we all love: a learner.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      True, but (sadly) the converse is not always the case in some classrooms: A maker may always be a learner, but a learner is not always a maker.
  • A Maker, just like a true learner, values the process of making as much as the product.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      Equality of these two ideas, process and product, is a value held by a Maker.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Making, especially to educators and administrators unfamiliar with it, can seem to lack the academic rigor needed for a full-fledged place in an educational ecosystem.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      Only in educational settings where content knowledge is deemed the most important indicator of learning.
  • With practice, the students can frame the questions themselves.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      Essential when you are trying to develop agency in students.
  • Once completed, the project becomes less of a daily race to fulfill lesson plans and more of a quest to document your students' growing capabilities.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      This reflective documentation process should be something that both teacher AND student are doing. The student point-of-view should be written for the benefit of the student, not the teacher. The teacher should coach this process for the student so that the monitoring of growth is seen as a value for the student. The teacher documentation should also inform the student as to their growth, but the information can be used for more "teacherly" purposes as well, such preparing for future activities or intentional pairings of students in the early phases of the PBL unit.
  • model it yourself first
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
       
      Always let your students see you, the teacher, as a learner - first and foremost!
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 28 Apr 16
     
    The messy, hands-on Maker classroom is perfect for a PBL unit when the teacher is willing to collaborate, tinker, fix, break, and rebuild alongside students. Some fundamental elements to consider in the designing of a maker-centered project, but not as absolutes. It is important to realize that any project taken on in a maker-centered classroom is, by definition, a PBL experience.
  • Bo Adams on 28 Apr 16
     
    Fabulous piece about the myriad connection among PBL and Maker. And your commentary is so helpful and provocative. Thank you!
Bo Adams

Students Design, Tinker, Create and Discover through Maker-based Learning | NextGen Lea... - 1 views

nextgenlearning.org/...r-through-maker-based-learning

Maker makered makereducation agency #MustRead badging

shared by Bo Adams on 23 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The nature of maker-based learning actively engages students, nurtures their agency, improves efficacy, and develops a creator or producer identity instead of a (passive) consumer one.
  • In Thomas’ experience, too many people fail to reflect on WHY they’re choosing certain tools, and HOW those tools will be integrated into the curriculum and culture of school.
  • Bo Adams on 23 Dec 15
     
    Sometimes the impetus for making is a practical problem. Other times, play, curiosity and imagination are the motivators. Regardless, researchers from Harvard's Project Zero agree, "maker experiences help students learn to pursue their own passions and become self-directed learners, proactively seeking out knowledge and resources on their own" (Agency by Design, p. 3). HT Parker Thomas
Bo Adams

The Art of Getting Opponents to "We" - The New York Times - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...art-of-getting-opponents-to-we

collaboration schoolreform #MustRead

shared by Bo Adams on 04 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Significantly, participants all came to align behind a single vision statement — and now they are actively communicating and advancing that vision nationwide through their organizations and networks. They host meetings with educational networks, superintendents, principals, teachers and philanthropists, reach out to libraries, museums and after-school programs, and identify and connect pioneers in learner-centered education.
  • Convergence staff and facilitators work to create a “safe space,” maintaining a strict neutrality and ensuring that everyone feels heard, says Fersh. It’s important that participants “feel they’re not in a place that’s already cooked or leaning toward any solutions.”
  • Convergence staff members look continually for opportunities to forge connections among participants. They begin meetings with “connecting” questions — for example: “When did you know that education was of great importance to you?” — that are designed to reveal people’s values and experiences, rather than highlight their disagreements. The objective is not to sweep differences under the rug, but to build rapport that a group needs to grapple effectively with its differences.
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  • Another key is to identify a frame that energizes everybody, but is not so broad that it is meaningless. “For us the gold standard is that the dialogue has to lead to action,” said Fersh. To do that, he said, there are intermediate goals: “Can you get people to the table and sustain their presence? Can you find agreements that are worth fighting for? And can you keep people together to keep working over time to make sure something happens?”
  • In the end, she said, people converged on the notion that they had to do far more than tinker around the edges of a broken system held over from a bygone industrial age. “There was a lot of conversation that the current system is ill designed to create 21st century outcomes for students,” said Young. “But there wasn’t alignment around what a new system could look like. People really wanted to be part of that conversation.”
Jim Tiffin Jr

Maker Empowerment Revisited | Agency by Design - 2 views

www.agencybydesign.org/maker-empowerment-revisited

AgencyByDesign agency cognition dispositions Habits of Mind learning MakeEd empowerment blog post #LiquidNetworkSpill

shared by Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17 - No Cached
  • The big idea behind the concept of maker empowerment is to describe a kind of disposition—a way of being in the world—that is characterized by seeing the designed world as malleable, and understanding oneself as a person of resourcefulness who can muster the wherewithal to change things through making.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      Two huge ideas here: 1) Recognizing the world as malleable 2) Ability of the person(s) to change that world - aka agency.
  • The concept of maker empowerment is meant to be somewhat broader than the label of maker. It certainly includes maker-types—i.e., hackers, DIYers, and hobbyists—but it also includes people who may not define themselves as wholly as makers, yet take the initiative to engage in maker activities from time to time.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      Maker empowerment is different from being labeled as a maker. Traditional makers are included in maker empowerment, but it is meant to also include the people that take the initiative to participate in maker activities from time to time.
  • We teach art, or history, or auto mechanics not solely to train practitioners of these crafts, but to help all students develop the capacity to engage with world through the lenses of these disciplines—even if not all students will become artists or historians or auto mechanics. The concept of maker empowerment aims for this same breadth.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      Hugely big key idea right here!
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Maker Empowerment (v2): A sensitivity to the designed dimension of objects and systems, along with the inclination and capacity to shape one’s world through building, tinkering, re/designing, or hacking.
  • one of the main purposes of the Agency by Design project, which is to understand how maker activities can develop students’ sense of agency or self-efficacy.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      A good reminder.
  • maker empowerment is a dispositional concept. That is, rather than simply naming a set of technical skills, it aims to describe a mindset, along with a habitual way of engaging with the world.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      Another hugely big idea right here!
  • the research I’ve just described wasn’t conducted with the disposition toward maker empowerment in mind. So we don’t know if the findings about sensitivity transfer.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      FYI...
  • People we label as open-minded tend to have a distinctive and dependable mindset that flavors their engagement with the world:
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      What follows is a good example of how dispositions "flavor" the way people interact with their world.
  • Through a series of rather elaborate experiments, we were able to show that the contribution of these three elements—ability, inclination, sensitivity—could indeed be individually distinguished in patterns of thinking and that a shortfall in any of the three elements would block cognitive performance.
  • It turns out that the biggest bottleneck in behavior—in other words, the shortfall that most frequently prevents inclination, ability, and sensitivity from coalescing into sustained cognitive activity—is a shortfall of sensitivity. In other words, at least in terms of critical and creative thinking, young people don’t follow through with these habits of mind not because they can’t (ability), and not because they don’t want to (inclination), but mainly because they don’t notice opportunities to do so.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      THIS MIGHT BE THE BIGGEST KEY POINT IN THE ENTIRE POST!!!!
  • This doesn’t mean that young people’s inner detection mechanisms are woefully flawed. Rather, sensitivity has everything to do with the saliency of cues in the environment. If an environment doesn’t have strong cues toward certain patterns of behavior—or actually contains counter-cues—it can be pretty hard for those patterns of behavior to be cued up.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      THEY JUST KEEP COMING!!! :-)
  • the maker movement can empower people to shift from being passive consumers of their world to being active producers or collaborators.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
      Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
       
      Again referring to a personal sense of agency.
  • As the maker movement continues to infiltrate mainstream education, a dispositional analysis of maker empowerment might serve as a similarly useful tool.
  • Jim Tiffin Jr on 26 Jul 17
     
    "The big idea behind the concept of maker empowerment is to describe a kind of disposition-a way of being in the world-that is characterized by seeing the designed world as malleable, and understanding oneself as a person of resourcefulness who can muster the wherewithal to change things through making."
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