Special Needs Lab

Posted by

This schoolyear a big change has occurred at our space. We have expanded our space with 400 square meters to start a new school for children with special needs, combining traditional school with our makerspace adding 40 students and 12 new colleagues to our daily life. The idea of the new school is that the first part of the day is “traditional school” and the second half takes places in our different workshop areas, including “Fablab Skanderborg”.

My part in this was starting a 1½ hour long weekly subject simply called “Fablab”. The idea was to both to introduce some of the new teachers together with their students to makerbased learning.  As I am writing this blog, I just had the last of the 7 times which the experiment consisted of. The conclusion is simple – It was a huge succes!

Here are some of the things that has happened or that we have observed.

Involvement

  • Students come by during their breaks to start a 3D-print, lasercut something or just hang around and have a talk.
  • 4 out of 8 students have joined my afterschool program “Fablab Freetime”
  • 2 of the students also continued into our openlab night – which means that they on that day in total have been in the lab from 12:15 – 21:00 (The subject “Fablab”, “Fablab Freetime” and “Openlab”)

Activity

  • Few instructional session to learn a bit of inkscape, 3D-modelling and coding micro:bit.
  • They have been full of ideas and have worked either on their own or together with one other student.
  • Most ideas have been revolved around making something for someone else.
  • They have mastered the use of the different machines and help each other in a degree I have seldom witnessed.
  • During openlab, they offer their help to adult guest who are new to the lab.
  • They interact and establish relations to other “regular students” in “Fablab Freetime”

It has been 7 interesting weeks. I had first thought that I would have to make more instructional teaching with this kind of students, but that changed after the first session. They simple had too many things they wanted to make to be bothered by my teachings – it quickly became a lot more student centered. Of course they needed a lot of guiding to start with, but most of them mastered the different machines (lasercut, vinylcut, 3D-print) rather quickly. Mainly because they were good at showing each other how to use the machines they have learned, through the variety of project types. Learning what they needed to know, when the need occurred.

I have a theory that a large part of the succes comes from mastering some fabrication technologies, that enables them to make things. They are not just reproducing things, but are making and creating things for others. And in a world where “Special Needs” often is looked upon as equal to “inadequate” it must be a boost of self esteem to be able to do something that not everyone (including their normal teachers) can do yet.

Another thing that strikes me is how many ideas they get. They are really creative in many ways, much more than I experience with so called “regular students”, where it often is a bit of a process to get the ideas flowing.

The best thing to come out of this, was the way that they just took the lab to heart. Staying after school, late into the evening to make more stuff, helping people coming to openlab, but also hanging around, having fun and establishing relations to other young kids.

We are soon starting round two and everyone has chosen to continue. We will have a few more students due to the high interest, and we will use some of the most experienced students as helpers. I am really looking forward to see what the next round will bring.

“Build something that dances” was the only project that I chose for them. In the video we mainly see Victors build which he loved doing and is working on an iteration of the design that involves remote-controlling it with micro:bit. The prompt “Build something that dances” is inspired from the article by Tracy Rudzitis in “Meaningful making: Projects and inspiration for Fab Labs + Makerspaces” p. 102

 

 

 

 

 

Having high financial resources does not guarantee the teaching and learning process

Posted by

I have been asking myself more and more about ways of conceiving learning. I have recently visited Recife, the capital of a northeastern state in Brazil    and their Municipal Department of Education and got to know up close what they have been doing in the field of teaching programming and robotics.

In conversation with several teachers in person, after nearly two years of social distancing and COVID-19, I got to know about their work and anxieties.

One of their anxieties is that they have cutting-edge resources, such as humanoid robots and Lego kits with which they won several national and international championships, but the greatest difficulty was in promoting learning that was meaningful and contextualized in real problems with those devices.

I showed them how to start the work of Robotics with Scrap based on the maker culture and without having so many resources and they were interested in knowing how children and young people turned them into a teaching methodology for 3.5 million students.

At that moment, I remembered Papert’s teachings (1980) and his pedagogical and epistemological concerns arising from classes that remained essentially the same after the introduction of Technology (PAPERT, 1980). We are still stuck with instruments and a traditional education structure in which creativity and critical thinking must be allowed to be present in the process.

It is not just a matter of bringing technology and robotics to school to achieve improvements in the quality of education. The innovative use of technology on a daily basis, by students and teachers, can be the big difference for radically changing the centralization of the educational process on the teacher. Students  become responsible for the process of their own development and, therefore, of their education.

Constructionism allows people a new way of acquiring knowledge, through the construction of artifacts and was cited by Papert (1980) as being of intense influence on their own training.

These constructivist ideas (based on the work of Piaget, his mentor in the years he worked with him in Switzerland) date back to his childhood, when mechanical components and gears influenced his interest in constructing artifacts.

Papert’s interest in gears shapes his constructivist view of learning; what an individual can learn, and how they learn, depends on the models they have.

Papert-Freire, both defend the presence of the mediator in the social factor in learning. For Freire, the use of technology in education should have the character of technological praxis, since all use of technology is initially permeated with ideology. It is necessary to identify the bases of technological practices, in search of real justifications for their use.

For Freire, technology needs to be used without a full understanding of the real reason for its use, since the possibility of political-ideological manipulation also permeates technological environments and means. Freire advocates that the full understanding of technology humanizes men and makes them capable of transforming the world.

Papert and Freire demonstrate, in everything that has been mentioned and discussed here, that the scientific and technological moment in which we find ourselves affects education.

New epistemological questions will demand a new analysis of educational practice, within the vision of a practice that generates autonomy and praxis. The construction of a new education should take advantage, but also guarantee access to information and content, making the student a discoverer, just like  researchers of their time. Technologies enable the learner in this exploration.

References

FREIRE, P. Pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1979. FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia do oprimido. 17.ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1987.

FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da Esperança: Um reencontro com a pedagogia do oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1993.

FREIRE, Paulo. Pedagogia da autonomia. 9. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1998.

O FUTURO da Escola: Seymour Papert e Paulo Freire – uma conversa sobre informática, ensino e aprendizagem. Produção da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo – TV PUC. São Paulo: PUC-SP, 1995. Vídeo na Internet (60 min.), Formato MP4, son., color. Disponível em http://177.11.48.108:8080/xmlui/handle/7891/395 >. 10 de out. 2021.

PAPERT, S. Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas. Brighton: Harvester Press, 1980.

PAPERT, Seymour. A máquina das crianças: repensando a escola na era da informática. 2. ed. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas, 1994.

Online teacher training in Mathematics Teaching: Maker Education and STEM Approach to Promoting Active Learning

Posted by

This personal report is related to the context of Brazilian schools, but I believe that some of the issues I will raise in this text dialogue with other realities.

*****

At the end of this year’s first semester, I was invited to organize teacher training[1] workshops for Mathematics teachers from public schools in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro. These workshops were held in September 2021, and were given online.

The course lasted two weeks and I chose the topics that would be covered.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about Maker Education and STEM Approach (STEM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)  to promote the teaching of mathematics. Although I had already given some hands-on courses for Math teachers, the opportunity to carry out this type of activity, virtually, made me very excited.

But I asked myself:

Would it be effective to promote teacher training, in maker activities, in a virtual way?

However, it was very encouraging to have the opportunity to present these educators different methodologies for teaching Mathematics, so that in this moment, of going back to face to face classes, they could organize less expository and more meaningful classes!

Why are active activities in Mathematics teaching important?

In 2013, American educator Salman Khan, creator of the Mathematics teaching platform Khan Academy[2] , released a book entitled “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined”.

Khan (2013) highlights that the traditional classroom does not meet the needs of a changing society, and highlights that the simple expository class is a form of passive learning, while the world requires increasingly active initiatives.

Salman Khan has become a reference of how innovative actions, through creativity combined with new technologies, are important to reach current generations of students.

Khan was one of the pioneers in the use of video classes for teaching Mathematics, managing to contemplate countless students who identified with this new way of learning (Cariacás, 2013).

Considering this context, currently school-age children and teenagers are digital natives, who were born in the era of connectivity. This new reality, very different from that of the last century, has caused among students a lack of interest in traditional, expository classes, unrelated to their reality.

Thus, the school has been faced with the need to reinvent itself. This reinvention goes beyond equipment for classes to dialogue with the real world.

Teacher training is the teacher’s tool and the best investment in education

In fact, material resources are important, but nothing is more important to education than a well-prepared teacher.

According to Brazilian mathematician Marcelo Viana (director of the Brazillian National Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics – IMPA[3] ), training is the Achilles’ heel of Math teachers in Brazil (SBM, 2017).

Giraldo (2018) states that university education can have an essentially innocuous effect on teacher education. In Brazil, undergraduate courses in Mathematics Licentiate favor academic Mathematics, without paying attention to school Mathematics, nor to the methodologies for the teaching process of the discipline (Giraldo, 2018).

Thus, the classroom reference for educators who graduate from higher education, and start working in basic education, are the experiences they had, as students, during their school life (Cabreira, 2016). This practice leads to a cycle of actions in the educational process, which has the student as a passive spectator in the classroom.

The importance of non-governmental initiatives to promote teacher training

In fact, to change this situation, actions that promote the ongoing education of teachers are important for the teaching of Mathematics to take new paths. (Santos, 2017).

It was for this purpose that I was invited to conduct online teacher training workshops, in an initiative called Rio de Mãos Dadas[4], organized by the institution SescRJ[5], which proposes actions with support from the public and private sectors.

In a partnership with Polo Educacional Sesc[6], the high school where I work, in September we offered a course for teachers in the area of Mathematics. This course was part of a ongoing education project for teachers in the discipline, which seeks to bring new perspectives on the teaching of Mathematics to public school educators.

STEM approach through Maker Education

The modules I proposed and taught were “Collaborative and Hands-On Math” and “STEM: a new way of looking at Math“.

These modules were attended by 18 (eighteen)  K-12 educators, and aimed to propose different approaches to teaching the discipline.

The course included studies related to Maker Education and the STEM Approach, as active methodologies for a meaningful learning process.

According to Gavassa (2020), Maker Education privileges student protagonism, learning through discoveries and places the student at the center of their learning. Likewise, by promoting the development of multidisciplinary practices, the STEM approach encompasses the understanding of scientific concepts and phenomena by learners while engaging in design and engineering practices (Bevan, 2017), using Mathematics as a symbolic language to represent reality.

In the module “Collaborative and Hands-On Math” I proposed a reflection on the importance of the student`s role at school, and how disruptive educational actions can contribute to the meaningful learning of Mathematics concepts.

In this sense, the potential of hands-on activities to provide an environment of innovation, collaboration and creativity was discussed, allowing the student to leave the role of content consumer to become co-author of their educational process.

Finally, I presented cases of implementation of Maker Education through different resources, that is, starting from paper and glue to the new possibilities available in Makerspaces.

The specific objectives of the “Collaborative and Hands-On Math” course were:

  • Understanding the roots of the maker movement and its connection to maker education;
  • Recognition of the importance of maker education to develop competences in the Mathematics discipline;
  • Prototyping a Learning Object with recyclable resources.

The “STEM: a new way of looking at Math” module, on the other hand, aimed to provide a reflection on education for the 21st century, taking into account that basic education students are digital natives and that they have information, in real time, in the palm of their hands through their smartphones. In this module I highlighted the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as a means of providing meaningful education through real-world problem solving.

The specific objectives of the course “STEM: a new way of looking at Math”, were:

  • Presenting implementations of the STEM approach for teaching Mathematics in the Brazilian reality;
  • Recognizing the possibilities for hands-on classes involving recyclable resources;
  • Associating a Learning Object with a STEM proposal for the classroom.

How was the course delivered virtually?

I taught the modules entirely online, for two weeks, through resources available in the virtual learning environment Moodle. In addition, I held two synchronous meetings, with a total duration of four hours.

For each module, all resources were made available before the synchronous meeting, so that participants could know what would be covered during the interaction with the teacher and other course participants.

Among the resources available, I highlight scientific articles, videos, infographics and articles from scientific journals.

In synchronous meetings, given via Google Meet (Figure 1), I sought to provide an environment for exchange and discussion. Participants reported, for example, hands-on experiences they had when they were students in K-12 education, and how this marked their school life. During the presentation of the slides that guided each workshop, checkpoints were defined to discuss the topics presented.


Figure 1 – Discussing with educators the difference between no-tech, low-tech and high-tech resources

I proposed collaborative activities such as the Semantic Panel on the Canva platform and the use of the Padlet tool. The Padlet was used to expose the hands-on challenge, involving the prototyping of a learning object with recyclable materials.

The proposed challenge was the prototyping of a Balloon-Powered Car, which should be carried out with materials available in their homes, and exhibited online in a collaborative way, as it can be seen in Figure 2.

To inspire participants, I made a video tutorial proposing a model of a Balloon-Powered Car, but I advised them that it would be important for the project to be hacked.

The video can be seen on the link Balloon-Powered Car – YouTube.

Figure 2 – Display of learning objects prototyped by some of the course participants

Reaction evaluation was an important strategy to validate the process.

To assess how teacher training was received by the educators who participated in the meetings, I sent forms such as Reaction Evaluation at the end of each meeting. I compiled and present below some answers given by the participants, in the forms I made available for project evaluation.

When asked what most called their attention to the course, they answered:

“- Interactivity between the participants. In addition to clarifying the topic addressed”

“- The possibility of doing the work at the time of class, energy, proposed challenges, teacher’s didactics and exchange between participants”

“- These new ways that the STEM model has to provide the teaching of mathematics”

“- Suggestions of tools we can use in teaching Mathematics”

“- The content, mostly. It was new to me”

In addition, at the end of the course, I performed a dynamic Word cloud creation on the Mentimeter Platform, where educators should present, in just one or two words, what the course meant to them. Figure 3 shows the result of this activity.

Figure 3 – Word cloud

Although each word shows us how the course was important in the professional life of these educators, I highlight the word resignification, which means to give a new meaning to something. In fact, this was one of the main objectives of the course, to provoke a new look at the way to teach Mathematics.

It was possible to promote online teacher training in Maker Education

I realized that having provided a safe environment for dialogue, experimentation and sharing of experiences was essential for the participants to feel contemplated with the project’s objective.

The participants` engagement and the feedbacks collected on the reaction forms pointed to the effectiveness of online training actions, and that discussions about new ways to teach Mathematics can be conducted in virtual environments, reaching educators who wish to expand their repertoire to promote a teaching of Mathematics that dialogues with the reality of an education for the 21st century.

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank FabLearn Fellow Débora Garofalo for kindly guiding me on how to start building an online teacher training. I`d like to thank Gisele Ribeiro too, a co-worker and Math teacher for giving me all the support during the workshops and actively collaborating to make the project work.

*****

[1] Teacher education or teacher training refers to the policies, procedures, and provision designed to equip teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school, and wider community.

[2] https://pt.khanacademy.org/

[3] https://www.gov.br/mcti/pt-br/composicao/rede-mcti/instituto-nacional-de-matematica-pura-e-aplicada

[4] https://riodemaosdadas.com.br/714-2/

[5] https://www.sescrio.org.br/

[6] http://www.poloeducacionalsesc.com.br/

*****

References

BEVAN, Bronwyn (2017). The promise and the promises of Making in science education. In: Studies in Science Education. In: <https://www.ecsite.eu/sites/default/files/ bevan_making_sse-min.pdf >. Acessed 10 Oct 2021.

CABREIRA, Maurício Costa (2016). Percepções do professor de Matemática: relação entre formação acadêmica e atuação docente. XX Encontro Brasileiro de Estudantes de Pós-Graduação em Educação Matemática

CARIACÁS, Carlos (2013). Salman Khan e a estética da sensibilidade – convergências para pensar o ensino (à distância). Revista Científica de Educação a Distância

GAVASSA, Regina Célia F.(2020). Educação Maker, muito mais que papel e cola. NIED – Núcleo de informática Aplicada a Educação. Tecnologia, sociedade e conhecimento. Vol. 7, N.2.

GIRALDO, Victor. (2018). Formação de professores de matemática: para uma abordagem problematizada. Ciência e Cultura. 70. 37-42.

KHAN, Salman (2013). Um mundo, uma escola: a educação reinventada. Rio de Janeiro: Intrínseca.

SANTOS, Maria S. (2017) Da formação à prática docente: uma habilidade criativamente inovadora. IV Congresso Nacional de Educação.

SBM (Sociedade Brasileira de Matemática). Formação é calcanhar de Aquiles dos professores de matemática do Brasil. In: <https://www.sbm.org.br/noticias/formacao-e-calcanhar-de-aquiles-dos-professores-de-mate matica-do-brasil>. Acessed 10 Oct 2021.

Quilt making in digital world —— some thoughts out of learning and making from a “student’s” perspective

Posted by

Doing he Quilt project which used Lynx was an interesting and enlightening experience. To do a learning project during packed working day actually brought me joy and gave me time to think and reflect in a “student”’s perspective.

To give students enough choices would result in more possibilities to their learning outcome. This could require enough yet not too much instructions, support from others when needed, and a heart for adventures!

At the start of the project, the participants were introduced to the Lynx platform and how its “languages” work. Then there were some examples showed us how to do the basic moves and some complex combinations, and then there we go! Honestly it took me a while to get into it because I don’t have a background of science or coding so I would not say that I was quite confident of what I would make out of the project. On the other hand, the quilt has always been a good way to show the creativity and art of a certain group of people. In this case, choosing a satisfactory quilt pattern also cost me quite a while (plus some traditional patterns look nice but quite hard for a beginner to make.) Inspired by several traditional “lucky patterns”, I first drew several possibilities on a paper, and then narrowed them down to one for trial.

In the beginning of the quilt making, I found the instructions quite useful for getting the Lynx language logic. On the other hand, there has already been some successful quit pieces already. The coding blocks helped me as additional examples to the basics ones. However, I still got a bit lost in the middle of the process as my pattern requires irregular curves. I tried many different moves but the parameter didn’t seem to be quite right as how I wanted. And since I missed the group discussion session, I failed to ask for timely help. Having said that, I still felt a sense of accomplishment when I finished my first quilt piece.

But even when I thought that I finished the quilt piece, there was still a little part of the pattern went out of the square. So I asked for suggestions from ICT teacher in other department. It’s reasonable but also unexpectedly, he learned the Lynx language so quickly! And he offered me a way which uses the bigger circle to form the parts of my pattern. The method was not that hard to understand, but for me, it was about thinking out of the box or actually thinking with a different logic. I’m wondering if both of our ways are right? Or if there is one way which should be considered as a “better” choice?

All in all, it is not only an individual project but also a group project which makes it quite distinctive. Several tips to my future projects planning are: 1) Try to give the least possible amount of instructions to give more room for students to dive in; 2) Timely scaffolding is essential for those who might not be so good at certain softwares; 3) Keep on reminding students to learn from each other; 4) encourage students to ask so that they might find ways to think out of the box; 5) give enough time to students but not too long so that they can keep the interest. 6) give student extended projects so that the fast ones can reach their potential. (Just like the fast fellows could make more quilt pieces and put others’ work together to make a bigger quilt.); 7) Project like this will motivate student to think and work on it even after it has finished. (just as there are so many other code blocks from other fellows that I wish to look more into.)

This learning experience also reminded me of digital art making trend nowadays. Maths logic is actually behind a lot of art work and it is an art itself. In retrospect, although the ancient people didn’t know much about maths, they could also make seemingly precisely calculated pattern with ancient wood sewing machine and also be very creative about different patterns. How did they make that happen? I’m very curious about it.

The original plan
What I actually made
Other teacher’s suggestion of the idea of the coding graphs

Experiencing a powerful idea – LOGO

Posted by

“The universe cannot be read until we learn the language in which it is written. It is written in mathematics, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word.”

– Galileo Galilei

The universe is a source of basic geometric shapes, we discover them through the observation of nature. This understanding of basic shapes and their functions have taught us to mark time and space in a variety of ways which has inspired mathematics, technology, language and ever-evolving civilisation.

As geometry is inspired by nature, children should also understand its elements by discovering the world of shapes around them. LOGO Turtle is one such tool that I experienced, which would help children discover the concepts by exploring on their own. 

My experiences

I remember when I was first introduced to LOGO Turtle, I was so excited as I was trying my hands on it despite lacking the technical background and coding whereabouts. I was more than excited as I am going to learn to code as well as to see a turtle move according to my wish on my computer screen. I could make it move up and down, do right and left and experiment with its movements. Spending time exploring the different commands actually gave me the confidence to experiment. But, initially I got confused in the right and left command as I thought that the turtle would move in that direction but when I understood all the possible angles were explored. I loved exploring reflection and transformation concepts and bringing them alive in the form of turtle art.

Conversations – Math Talk

While exploring the tool, as a teacher I always thought that this tool would give so much of space to explore and learn while talking about mathematics. LOGO Turtle actually provides that space of interaction and talking about the concept which is often missing in mathematical learning. Reuben Hersh in his book “What is mathematics really” talks about  “mathematics which is learnt by computing, by solving problems and by conversing more than by reading and listening”. This important element of mathematics can come alive as the teacher can start a discussion on angles, directions, movement and also ask questions like – What happens when you enter 45? What about 180? Some prompts like – Can you try making a shape using what you all have learned or explored till now? Talking about their learning and thinking in a mathematics class would construct many learning dimensions for the children. But some students might struggle putting these pieces together, but combining actual physical movement, concrete experiences or walking like the LOGO Turtle along with verbalising would help them to conceptualise.

Constructivist Curriculum

A constructivist curriculum focuses on students actively experiencing and building ideas to solve personally meaningful problems along with taking ownership and being self motivated. The traditional geometry curriculum which starts from the concept and then ask the child to solve a problem which may or may not be contextual, while if we teach geometry through LOGO Turtle children would explore on their own and reach to the concept pre-requisite after having a concrete contextual experience. This would mean that children would be inventing basic concepts in mathematics on their own, thereby learning to be a mathematicians. There are numerous reports which revealed that students fail to learn basic geometric concepts especially geometric problem solving due to lack of geometric intuition. The children do not find enough examples to experience for a conceptual and procedural understanding of topics to be studied in higher classes like vectors, coordinates, transformations, and trigonometry. 

Intuitive Geometry

The whole process for me started with exploring concepts intuitively on the LYNX which helped me to apply knowledge of geometric concepts in making complex patterns. This made me think that LOGO Turtle is a powerful platform for intuitive learning. 

As mentioned by Seymour Papert in his book Mindstrom “I take from Jean Piaget ~ a model of children as builders of their own intellectual structures. Children seem to be innately gifted learners, acquiring long before they go to school a vast quantity of knowledge by a process call “Piagetian learning” or “learning without being taught.””

As an educator who believes in the principle that children learn a lot intuitively, I have experienced the same when I observed toddlers playing with loose parts, making shapes or patterns, using things in symmetry while making a pattern or balancing things, and taking decisions intuitively. This process of children experimenting on their own, makes me think about “objects to think with” as mentioned by Seymour Papert which is a powerful concept to reflect upon as this keeps the learner at the centre of the learning process. The best part is that the child does not have to think about creating things but as they learn to use it, they create and discover which can be related to constructive learning as it means that learners construct the mental models to understand the world around them. LOGO Turtle is giving that space for intuitive learning but it is also serving as an object to think which I need to explore myself with children to understand it further.

It can be said that physical actions on concrete objects are necessary to help students construct geometric ideas through concrete materials like geometry rods, blocks, geo-board, isometric papers and many others. Using manipulative facilitates the learning process and it is equally important to see whether the children are able to establish a link between the action of the manipulative to describe the action. Thus students must internalise such physical actions and abstract the corresponding geometric notions.

This learning of geometric ideas can be seen in LOGO Turtle as the children would invent basic concepts which would help them progress to higher levels of thinking in mathematics. Van Hiele has given a theory of geometric thinking levels of students in which the students move from one level of thinking to the next. If a teacher would plan the lesson combining concrete material, experience from the environment as well as combining LOGO Turtle to teach geometry, I strongly believe that students would not only progress into higher levels of thinking but also build conceptual structures about concepts of geometry like shapes and angles which they would be able to use it in other situations to solve other related problems. They would thus be learning geometry relationally. 

Reflections and Implementation

Actually this project came at a time when we were exploring revolution as a theme with children in our organisation. The community has been doing embroidery and thread work on things around cloth. So we were exploring ideas as to how cloth had been used as a tool for revolution and in that specifically quilting. The children created quilts and did thread work around revolution. I would write in detail about this project by children in my next blog and also I am excited to give them the exposure of LYNX where they would be exploring more about it and making quilt patterns and then making those quilts physically. 

It has been an enriching experience for me to explore LOGO Turtle but at the same time it has been a reflective process as well as I was challenging my own comfort zone and questioning as to how technology can be integrated with hands-on-contextual experiences of the children. One of the aim of our organisation is to give students ownership of their learning which sometimes come with frustration on their part but making them in charge and giving them freedom often push them through roadblocks and they have an eagerness to continue learning. This experience of working on quilt project with other fellows has given me the push to think through as till now concrete hand-on-contextual experiences of making have been the key of my work with children. But this experience has given me many points to ponder over and enhanced my own learning as an educator. This has been a powerful idea for me to explore further. 

Quilting the Young Coders

Posted by

 

The word programming has been used to spread the fallacy that it is the ‘languages of computers’, foreign and hard to read, disconnected from other subjects, and takes years to learn. Maybe this is how sometimes the “experts” use abstract terms while introducing the learners to this concept of programming.

Programming Group

According to Seymour Pappert “Construction that takes place ‘in the head’ often happens especially felicitously when it is supported by the construction of a more public sort in the world” That the children program/ create ideas that can be examined, shown, probed, and even admired by not only themselves but also others?

During one of our virtual programming sessions with 8-year-olds,  I met this kid who provoked my perception about learning/teaching programming to kids. In Kenya, the Grade 3 curriculum  ”does not allow” them to dive deep into concepts like geometry. When you mention angles and geometry to a grade 3, some might think that you are asking them about their ‘favorite tree’ (Geometry). 

In one of the stages in programming,  the learners needed to have basic geometry principles understanding to proceed with some programming stages. Needless to mention, the little girl proceeded to change the angles and the bearings in terms of simple number values that we continually changed to program a bird, change their motion to pick a worm. Ideally, this shows how simple programs like Logo or Quilt can help learners develop vital cognitive skills. This young girl was fully aware that making the birds turn at 15 units will not make it pick the worm but when she changes it to 10 units it picks the worm. We progressively changed the values using a 15 units interval, 0,15,30,45,60,75,90. We agreed that it can only pick the worm when the units are between 0-10. But wait, what are we talking about here?  ANGLES of course!

Understsnidng Basic Geometry in Coding

Learning about angles during our programming session.

 

The little one seemed to be aware there exists a ‘right-angled triangle’ (it could be from personal experience) or heard someone mention it somewhere. Having all these tiny pieces of information, I decided to put programming on hold and walk the little one in these vital maths concepts. 

We drew a rectangle, which I then diagonally cut. The little programmer was aware that one of them is a triangle (in this case, a right-angled triangle) but the other half is not a right-angled triangle. She was convinced that it was a triangle but she was not sure if it was a right-angled triangle. It made me think for a moment. This showed that she could have only interacted with only one type of triangle. 

After this, we got back to programming,  where I introduced the concept of Loops and conditions. More than often, this can be so abstract. But when you think of it as crossing the road, you usually look left, right, then left (LRL), and if the road is clear you cross. This is what (Gerhardt, 2000) mentioned as taking a political direction of using ready-made messages with domesticated effects. I found this to be a powerful way to introduce IF and ELSE commands in programming to the young programmers. Why do we need all these and how do you introduce them to young kids? Find out in the next blog! 

 

CONTEMPLATING EDUCATION REFORM IN TWO PARTS

Posted by

Part 1: The Purpose of Education

Introduction. A group of state leaders led the efforts “to develop the Common Core State Standards … in 2009” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, n.d., p. 1), with the release of the final English language arts and mathematics standards in mid-2010. By 2015, “42 states, the Department of Defense Education Activity, Washington, D.C., Guam, the Northern Marianas Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands [adopt] the CCSS in ELA/literacy and math” (2015). In the summer of 2011, Achieve coordinated the development and work of the Next Generation Science Standards, with the final document released in April of 2013 (Achieve, n.d.) Standards guided instruction since the first classroom, and in the 17th century, religious concepts, such as morality, family, and community, rather than academic pursuits, dominated those guiding principles. Horace Mann, in 1837, changed education with his concept of “common schools” (Cremin, 2021) as a means of standardizing public education. Since then, the design, development, and delivery of curriculum, instruction, and assessments became a key tenet of education. However, have these efforts improved education and preparing students for their futures? The reasons behind why we educate our children drive the decisions regarding how we educate our children.

A historical perspective. The first school, Boston Latin School, opened in the Town of Boston in 1635 for the sons of the town’s ruling class (Lisa, 2021). With classroom teaching reserved for the male aristocracy, it might be appropriate to suppose education prepared these sons to assume control of the family business; a task the home might no longer be equipped to provide. By 1838, as indicated above, Mann advocated for public education for all students, regardless of race, ethnicity, and/or gender, through primary grades, which focused on six fundamental propositions: (1) an ignorant populace is unacceptable, (2) the public is educated for free, (3) diversity creates a better educational environment, (4) there should be a separation of church and state, (5) democracy should prevail in classrooms, and (6) well-trained, professional teachers must instruct (Cremin, 2021, p. 4). These principles suggest Mann’s purpose for education is a literate society. Then, throughout the 1850s and 1860s, when Darwin published On the Origin of Species and American’s fought in the Civil War, “geographic location largely determined whether students learned biblical creation or evolution in class and whether slavery was taught as the central cause of the Civil War instead of states’ rights and Northern aggression” ( (Lisa, 2021, p. 20), implying political power and propaganda propelling the purpose of education. Nearly a century later, when the Soviet Union beat America in reaching outer space, and again, now, since the turn of the century, America losing its dominance in the global economy forces education to address its literacy and numeracy competence, as well its lack of vocational training.

A personal perspective. My personal perspective on the purpose of education begins with the urgency of altering America’s position in the global technological competition. With regards to STEM competencies, “U.S. eighth graders continue to rank in the middle of advanced economies in international mathematics and science assessments … [and] foreign-born individuals account for a sizeable share of U.S. S&E employment, particularly among workers with graduate degrees” (Khan, Robbins, & Okrent, 2020, p. 2), indicating greater strides need to be made to improve America’s middle school mathematics and science knowledge, skills, and experiences and increasing the number of Americans enrolling and completing graduate programs. Should this national need drive the reasons for education and be used to navigate our educational landscape? Will responding to data and statistics bring the improvement necessary?

Our nation’s first response to these data and statistics was the Bush administration’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation, holding schools accountable for students’ performance on standardized tests, and essentially forcing teachers to “teach to the test.” This legislation led to the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” and “Every Student Succeeds Act” legislation, both which gave more control back to schools and school districts and allowing them to make administrative decisions that support the learning needs of their students. The Obama legislations move educational reform in the right direction and demonstrate a commitment to student learning by leaving the decisions in the hands of the people who work most closely with students.

There is great potential for meaningful change when school district leaders and school administrators are allowed to make decisions. Given the power to decide who they serve, why they serve them, and how they serve them, schools and school districts can change their educational landscape. Although I work at a private school, when determining the purpose for education, asking these questions become critical. I serve the students who attend Nā Hunaahi and their families. I serve them because they chose to attend Nā Hunaahi, and these students and their families trust me to prepare them for their futures, whatever that might be. I prepare these students for their futures by making them a vital piece of the educational decision making and allowing their goals to drive their curriculum. Based on these three tenets, my personal perspective on the purpose of education is to provide students with the necessary knowledge, skills, and experiences for them to achieve their goals through a culturally relevant and engaging curriculum.

Closing thoughts. The reasons we educate our students drive the decisions we make as school administrators. The content and context of these decisions run wide and deep, and the repercussions of these decisions leave an indelible mark on the students we serve. Our purpose drives the decisions we make regarding student curricula. Join me for part 2 to learn more about my approach to education.

References

Achieve. (n.d.). Developing the standards. Retrieved from Next Generation Science Standards: https://www.nextgenscience.org/developing-standards/developing-standards

Common Core State Standards Initiative. (n.d.). Development process. Retrieved from Common Core State Standards Initiative: http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/development-process/

Cremin, L. A. (2021, April 30). Horace Mann. Retrieved from Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Mann

Khan, B., Robbins, C., & Okrent, A. (2020). The state of U.S. science and engineering 2020. Washington, D. C.: National Science Board.

Lisa, A. (2021, May 10). History of the American education system. Retrieved from Stacker: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/history-of-the-american-education-system/ss-BB1gzoNK

 

IN YOUR HANDS Emancipation of manufacturing

Posted by

INTRODUCTION
“Necessity is the mother of invention” is a famous proverb used across the world and in 2020, it correctly came to play when countries and regions’ supply chains were disrupted if not completely cut off. Everyone wanted to do something, to offer solutions and so were the innovators and the makers and this is the time people for the first time saw the need of the innovation makerspaces. Traditionally and culturally many communities had ways of fulfilling their needs by making such products. For example, communities had traditional healers, pot makers, ironworks, weavers, garment makers, leather tanners among others but where are these cottage industries? Where can you go and make a reality your idea or share your thoughts and get genuine feedback from the experienced industrialists if not just theorists? Every community should have ways of building at least some of the things by themselves and not just relying on importation.

Fablab users consulting with staff

Fablab users consulting with staff

In the West,  many households have a garage. These garages unlike in Africa where their purposes is to keep safe the vehicles, the garage in their context is a workshop where any repairs and building of anything is done. It’s fitted with tools which can enable one build something. This then liberates people from entirely relying on the fundis to repair any small broken item in your house. For the need for such spaces gave birth to Fablabs and makerspaces which actually have both traditional tools and modern power and digital fabrication tools while at the same time enjoys the privilege of global connectivity hence embrace collaborative designing from any parts of the world but produces locally.


FAB LABS
FABrication LABoratory (Fablab) as described by the founder Prof. Neil Gershenfeld is a place where you can ‘make almost anything’; where an idea is turned into a reality. All planning, design, production and fabrication processes are done in one place. This technological emancipation of manufacturing is supported by an array of digital desktop fabrication and manufacturing tools which ranges from cutting, drilling and molding tools like 3D printers, CNC millers & routers, Laser and vinyl cutters as well as electronic bench. These tools enable makers to turn their ideas to reality by designing and producing at the same place. It has acted as an agent for promotion of democratization of manufacturing since the network members of Fablabs have similar tools and share similar processes. This need has seen a remarkable speedy growth of Fablabs, makerspaces, Hackspaces, innovation hubs which provide shared-tools and knowledge for the manufacturing of various items.

Other than production, Fablabs provide a unique learning approach as borrowed from the Paulo Freire’s work which encourages putting together familiar practices (what is already there and adding a new thing and together, a product is built, as expressed by Paul Blikstein in the Travel in Troy. Paulo goes ahead to stress on the dichotomy between being immersed in one’s reality (only being aware of your own needs) and emerging from reality (being active in fulfilling those needs). The learners go from the “consciousness of the real” to the “consciousness of the possible” as they perceive the “viable new alternatives” beyond the “limiting situations”.


Fablearn (a multi-national network, research collaborative, and vision of learning for the 21st century; disseminates ideas, best practices and resources to support an international community of educators, researchers, and policy makers committed to integrating the principles of constructionist learning and maker education into formal and informal education) like Fablabs provides these opportunities empowering and enabling individuals to collaborate and apply various shared knowledge to innovate, improve or just critically analyze products and make it possible to produce items which otherwise were traditionally preserves for the major industrial manufacturing factories

Production area fitted with digital fabrication machines


HUMANITARIAN MAKING IN CRISIS
In the March 2020 when corona entry was first announced in Kenya, panic mode infiltrated the public, everyone was clueless about its remedies and any ideas oriented towards curbing the dreaded disease was welcomed. Whereas the medical health workers were setting up facilities ready to receive patients, the maker-community started figuring our what they would build and the media took charge of relaying correct information (though this was so difficult thanks to freedom in social media)

In the same measures, different makerspaces and Fablabs like Vigyan Ashram Fablab (India), Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab (China), Kamakura Fablab (Japan), Fablab Oulu (Finland), Fablab Leon (Spain) Kumasi Hive (Ghana), Fablab Rwanda (Rwanda) just to mention a few. In Kenya, some learning institutions like Dedan Kumathi University of Technology, Technical University of Mombasa, Nyangoma Technical Institution of the Deaf featured with different solutions they made. Other humanitarian Organizations like Countrywide Innovation Hubs, Afrilabs, Redcross, Field Ready, UNICEF and small youth led ones like  Kisumu Youth Caucus made impact in different ways by supporting various programs


On 18th March 2020, makers at Fablab Winam came up with their first solution (just four days after the first case was announced in Kenya); a contact tracing mobile application for the passenger manifest for PSV users (https://kenyainsights.com/two-computer-geeks-in-kisumu-develops-a-mobile-app-to-help-trace-those-exposed-to-coronavirus-in-matatus/). This was in response to the Kisumu Governor – Prof. Nyong’o’s appeal for the PSV operators to keep the manifest of passengers. This was later on improved to include cashless payment and named – mSafari (https://msafari.co.ke/). This solution  was to cut the weak link of spread of corona which was created by the movement of people in obviously overloaded matatus in Kenya and many other African countries whose means of public transport are not so organized.
During the same period, we set up virtual classes for teaching STEM to young people aged 10 to 17. In this, our approach was peer education. We identified some students who were now at home but are good with STEM to offer virtual training to others. So many students benefited from this program.

In June 15th at the celebration of the Day of an African Child, Fablab Winam hosted a Global Kids Day in partnership with Fab Lat Kids. Global Kids Day is a virtual maker-workshop for children from different parts of the world working and collaborating on one activity simultaneously purposing in addressing the theoretical analysis and the practical workshops. Each workshop has its own strategies for developing certain values, knowledge and skills, but they all share the same basic methodological structure. It is championed by team of friends from different countries (Mexico, Qatar, Brazil, Japan, Argentina, Sudan and Kenya).This particular one focused on African culture and over 500 participants from 10 countries benefited from this workshop. Another workshop benefiting about 100 children from Dolphine Korando Educational Centre with support from BetterMe Kenya.


This was not all, Fablab Winam has since continued to work with different people & firms to develop and locally manufacture a number of items. Other items we continue working on including 3D printed face shields, elbow operated tap, mask clips/ear savers for facemasks, elbow door opener, Mild sheet Foot operated tap for already installed sinks, Constant heat plastic roller sealer among others.

Some of the products which were built in different Fablabs in response to covid pandemic were Ventilators, sanitizers, handwashing stations and foot operated taps, Air purifiers, respirators, face masks and face shields, elbow operated taps & door openers, gowns, hospital beds etc.


SRPD
Rallying people together to identify their own problems and designing their own solutions is well captured by Stan Burkey in his book titled “People First, – a Guide to the Self-Reliant, Participatory Rural Development (SRPD) and also appreciated by the Change Agent Anthem as “Go to the people live with them, love them, learn from them, work with them; start with what they have, build on what they know and, in the end, the people will say, We have done it, have done it ourselves”.

Angela of Field Ready assessing the quality of FUTAP

Field Ready staff assessing the quality of FUTAP

Victor & Angela after assessment of handwashing station manufactured by Fablab

Victor & Angela after assessment of handwashing station

Bramwel calibrating the newly acquired Prusa printers ready for the production of more PPEs

Printing of PPEs and some small medical devices ongoing.

The 21st Century skills and general technology at the main agents for emancipation and promoter of the 4th industrial revolution, will hopefully bring the most needed transformation and give consumers for freedom and sense responsibility of the products they use. Manufacturing will no longer be left in the hands of the few but anybody will be able to make contribution in the production in respect to their environment and the locally available materials; designing globally and producing locally.

Making Remotely-Lessons Learned from Hosting Virtual Innovation Challenges in Kenya

Posted by

Since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in 2020, learners and educators across the world experienced a shift in their way of learning and teaching. In Kenya, schools were closed in March of 2020 and later reopened in October of 2020. This meant the parents and guardians stayed home with their children. Some parents explored online learning to keep their students engaged. However, a large number of students who had no access to the internet and digital resources continued to wait for schools to reopen. Many organizations launched remote programs for students to engage with educational activities while at home. At Global Minimum Inc., we shifted to remote delivery of our programs. In this article, I will share lessons learned from facilitating our InChallenge program remotely

Global Minimum Inc (GMin) is an international non-profit organization that encourages young innovators and leaders in Africa to engage with critical thinking skills and hands-on learning programs to tackle challenges affecting their communities. GMin provides enabling tools, safe spaces, workshops, mentorship, resources and network, ultimately equipping young people in Africa with unique opportunities to take their future into their own hands. Since 2008 we have worked with over 10,000 youth aged 13- 20 years in Kenya and Sierra Leone through our programs. GMin believes all youth have the potential to learn and create innovative solutions in their communities.

The InChallenge program is a national innovation competition for high school-aged youth in Kenya and Sierra Leone. Every year, participants are invited to identify a social problem in their community and create a project to solve that problem. Finalists of up to 15 teams of 4 students each are invited to a one-week long Innovation boot camp where they attend workshops on innovation, human-centred design, entrepreneurship and responsible leadership. They also get technical mentors to assist them in building the first prototypes of their proposed solution. Mentors are typically young professionals and industry experts in the respective fields where the participants are building solutions. 

Remote Workshop delivery

One of the things that changed during remote workshop delivery was the style of facilitating our workshops. Shifting from in-person workshops to virtual workshops meant reorganizing our presentation material and activities. For instance, we redesign the presentation slides to be more visible when sharing screens via video conferencing and incorporated more visual presentations to keep our learners engaged. Unlike in-person camps where we could play games outdoors, virtual camps limited us to online activities. Even so, participants were creative in utilizing local materials available to them to build crafts. 

Participant displaying her spaghetti tower

For example, when we did the marshmallow design challenge, participants were supposed to build a tower using 20 sticks of spaghetti, 1 yard of string, and one yard of tape. They were then required to place a marshmallow on top of the tower and the tallest free-standing tower wins. We use this challenge to demonstrate the iterative nature of design thinking. Since some of our participants were not able to collect all the materials, they used alternatives they could find in their houses. For instance, instead of spaghetti sticks, they plucked sticks from bushes around their homes and in place of tape and string, they used fibres from banana stalks and some recycled old clothes to make their strings. The flexibility they displayed reminded me why cultural making is important. As educators and makers, we need to account for the needs of all learners when designing activities.

Remote mentorship

When we started hosting virtual innovation boot camps in 2020, one of the major challenges we experienced was the difficulty in delivering technical mentorship remotely. First, because students of a given team lived in different geographical regions across Kenya away from their mentors. Learners and their mentors had limited time to build their prototypes. As a result, many teams expressed frustration over the inability to finish building their solutions. In April 2021, we hosted our second virtual camp and started utilizing WhatsApp groups to allow mentors to have extra time with the teams and offer consistent technical support. The groups were more accessible as most teenagers who had access to a smartphone were familiar with WhatsApp. With the increased mentorship time, the teams got to work on their solutions and made impressive presentations.

Internet connectivity

Another major challenge was internet connectivity problems especially for the individuals who were connecting from remote areas where the coverage is not as strong. Moreover, some of the participants did not have access to a computer that they would use to sign in to the workshops. One solution that helped was purchasing generic smartphones, which we sent to the finalists’ parents to help them set up for the camp. We further provided data bundles for all the participants who did not have wiFi in their homes. Over 90% of the finalists were able to participate in the workshops successfully.

Online collaboration

Prepping materials before dispatching to team representatives

Collaboration is a fundamental part of the InChallenge boot camp. Each team of students work together to build a prototype for the solution they have proposed. During in-person boot camps, every team gets a chance to buy materials for their prototype. For the virtual camps, teams had to select a member to take the lead in the building process.  The team representatives received the materials sent from our office in Nairobi to their homes and built the prototype on behalf of the team. Although one team member was building the solution, all other members were supporting the process remotely via video calls. This ensured the participants learned how to work in teams to achieve their objectives. At the end of the 10-day boot camp, learners were able to document their progress through video recordings and photographs.

Making remotely has been a rewarding and fulfilling experience. Even though it came with challenges, it also presented us with an opportunity to learn new methods of delivering learning remotely. We continue to explore and utilize available technology to engage our learners and educators to ensure we create enabling environments for our students. Making resources such as the internet, prototyping material and electronic gadgets accessible to the students is fundamental to encourage participation from learners especially those in underserved communities.