A Framework for Maker Education: Frontloading and Reflecting: ISTE 2017

This session run by Jackie Gerstein (@JackieGerstein) provided a framework for looking at Making.  The focus on Front Loading making and students documenting their learning, being publishers and having an audience key to authenticity.

We looked at the stages of making as experiential learning that starts with copying and ends with creation.

Front loading or setting the scene requires the teacher to set the seed for making by focusing attention and identifying the purpose.  This can be done in a range of ways:

• Using scenarios
• Using essential questions
• Asking questions to scaffold
• Specifying standards - metacognition
• Asking questions about the use of collaboration
• Asking questions related to personal skills 

 

  
Frontloading is making clear the purpose of an activity prior to actually doing it.  The idea is that if participants clearly understand the purpose or lesson upfront, that lesson will repeatedly show itself during the action component. (http://chiji.com/processing.htm)

 The practitioner tells or guides participants before the experience on how what they want them to focus on in the activity. It is about guided attention before the activity. (http://www.aee.org/tapg-best-p-matching-facilitation-strategy) 

What are the benefits of frontloading?

• It helps participants use the upcoming activity to build on prior knowledge and experience
• It helps participants set purpose and intention for the activity
• It distributes expertise to the participants before the activity begins, as opposed to the facilitator or instructor being the only expert (http://experience.jumpfoundation.org/what-is-frontloading/)

Some of the general themes and ideas for frontloading making activities include:

• Using and Reviewing Essential Questions – explicitly discussed prior to the maker activities. For example –
  • What are the attributes of having a maker mindset?
  • What skills do you need to be an inventor? an engineer?
  • What are the steps to the design process?
  • How do inventors, engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and/or artists solve problems? How do they overcome challenges?

• Using Scenarios – for example –
  • You have been hired to create a new invention to bring kindness into the world. This invention will be shared with all of the kids in the United States.
  • The kids at the local shelter would love to have one of the latest and greatest of toys. Make them one of these.

• Specifying Standards – the Next Generation Science Standards include some good examples. The educator can introduce the standards and explain what they mean in terms of the upcoming maker activities. For example:
  • Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
  • Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through engineering.

• Asking Questions Related To Personal Skills – for example –
  • The following maker activity will draw upon your imagination, creativity, and innovative mindset. What do you consider your strengths in this area that can be used during your maker activity?

• Asking Questions to Help with Scaffolding and Sequencing the Activities – the facilitator can review previous activities and then ask participants prior to the next learning activity –
  • In this next activity you will be asked to do _______________, what skills did you learn in the (previous activity) that will help you do ____________ in this upcoming activity?

• Asking Questions Related To Using Peer Support-Working Collaboratively – for example – 
  • How might you use your co-learners support if and when you get stuck or reach an impasse while working on the next activity?

The process should always have reflection as a critical component:
Critical reflection is an important part of any learning process. Jack Mezirow states that “Critical reflection involves a critique of the presuppositions on which our beliefs have been built. Learning may be defined as ‘the process of making a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of an experience, which guides subsequent understanding, appreciation and action’.” To reflect is to enter a space of co-incidence, where the beginning of the learning process, and its end, meet to consult about the result of that process. Without reflection, learning becomes only an activity -- like viewing a reality TV show -- which was never meant to have meaning, but was only meant to occupy time. - Sean Michael Morris

We had our own opportunities to make during the session - a place name with LEDs, Chibi Circuits as well as toy hacking and toothbrush art.  We also had a chance to play a reflections game:

 

 Circuit Stickers

Brush Robot Art

'Documenting is more than staying organised or writing down what will be or was taught. Documenting is PART of the learning process' -
Jackie Gerstein

We finished off the day by documenting our learning: