Reflection of MUS pre activity (1/29) - Destiny

I really enjoyed going to an actual school to see the students in their own element. I got there a little late for the first one since I was coming from my morning class at UCSB but I luckily did not miss much. The students were reflecting on what they had done the last session and were being introduced to the new challenge.

I really liked observing and helping with the students build on their ideas and test their contraptions. I think there needs to be improvement of the rounds. Maybe have the students work together on one plan first, then do two rounds of self built ideas. This is because each time we switched to the team building round 2 the groups I were at would not decide on something since they were all partial to their own first design. Then they had no time to build and ended up making their own. I did not stay for the last class since I had class again at UCSB but I know there was talk about changing the rounds. I would love to know int the comments how that went and what was successful comparing the two before and the last one.

My only comment would be the level of the school. I understand Loryn used to work at this school but I think it would be beneficial to test these activities in a less privileged school since most of the students at MUS will be introduced to the sciences early and probably put in the path for higher education and opportunities. I would love to hold these tests at a school like Harding Partnership because those students are put on unsuccessful path and this would at least open a door and maybe break down a break wall of the intimidation of the science and engineering fields.

Blog for week 1/29 - Danielle Tisdale

For this blog post I wanted to reflect on an interaction I had a little while ago. I was running the rotational motion program cart when we had a special ed group come in to visit. I had been showing some smaller kids how when the tire is spinning it is a lot harder to move it, when a young boy in a wheelchair and his aide came up to me. His aide asked me what we were doing here, so I modified the program cart for him the way I have for the kids who are to small to hold the wheel on their own. I held one side of the tire and had him hold the other handle and asked him to notice that he could move it normally. Then I spun the tire and asked him to move the wheel around again and see what he noticed. He didn't say anything, but his face lit up and he was very excited about the experiment. I was really glad that I was able to modify the cart for him even though at first glance it looked like something he'd only get to watch. Although he couldn't participate in all of the program cart, he still got to engage in it and I'm grateful that I was able to have that experience.

Twilight Time interactions -Juliana

This week I wanted to write about my experience working at Twilight Time last Friday. I had a lot of fun interacting with a different age group than I am used to working with at MOXI. I haven’t worked very many events, so to be honest, when the first guests started walking in the doors I felt slightly uncomfortable and wasn’t really sure how to interact with all of the adult guests with no kids around. But once I jumped in and started playing and showing them how fun our exhibits can be, I became more comfortable with it and had so much fun!

It was also interesting to get into deep conversations with people closer to my age and see what they thought of MOXI. A couple approached me and asked why none of the exhibits have explanations, and if there was any sort of guide that might offer explanations to the exhibits. I told them that most of our exhibits do not have signs explaining the exhibits because we want to encourage guests to play and discover and think about things on their own. They did not seem very happy with this answer, so I also told them that any Spark will usually be able to answer questions or help explain an exhibit to them. They then asked me about how Mindball works, which I was happy to explain to them since I did my exhibit guide on Mindball last quarter and am now an expert J. I have never gotten any comment like this by a child guest because they are usually completely content with just playing and exploring on their own, without having to have some science concept they are being pushed to learn. As adults, we are used to going into a science museum expecting that every exhibit will have an explicit answer as to how it works. However, there is clearly so much more opportunity for questioning, exploration, and discovery as shown by the lack of exhibit signage at MOXI.

IWS - Danielle Tisdale

The workshop is my absolute favorite place at MOXI. I could spend all day in there and not get tired of being able to work with guests on their project or working on my own. I love that MOXI can provide a space for guests to be able to tinker with things they might not normally get to work with.
One of the things I love about the workshop is when guests get inspired by making something there and then realize it's something they could do with things around their house and then get excited about being able to do more projects at home. I think that having this space to start working on a project and seeing that the thing they wanted to make is possible can inspire guests to keep creating on their own. That happened for me with felting, I learned how to do it in the workshop and then got my own felt and felting needles and started making felt things at home.

I had never really thought about the difference between making and tinkering, but the article pointed out some interesting differences between the two. In the workshop, I think we have a lot of both types of learning. I think that the arcade games activities could fall more under the tinkering category, while leather working falls under the making category. I like that we can have a mix of tinkering and making in the workshop, but I wonder if there is a project we could do that has a mix of both?

I definitely agree with what Angela said about having more Sparks in the workshop on busy days. Sometimes the projects in the workshop don't require much facilitation, but with something like leather working, I tend to work closely with a lot of younger guests back-to-back while having other guests ask me to help them too. I make sure that I don't do the project for the guests, but I usually end up doing something like holding the stamp so the younger guests can hammer it without hitting themselves, giving them a chance to work with tools that would be a bit too dangerous for them to use alone. I really enjoy being able to work closely with guests and seeing what they create, but on crowded days I can't help everyone and sometimes it becomes hard to notice things that could become a safety concern, like a guest leaving out a sharp tools that look like fun to a 2 year old.

Sam wrote about parents directing their kids to a project that seems to be more on the kid's age level, and I see that a lot too. When it is a project with a lot of sharp tools, like leather working, the parents get more apprehensive about letting their kid experiment with the materials, but sometimes they'll ask me about something age appropriate and I try to find a way to help them and their child interact safely with the project. This is when I end up holding the leather stamp for the kid and then they hammer it, or helping them guide the exacto knife. Usually the parents are excited that their kid can still work on the project, even if they think I'm crazy for letting their kid use a hammer so close to my hands, but sometimes there are parents who are entirely resistant to their kid doing something "too old for them". I'm not sure what to do in situations like that except for direct them to something like metal embossing rather than leather working.

To fellow Sparks, do you have any ways you get adult guests to interact with the projects? Most of the time the only adults in the workshop are parents with their children. I think it would be good if we can draw in older guests because once they get in there and sit down at a table, they're likely to start working on something, but most of the time it seems like the older guests think that the workshop only has projects for children.

NGSS - Danielle Tisdale

A: Explaining Phenomena or Designing Solutions: The lesson focuses on supporting students to make sense of a phenomenon or design solutions to a problem.
The whole wind column curriculum fits the NGSS criteria part A in a few ways, one of which is having a cohesive storyline throughout all of the lessons. The students also get to design their own solutions to the real world and relevant problem they are given.

D: Relevance and Authenticity: The lesson motivates student sense-making or problem-solving by taking advantage of student questions and prior experiences in the context of the students’ home, neighborhood, and community as appropriate.
The VTS we use for EE fits the NGSS Features and Quality Design part D: Relevance and Authenticity very well because most of the students that will experience the EE1 curriculum have personal experience with fires. The students make great connections with what they experienced during the Thomas Fire (or other fire) and use that previous knowledge to understand why it would be important to have sensors monitoring the fires. Students become engaged with this project not just because it is fun, but because they know it is a real world problem that has affected them and their families directly.

IWS Reflection - Sophia Rowen

“Making Deeper Learners” by Bevan et al., 2018 

I love the Innovation Workshop, and, no matter the activity, I am always drawn to it. This is because it is a space that allows guests to “develop, apply, and make visible their thinking and understanding”. 

I think the Making and Tinkering Framework that was created by educators from the Exploratorium and Lighthouse Community Schools is a useful tool for Sparks to use to see if makers and tinkerers are activating a dimension or “engagement level”. For example, the Initiative and Intentionality dimension lists actively participating, setting one’s own goal, taking intellectual and creative risks, adjusting goals based on physical feedback and evidenceas the indicators for that dimension. I believe that Sparks can use this framework in an organic way and witness these indicators if some things change in the IWS. My fellow MAPS have suggested some of these changes in their own blog posts. 

Angela: having two Sparks in the IWS on weekends and busy days, so more learning dimensions are activated and thus more deeper learning. 

It is hard to maintain the space and attend to all guests. I find that trying to engage with all kinds of guests results in me telling them and showing them how to do things instead of them doing it for themselves. I don’t want to do their project for them, because I want them to engage initiatively and intentionally. 

Juliana and Destiny- both talked about how they would like to see IWS activities that combine both making and tinkering. This would provide opportunities for learning for guests of all ages. 

Now that the IWS has been revamped and includes the cozy corner, I think we could incorporate more maker activities there in which younger guests can explore different kinds of materials. The rest of the IWS space could be used for a mix of tinkering and making activities. 

Samantha Brown- is very good at documenting her experiences here at MOXI and she notes that she has a few ideas for improving some facilitation strategies in the IWS. I would very much like to hear those ideas and have a discussion in MAPS class about everyone else’s experiences in the IWS. 

Sam Shaw- posed some thoughtful questions about parent intervention in the IWS. Specifically, he asks, Is there a way to make the goals of the IWS more clear to adults entering the room, so as to make certain learning outcomes more likely with their buy-in?

I have been thinking about this recently and I haven’t been able to put it more simply into words like Sam did. My first thought is to prime the parent and child either at the entrance of MOXI or at the entrance of the IWS. We could demonstrate something that underlines the importance of active and self-directed learning, and tell them that this sometimes looks like “failing”. 

After reading this article, I have a much deeper understanding of the importance of materials and how it relates to more opportunities in engineering and design. If guests are able to develop an “affinity for the nature of the materials” they are working with then they could have more meaningful experiences and thus deeper learning. This is something that I can bring with me into the IWS when we are working with unfamiliar materials like leather and felt. 

- Sophia Rowen 

NGSS and EE1

NGSS Shifts:

B. Three Dimensions:

The wind column workshop is a good example of using the three dimensions. Students are asked to tackle a real world problem by using the engineering design process with their prior scientific knowledge of surface area and air buoyancy. Crosscutting concepts that are touched on include scale (size of contraption must fit in wind column), structure building, stability (want it to float for a while), and cause/effect (fire causes hot air to rise).

Features of Quality Design:

D. Relevance and Authenticity:

I think that this activity engages students well because in our area we deal with lots of fires. The relevance to the students home and own experiences promotes real-world problem solving.

Tinkering and Making in the IWS - Sam S.

After reading this week's article, I noticed several similarities and differences between the after-school program described by the authors, and Innovation Workshop programs we offer in MOXI. I think that both programs have their own advantages and challenges, and are better suited to different aspects of "learning dimensions of making and tinkering" as described in the the article.

In the context of tinkering learning dimensions, the IWS definitely lends itself most to the dimensions of creativity/self-expression, and to initiative/intentionality. We offer materials, a theme, and guidance, but guests who enter our maker space have almost complete agency in determining what they will create, what their goals are, and how to measure success in their process. Additionally, guests rarely enter the workshop alone, and are instead part of a family or other small group. This inherently lends itself to collaboration and sharing of ideas in making something that can usually be taken home and enjoyed later. Especially for younger guests, the IWS provides a valuable opportunity to build creative skills with the comfort of a parent or other caretaker nearby and helping.

However, I think some of these strengths that the structure of IWS offers may also detract from some other elements of tinkering learning dimensions, and I wonder what could be altered in the space or the programming to address these challenges. For instance, the benefits that come with families engaging together in making activities may also discourage development of independent problem solving skills. Parents don't enjoy seeing their children fail, even if it is constructive, and will often intervene in designs or construction before a teachable and often reversible error is made. Similarly, I've often found that parents will encourage their kids to approach a project that they think is "age-appropriate," often underestimating their child's ability or devaluing the act of aiming high for its learning potential. Finally, the iterative process of tinkering is often (though not always) discouraged by parents without the patience to stay in the IWS for a long period of time.

A few questions:
- Can programming be designed to encourage certain aspects of the tinkering learning dimensions that the IWS doesn't naturally lend itself to? What sort of activities would facilitate iteration, collaboration, and sharing of ideas across projects?
- Is there a way to make the goals of the IWS more clear to adults entering the room, so as to make certain learning outcomes more likely with their buy-in?
- Is there a way to encourage independent learning outside of a family context in the IWS? Any way to make tinkering a more social activity by allocating time for certain age groups to participate and create without direct adult involvement? Does this even fit into the goals we have for the IWS?

-Sam Shaw

NGSS Lesson Screening - Matthew

A: Explaining phenomena or designing solutions 

The EE1 lesson, encourages students to design their own solutions, but first to explore the phenomena that encourage things/crafts to float. The combination of explaining phenomena and designing solutions that contain and utilize the concepts explored assist in a developing a deeper understanding of the ideas.   

E: Student ideas

By allowing the students to create the 'pennyship' to solve the problem of the floating sensor the lesson gradually opens up the possibilities for their own innovation. The limitations arise due to the students being guided through parachute lessons in the weeks before the visit may restrict the students to only trying parachutes for their 'pennyships'.

Tinkering vs. Making [Samantha Brown]

I had a shift in the IWS on Saturday, January 19th and helped a number of people with their creations:

• A mom with four bracelets [assisted]
• The aforementioned mother’s teenage daughter with a bracelet [assisted]
• Two adolescent sisters with bracelets [completed]
• A young toddler girl with a bracelet (I pulled the embedding tools out for her only) [completed]
• A man with a cord holder carved with his initials [completed]
• A volunteer with an ID holder (which was almost finished but got cut up while unattended) [completed, then destroyed]
• Showed a few adult guests how to add snaps to their projects [assisted]

The space, although never at capacity on the Saturday I reference above, was almost fully occupied the majority of the time. Consequently, I was attending to guests back-to-back. I made connections from the facilitation of the space to the assigned reading, reflections that I believe could be beneficial toward the operation of the space.

Another reflection I have is for Wednesday, January 9th where I completed, along with Nathan (while he was not clocked in), a kid’s full-sized leather wallet. It had two pockets and a snap closure; the wallet was cut, woven, and hammered with dangerous tools. It took a little over two hours to complete because a number of the snaps weren’t closing properly and the wallet underwent a stylistic change. I cut myself on three fingers and bled. The young boy said that “[he wanted] to use the wallet forever” so the end product was clearly worth it.

Several points from the article I’ve taken into consideration include:

• The concept of “agency” and our roles as Sparks
• Tinkering vs. making values, outcome goals, different facilitation strategies for activities and where they fit in those categories
• Skill level and “ongoing complexification”
• Materials and how they are used

Ultimately, my favorite part about the IWS is that it creates unforgettable memories that guests can attach to an item, which they will likely hold onto for a long time because of the effort they put into it. I have a few ideas on strategies to improve the IWS, but unfortunately, conversations I’ve had were treated with remiss (not taken seriously).

Making Deeper Learners Reflection- Juliana

This article helped me realize how important it is for learners of all ages to have opportunities to do making and tinkering activities. And while I hope that more and more classrooms are offering making and tinkering activities for young learners, I think that the Innovation Workshop does a great job at providing this. I noticed throughout the article that multiple teachers pointed out the comparison between the math problems you might see in a traditional classroom to tinkering/making projects. I’m sure it would be much easier to get a student interested in his or her own creative tinkering project rather than a math worksheet. In addition, another middle school teacher talked about how the skills that can be learned from tinkering are going to be much more useful in life than word problems that you might see on a math worksheet. Problem solving and critical thinking are extremely important skills both for school and work and can be applied to pretty much any field.

In the Innovation Workshop, I think that the more open-ended activities or variations of activities there are, the more opportunity there is for tinkering. One activity that comes to mind is when we worked with beeswax. One of the activities was making a beeswax food wrap, which required following the directions- dumping a scoop of beeswax onto your cut fabric, placing the parchment paper on top, then ironing on top of that. I would consider this more of an open-ended “making” activity as guests had to follow the directions in order to make the desired product. The other activity of that week, candle making, was more of a “tinkering” project, as it required more creativity and problem solving. I like that this article made a distinction between making and tinkering. I also like the idea of having both a “making” activity along with more of a “tinkering” activity in the workshop, as this can provide opportunities for learners of all ages.