Materials Needed Per Group:

• Six sharp pencils (have a pencil sharpener available)
• Ziplock Baggie
• Water
• Handout, Team Spear-It (one copy per student, click here for a printable version)

Procedure:

1. Brainstorm and discuss: What are some important rules for group work and why?
2. Distribute handout and allow students to fill out the six essentials of group work as you go over them in class:
   1. Get along with each other
   2. Respect Others
   3. On Task All The Time
   4. Use Soft Voices
   5. Participate Actively
   6. Stay with Your Group
3. Inform students they will be putting the rules to the test today and will see that, when you take one of the rules away, things could get messy.
4. Divide students into groups and hand out supplies. (Note: Baggies should be filled approximately half full.)
5. Students say one of the group rules for each pencil they as they poke it through the bag.
6. Once all six pencils are in place, students show their bag to the teacher.
7. Groups go to sink and remove one pencil at a time.
8. Answer discussion questions in their group and then together as a class.

Why didn’t the bag leak?

Baggies are made of a material known as a polymer. Polymers have long chains of flexible molecules. When you poke a sharp pencil through the baggie,  the pencil slides in between the chain of molecules that make up the polymer. The molecule chains will make a seal around the pencil that won’t let the water out.

The post STEAM Lesson Plan: Team SPEAR-IT appeared first on Inventionland Education.

Materials Needed

• 1 copy of The Three Little Pigs
• 50 popsicle sticks for Team 1
• 50 small (hot drink) straws for Team 2
• 50 index cards for Team 3
• 1 thick piece of cardboard to serve as the foundation for each team’s house
• 1 poster board roof for each team
• One roll of masking tape for each team
• Small desk fan to serve as the big, bad wolf (preferably decorated appropriately).
• paper and pencils

Preparation

1. If you’d like to turn your box fan into a big, bad wolf, feel free to draw or print a cartoon photo of a wolf and place on top of the fan. If you have a wolf mask handy, you could use that, too.
2. Divide the materials into three groups so students can easily pick up exactly what their team needs for the challenge.

Procedure

1. Read The Three Little Pigs out loud to your class.
2. After reading, ask students what they think is needed to build a strong house. Consider linking this to different weather conditions–what would you need if you live in a windy climate? A hot climate? A snowy and cold climate?
3. Divide your class into three groups and Introduce the Three Little Pigs Design Challenge: Can your team design and build a house that the big, bad wolf can’t blow down? Requirements:
   1. Your house must be built on the provided foundation (must be at the bottom of the house) and using the roof (must be at the top of the house) provided.
   2. You can only use the materials provided to your team.
   3. Everyone must work together and all ideas need to be considered.
   4. You only have 20 minutes to build your house and have it tested.
4. Show students the “Big, Bad Wolf” so they know the force of the wind (huffing and puffing). Note: You can extend this challenge by using a fan with different levels (high, medium, low) and students that pass the “low” fan can move to medium and then high, etc. You can also move the fan to pre-determined locations measuring from further to closer to the house.
5. Hand out each team’s assigned material to use. (Note: If you have larger classes, you can divide the students into more than three groups and add additional building materials such as different straw sizes, different popsicle stick sizes, and different paper stock weight sizes. But every team needs to use the same foundation and the same room.)
6.  Encourage students to draw or sketch their ideas before building.
7. After 20 minutes, students must bring their house to the “testing zone.” Note: their house can face any direction, but the wind must always come from the same place. If the house is still standing after 20 seconds, success!

Discussion

Give students time to write down their answers individually and then discuss as a class:

• What material worked the best?
• Why do you think some materials were more effective than others?
• Was your house able to withstand the huffing and puffing of the big bad wolf?
• How could you improve your design?
• Extension: What are all of the different jobs that are needed in order to build a house (make a list on the whiteboard)? How many of these jobs require an understanding of science, technology, engineering, and/or math (place a star next to these jobs)?

The post STEAM Lesson Plan: Three Little Pigs Design Challenge appeared first on Inventionland Education.

What would you do if the big game was on the line and you had to nail free throws to win? It’s a movie plot line that’s been with us since the days of Teen Wolf. But…what if you had a team of robots? In this STEAM lesson, students will design a robot to accurately shoot a free-throw three times in a row. This lesson will take approximately 4, 45-minute classes to complete and explore types of levers as well as the concepts of precision and accuracy.

Materials Needed (per group)

• pieces of corrugated cardboard of various sizes
• card stock/file folders
• cups and plates (foam, plastic, and paper; various sizes)
• plastic spoons
• rulers
• string
• pipe cleaners
• craft sticks
• straws
• binder clips of various sizes
• paper clips of various sizes
• craft wire
• skewers
• clay
• scissors
• masking tape
• glue
• various colors of construction paper
• markers
• Materials needed for the entire class: ping pong balls and an empty trash can

Preparation

1. Set up “basketball hoop” (trash can) on a desk with a piece of masking tape six feet away (can be closer or further depending on your classroom size).

Introduction

• Ask a student to demonstrate a free-throw shot using crumpled up paper and your basket. Point out the motion they use in their arms from their elbows to their hands. Ask them what machine this looks like (have student repeat motion while class brainstorms).  Answer: A lever: a rigid bar that rotates on a fixed point (a fulcrum), which moves or loads. The elbow is the fulcrum and the forearm is the stiff bar. This particular type of lever is known as a third-class lever.

Introduce students to Cue, the basketball playing robot:

Inform students that they are going to create their own basketball-playing robot using the science of building levers and that it needs to make three free throws.

Procedure

1. Students will have approximately one hour (over the course of two class periods) to design, build, and test their robots.
   1. Students need to meet as a team (3-4 students per team), discuss the problem they are solving, design the robot, and agree on materials they will use.
   2. Students will need to draw a prototype of their design on a sheet of paper before building it.
   3. Students will build their robots. They may decide during construction to change materials or design. This is okay, but they need to make a new sketch and revise the materials list as they go.
2. Next, each team will take turns trying to make their free throws.
   1. One student will need to be the “recorder” and will place a colored piece of masking tape where the ball first bounces.
   2. As each team attempts to make free throws, they will look at the accuracy of the ball (did it land in the basket?) and the precision of the ball (did the balls all land close to each other?)
   3. If time permits, students can re-design and re-test their robots.

Discussion

Give students time to write down their answers to these questions individually and then discuss them as a class:

• Who was the most accurate? The most precise? The most accurate and precise?
• What went well?
• What didn’t go well?
• Were there any compromises you had to make with your teammates about the design? Explain.
• If you had to redesign your robot again, what changes would you make?

The post STEAM Lesson Plan: Robot Basketball appeared first on Inventionland Education.

Raise your hand if you can remember sitting in a row of desks while silently memorizing passages from a textbook or listening to a 40-minute lecture. Go ahead and put your hand down now. Even that is an outdated method of getting your point across.

Education is constantly evolving as we whittle down to the core of how we learn and understand. Some things never go out of style. Some things can’t go out fast enough, like the aforementioned “factory style” classroom learning. Through it all, we learn and develop best practices in education so that our students can develop intellectual maturity and the ability to think for themselves, while also being open and respectful to the thoughts and ideas of others.

Enter collaborative learning, or co-learning.

Co-learning is a manner of group learning that enhances communication skills, cultural awareness, thinking skills and so much more. Working in a group also allows students to provide checks and balances of their work on the spot, rather than finding out later, to make the workflow more efficient. The cool thing is we all need these attributes. It’s safe to say that learning from one another while being able to communicate effectively will never go out of style. In fact, we could be trending more and more in that direction in the future.

In David Grossman’s “The Cost of Poor Communications,” a survey of 400 companies that had 100,000 or more employees estimated that the annual cost of poor communication resulted in the loss, on average, of $62.4 million. The cost for smaller companies employing 100 or more people was an annual average of $420,000. In order to stop hemorrhaging the losses, we need to emphasize the importance of communication early on. It may be a soft skill, but there can be hard lessons learned as a consequence of poor communication.

Also consider this: A whopping 96 percent of executives that participated in a Salesforce survey cited a lack of collaboration skills that led to poor communication among employees.

Let’s connect the dots: The inability to collaborate effectively due to a lack of communication skills can equal a loss of business, money and jobs. It is imperative that we enhance these abilities in our workforce by instilling it in them while they are students through collaborative learning activities.

For example, the Inventionland® Education Innovation Course enhances soft skills by embracing hands-on, project-based learning. Students work in small groups of three to four to identify a problem and then create a solution by developing a practical invention. After a working prototype is created, the students must tell the story with graphic and design and packaging, as well as a product pitch to potential investors (OK, so this might be people at the school, such as a principal or superintendent).

Working together towards a common goal develops the much-needed collaboration and communication skills, as well as critical thinking and creativity, which make up the rest of the 4 Cs. According to the Journal of Educational Psychology, students working in small groups like this are prone to reach a higher level of achievement. It’s really proves the old adage that we are stronger together than apart.

“There are many strategies in education,” said Burgettstown Area School District elementary teacher Alissa Nardone. “In my opinion, critical thinking, reasoning, analysis, creativity, perseverance, problem-solving, and collaboration are at the forefront of what I believe should be prevalent in a 21st-century classroom.

The challenge is integrating these skills while maneuvering through rigorous learning standards and curriculum. Project-based learning provides an alternate way to address these skills. Students embrace meaningful projects. Parents have expressed that their children can’t wait to get to school when they know a project will be waiting to provide a good challenge.”

While teachers are still an integral part of the discovery process, classes are student-led and teacher-facilitated. This allows the students to learn from an instructor, as well as each other.

“Some students just want to be able to do things,” said Burgettstown Area School District high school teacher Laura Wells. “They enjoy a class that is more student-centered and allows them to take charge of their own learning.” For their part, the teachers also get in on the co-learning and discover hidden attributes in their students.

You might never find out who is a natural born leader or who is destined to become an engineer if you never give them the chance to put their talents and skills on full display.
That is one of the biggest difficulties in education. Students still need to learn, however they don’t always need to be taught. It may sound counterintuitive at first, but letting go of the steering wheel can actually steer students in the right direction.

“Choice and control inherently foster excitement and engagement,” said Avonworth School District middle school teacher Mike Lincoln. “Our Inventionland®course is a perfect example of this type of experienced learning.”

As adult professionals, we are typically assembled into organizations, teams, groups, etc. Whatever you call it, the mission is clear: To work collaboratively as a cohesive unit. It makes sense then to learn in a collaborative way as well.

“Employers are looking to hire people that can think on their own, be resourceful, and have soft skills, like communicating and working with a team,” said Carmichaels Area School District middle school teacher Brittany Phillips. “By my students working hands-on, they are finding and fixing their problems, working with people who all have different personalities and work ethic, and taking pride in their work.”

Why is it important to develop effective co-learning skills like communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity? For starters, the professional world is changing and adapting to advancing technologies. Because we are all connected to each other by phones, tablets and computers, the modern office could be a cubicle or a spare bedroom in your home. Statistics show that nearly 9-million people are working from home. The likelihood of that number continuing to climb is high, as millennials and younger generations enter the workforce. That means co-learning skills are paramount to this generation of learners, as well as the next ones.

“Hands-on, project based learning teaches students to manage their time, work in a group with other people and build off of the ideas and work of others to create a final product,” said Propel Charter School high school teacher Mayada Christiansen. “Students in the class learn to compromise, learn to hear others’ opinions and see the value in others’ perspectives. Those team-oriented skills are priceless in the workforce and very important to develop.”

Simply wanting to stay at home in sweatpants is not going to work out. The misconception about working from home is that it is easy with little to no supervision. This could not be further from the truth. Soft skills need to be sharper than ever so that ideas and concepts can be translated from one person to another through emails, texts or phone calls. If anything, being apart adds another layer of difficulty to the work.

So how can you transition from traditional learning more of a co-learning approach? Here are a few tips to alter your educational offering for the better:

• It’s time to close the factory. Yes, those “factory style” classroom setups have been around for a while. So were rotary phones, but we all moved on. Let’s do the same with a classroom layout of rows of desks staring at the teacher. Instead, try using either round or square desks with the chairs situated around them. This will allow your learners to face each other while they are listening or talking to the group.

• It’s OK to talk in class. Sure, you don’t want your classroom to turn into a cacophony of noise, but silence can be just as detrimental to the co-learning process. Encourage your students to keep the ideas flowing and the conversation going. Don’t let them be afraid to put their ideas out there, even if they don’t seem like winners. Products like the Snuggie, Rubik’s Cube, Slinky and Pet Rock are just a few of the many examples of ideas that could easily have been shot down by negative attitudes.

• Get your hands dirty. Foster collaboration with a project or challenge that is nuanced and layered. Some of the challenges in the Inventionland® Education’s Innovation Course include a pipe cleaner or sticky note challenge in which the team must build the tallest structure possible. This requires group brainstorming and collaboration during the construction to ensure each member of the team is engaged throughout and practicing productive co-learning.

• Be a collaborator, too. Practice what you preach and get other departments involved in the fun. Let’s say you are teaching a lesson about ancient aqueducts in your history class. Collaborate with the art teacher to have your students actually build one of these aqueducts based off of the knowledge that you gave them. Incorporate the math teacher to see what kind of an angle it will take to get the water moving quickly, but not out of control. This will set an example for your students that co-learning is a lifelong commitment.

As much as we’d like everything to be perfect, the fact of the matter is things don’t always work out as planned. You may have some students who want do just enough to get by and then carried the rest of the way by the more ambitious ones. Co-learning can be counter productive at this stage.

“Something that causes me concern, however, are the students who come into class and are discouraged by the fact that they are responsible for their own learning,” said Laura Wells. “I’ve had some otherwise gifted students who don’t want to put in the effort required to get started in this course. They would rather be in classes where content is set by teachers and they complete those specified concrete tasks.”

Ownership can be a tricky thing. The proposition of taking control of what you learn can be a daunting challenge to a student. After all, they have probably spent most of their education being given more concrete tasks.

Chances are, this is more of a “sticker shock” sort of reaction. Students could experience an immediate dust up of emotions that cause a panic. But once that dust settles, they can embark on the process of co-learning along with their friends and classmates. Doing it together within a group will let them know they aren’t alone. You will be amazed by what your students can achieve. Just let them do it.

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