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Voices from the Classroom gives educators—be
it high school teachers, college professors, undergraduate
or graduate engineering students—a chance to relate
their first–hand experiences bringing engineering
into K-12 classrooms.
We would love to hear about your experiences from the
classroom in any type of medium! If you have pictures,
anecdotes, video, or even academic presentations that
relate what the K-12 engineering education experience
has been like for you, please email outreach@asee.org.
“The Joy of Learning”
by Luke Simmons
I am very fortunate, for I have had several truly positive
people to look up to in my life. To their credit, I
attribute much of my success to these mentors. However,
since September 2004, the shoe has been on the other
foot. For the first time ever, I am carrying a new label
with me. If you check the inside collar of my button-up
shirts, you will find the words “50% Role Model”
printed in place of the cotton equivalent. Even though
I am now respectfully known by my students as “Mr.
Luke, The Teacher,” I’d really prefer to
be called “Mr. Luke, The Learner.”
It’s true: the sixth grade students at Angevine
Middle School in Lafayette, CO, have taught me a thing
or two in the past seven months. No, they were not able
to help me calculate the required propellant mass to
reach the International Space Station for one of my
graduate classes; they have shown me something far more
profound: the joy of learning. To see their eyes widen
as they split water into its elemental gases with nothing
more than a lead pencil and a battery was very rewarding.
“Look! We see bubbles,” they said with obvious
astonishment. Then, they moved on to figuring out why
the bubbles on one pencil tip were larger and more abundant
than on the other. Their continual enthusiasm for learning
is catching.
On another day, in a separate warm-up demonstration,
I cleverly (and carefully!) dropped a strip of magnesium
into hydrochloric acid. Their oohs and ahs couldn’t
help but make me smile. Much to my delight, they correctly
explained how the chemical reaction relates to the law
of conservation of mass and subsequently classified
it as exothermic. One student, who was having a hard
time seeing the hydrogen gas escaping from the beaker,
asked, “What would happen if you put food coloring
in the acid? Would the gas become that color?” I was nearly floored by the question, and I could not
wait to try it. As an engineer, I became excited with
the anticipation of trying this new experiment with
the students. I had my own prediction but held off on
sharing it, of course, so that the students could experience
it for themselves. I could tell that the class was stirring
in anticipation. Yes, this is what science and engineering
are all about.
These students have reminded me what it is like to have
the passion for learning. I’m lucky enough to
relive the experience again through their eyes. Why
do some of us lose our enthusiasm and excitement to
be educated? Are we too stressed out from life’s
daily grind? Do we need to see dollar signs before we
feel the oohs and ahs? I take a refreshing breath after
sixth grade science each week and ponder these questions.
Why? Please, call me Mr. Luke, The Learner.
By Natalie Mach, GK-12 Fellow
University of Colorado at Boulder
“Oh my GOD!” “Really?” and
“No Way!” These are the phrases that I live
for as a GK-12 Fellow. They are code speak in middle
school for: “I am thinking” or “I
understand what you are saying.” I no longer listen
for — or even expect to hear — such affirmative
words from middle school students; instead, I look past
their “deer caught in headlights” stares,
realizing that the blank looks are simply a standard
defense mechanism in their social world. But then again,
I have it easier than their full-time educators because
I am the “fun engineering teacher” from
the University of Colorado at Boulder’s TEAMS
(Teaching Engineering to Advance Math and Science) Program
— bringing in bags full of marshmallows and rainbow
pipe cleaners, masking tape, straws and balls of clay
and oftentimes leaving a unique odor of vinegar or some
other substance behind me. It is said that smell is
the most powerful memory trigger, so I’m hopeful
that whenever Mr. Fernandez’ students smell vinegar,
they will remember our engineering projects and recall
how mass can neither be created nor destroyed.
When I teach, I break the students into small groups,
intentionally mixing up the usual partners — in
spite of their superficial groans and shrugs. In these
small groups, we design, build, experiment and melt
away some of the pre-teen pretenses about school, and
I realize that this age group really is curious and
wants to learn. As team design discussions heat up and
the noise level in the classroom increases, I understand
how valid the argument is for smaller student teacher
ratios. So much so that I must acknowledge my partner
teachers’ effective facilitation of an environment
where there can be more than one educator in a classroom,
allowing me to be a part of these students’ lives
and help increase the personal attention that each student
receives. After a whirlwind of colored papers, markers,
scissors, rulers and calculators are shuffled to their
respective bins and drawers, I prepare to leave the
school and find myself reflecting on my day: while I
entered the classroom with an ego recently crushed by
a 100 lb differential equation in my Day Lighting class,
I am positively uplifted by the students’ pleas
for me to stay and teach some more. I would like to
think they enjoyed my engineering lesson and appreciate
being able to visualize the concepts previously discussed
only in text books, but maybe it is really only because
of Mr. Fernandez’ final instruction of the day:
“It’s time to start your two-column notes.”
Am I making a difference? I think so.
Microeconomics in the 7th- 8th grade?
By Jeff Lyng
GK-12 Fellow
ITLL
University of Colorado at Boulder
Nearly everything costs money. Every day I pay to ride
the bus, pay to park my car (if I drive to work), pay
for a cup of coffee, and pay to print my homework assignments.
After years of trying to prove otherwise, I’ve
come to accept the simple fact that there truly is no
such thing as a free lunch. As an engineering graduate
student and environmentalist, I have tried to tailor
my lifestyle to be as resource conscious as possible.
I realize that the understanding of monetary value
vs. want vs. need is an evolving, natural progression
that students go through, usually sometime in high school
(perhaps as they begin to pay for their own gasoline
upon receiving their driver’s license or eat lunch
out with friends). Last fall, when I began teaching
alongside Nathan Bala in his Applied Technology class,
I observed a shocking amount of reckless waste on the
part of the students.
For example, I once handed a sheet of poster board,
to a student to begin construction of his Air Racer
project after a week of intense schematic design and
revisions. Although I should not have been surprised,
I was when the same student complained not more than
five minutes later that he had run out of poster board
and needed another sheet. Upon closer inspection, I
saw that he had cut a perfect circle out of the center
of the poster board rendering the remainder of it virtually
useless for the balance of his Air Racer chassis. Unfortunately,
it doesn’t stop there: glue sticks are left to
ooze through hot glue guns that remain plugged in, but
are not being used; tools and other allegedly replaceable
hardware is abused; and paper is consumed at an alarming
rate, just to name a few sources of irresponsible waste.
Teacher Nathan Bala has developed a brilliant solution
to this ubiquitous problem: everything has a price!
Now, as in the real world, all project supplies and
materials in Bala’s technology classes costs money
— even paper. The laborious task of printing,
laminating and cutting up hundreds of dollars worth
of fake money has paid back in spades.
It works like this: at the beginning of the term, students
are divided up into groups of 3-4. These are the groups
in which students will work with for the duration of
a given project — through the initial brainstorm,
schematic design, prototype development, testing and
finally, construction (e.g., Air Racers, Maglev trains,
Rube Goldberg machines). Initially, each group is given
$250 of seed money. Students try diligently to make
as much money as possible for their group and to spend
as little as possible.
There are several ways that students can earn additional
money for their projects: answer questions in class,
cleanup after another group, or become a class consultant.
A consultant is someone that Nathan or I have determined
is particularly adept at a certain task and who is authorized
to assist other students in exchange for a predetermined
fee. In turn, if groups feel that the consultant did
not deliver, groups who hire a consultant have the right
to file a mock lawsuit to recover as much as 100% of
the consultant’s fee.
There are two ways that groups can spend money. First,
students may spend in the traditional sense: if a group
requires 10 craft sticks, for example, to complete their
project, then I collect $20 from the team fund (yes,
the going rate for wooden craft sticks really is $2/each).
All items have a fixed fee associated with them. The
second way in which groups spend money is by engaging
in classroom rule infractions. At the beginning of the
term, Mr. Bala goes over the classroom expectations
with his students and the monetary cost that is incurred
for committing a violation against those expectations.
For example, the unsafe use of a utility knife will
cost a student (and therefore, their group) a $100 fine.
The peer-pressure that exists among groups to abide
by the classroom rules prevents most students from making
the same mistake twice.
Throughout their projects, students quickly learn that
the more money their group has accrued assures a greater
probability for project success. And, as is true in
actual engineering, design constraints are very real
— including financial limitations. In essence,
a greater bank account means more flexibility in being
able to try new project approaches.
Since the implementation of class microeconomics, Nathan
Bala’s students have taken a 180 degree turn in
the way in which they respect and utilize the resources
given to them. They have truly learned the value of
a dollar — a skill I’m confident they will
carry with them well into adulthood.
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