This entry is about the idea of not giving students “stuff” or directions to allow space in which they can innovate. Less direction or help is more. Don’t crowd the students out of their creativity and innovation.
On Friday, I told my students we would use wave tables to study Reflection, Refraction and Diffraction. Although the information is presented in text, many youtube videos and online, you need to pretend that you are the first ones to study this to maintain the hard work of brain growing. If no one has done this before, how can I give you a procedure? Tell me something about waves. They have 3 days to do what woud normally take only 1.
Day 1 is for assembling the table, playing, trying to figure out what supplies are needed and create a plan. Day 2 is to conduct the lab. Day 3 is wrap up, clean up and organize the wright up.
The really interesting day was today,…day 2. Some groups forgot protractors and rulers. They were surprised when I did not have supplies for them as backup. I am willing to let them fail small. There is some responsibility on their part. But it extends beyond a life lesson.
When their light did not work, I did not try to solve it. I sympathized and asked how they were going to fix it? “you mean you don’t have a back up?”
“Nope…I do not.” This is important. Rather than have a solution presented to them, they figured it out. They improvised a cell phone with LED light. The result was a doubling of the viewing surface, better clarity for data collection and most importantly, real satisfaction and pride in solving the problem on their own.
Another group asked about amplitude. “Can we measure amplitude?”-student
“Sure” and I started to walk away.
“No, how do we measure amplitude?”-student?
“I do not know and I have no machine”, while I was thinking of about three ways to do it.
About 15 minutes later a very excited student runs up and says,”We figured it out. You couldn’t and we did!!” he then explained their innovative solution. Although I could have told them earlier, and they would have had a procedure to collect data better, it would not have been theirs. They created, innovated and were excited.
Too often, we as teachers want to help, we want to find, and we want to provide..particularly if the students are excited. I wonder if we crowd the students too much and do not leave enough space for students to be creative and innovate. Of course the art of teaching is knowing when the space is too large and they quit.
