Print PDF
Favorite
Email
Step 15Kids teaching themselves!
We ran a workshop on making electromagnets and motors at the MIT Museum last January, and were swamped with way more kids than we were expecting or had the staff for. On the spot, I came up with the following three rules, inspired by the need to reduce the pressure on our staff and encouraging kids to teach themselves.
If you don't know what to do you should....
1. First, look around and see if you can figure out what to do.
2. If you can't, look around, and either ask a friend or ask another person who looks like they know what they're doing.
3. And if you can't find anyone who looks like they can help, ask an expert (in this case, ask an adult.)
This was shockingly helpful. Lots of requests kids had were simple questions, often as easy "what materials do I need to start/next" -- which they could easily figure out by observing what was going on or asking another kid to help them. It redirected the various cries of "I'm confused: help!" from the person running the project to everyone present at the activity -- kids got into the swing of teaching other and things went really well. While it's often not what they're used to (the norm in most schools being stay quiet and wait for the teach to give instructions), kids take to this decentralized style of doing activities really quickly.
We also found it incredibly useful to put as much information about how to do things in the environment as possible. The electronics room became a significantly more awesome places on the day that I got fed up with teaching kids how to wire LEDs to switches, and made large posters diagramming these circuits in a kid-friendly way. In an ideal world I would have lots of documentation of different good projects lying around in the appropriate places where kids could stumble on them and get excited. A computer devoted to browsing Instructables.com wouldn't be a bad addition to an building space...
I'm going to end my instructable here. There's lots and lots more to say, and if anyone's got any questions, I'm happy to write more! There are more pieces about camp at nagle.blogs.thesprouts.org and www.partsandcrafts.org/blog and we will hopefully post instructables of cool camp projects as time goes on. Have fun, and good luck!
If you don't know what to do you should....
1. First, look around and see if you can figure out what to do.
2. If you can't, look around, and either ask a friend or ask another person who looks like they know what they're doing.
3. And if you can't find anyone who looks like they can help, ask an expert (in this case, ask an adult.)
This was shockingly helpful. Lots of requests kids had were simple questions, often as easy "what materials do I need to start/next" -- which they could easily figure out by observing what was going on or asking another kid to help them. It redirected the various cries of "I'm confused: help!" from the person running the project to everyone present at the activity -- kids got into the swing of teaching other and things went really well. While it's often not what they're used to (the norm in most schools being stay quiet and wait for the teach to give instructions), kids take to this decentralized style of doing activities really quickly.
We also found it incredibly useful to put as much information about how to do things in the environment as possible. The electronics room became a significantly more awesome places on the day that I got fed up with teaching kids how to wire LEDs to switches, and made large posters diagramming these circuits in a kid-friendly way. In an ideal world I would have lots of documentation of different good projects lying around in the appropriate places where kids could stumble on them and get excited. A computer devoted to browsing Instructables.com wouldn't be a bad addition to an building space...
I'm going to end my instructable here. There's lots and lots more to say, and if anyone's got any questions, I'm happy to write more! There are more pieces about camp at nagle.blogs.thesprouts.org and www.partsandcrafts.org/blog and we will hopefully post instructables of cool camp projects as time goes on. Have fun, and good luck!
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
2
comments
|
Add Comment
|
Sep 5, 2009. 10:17 PMdawdou
says:
We would like all ideas for starting a camp for kids. Thank you. Doug and Dawn Stnrddn@yahoo.com
Reply
Sep 5, 2009. 10:15 PMdawdou
says:
We need too talk. My wife and I are going to start a opportunities camp for kids and for others. I have a story to tell you about when I was 14 and what to start up a camp. Please contact me at stnrddn@yahoo.com or 503 391-4649 PO Box 1184 Aumsville,Or 97325 Thank you, Doug and Dawn Stenerodden
Reply
 |
Add Comment
|
