helgoe engineering conference 2008(2)
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Feedback from Teachers: Hands-on Materials for STEM
LEGO Engineering ConferenceApril 4, 2008
Cathy Helgoe
Senior Project ManagerLEGO Education
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Context
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Questions
Extracted from dissertation research on policy, philosophy and choices of teaching practices in the context of increasing pressure on teachers for “accountability” in demonstrating progress on standardized tests.
• Why do teachers use hands-on materials?• What are they using?• How frequently do they use them?• What types of activities are students doing with
these materials?
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Background
• Survey of US teachers who have hands-on materials in their classroom, including LEGO science and robotics materials
• PreK-12 represented with middle school as the majority
• Public school teachers• Sample of 118 respondents
Are teachers using the materials more or less or the same amount since NCLB?
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Feedback from Teachers: Why?
Use of hands-on materials has increased.
• Hands-on materials are very important to instructional practice because…
• Students learn better.
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Feedback from Teachers: What learning do they see from students?
When using hands-on materials, students:• Refine and improve the quality of work• Cooperate with one another• Work harder• Show more initiative• Perform as “gifted” students even though
they are “average”• Have a welcome break from other types of
lessons
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Feedback from Teachers: What type of materials and how frequently?
Teachers do not limit themselves to one type of material.
For ten or more lessons, hands-on materials of these type were used:
• General problem solving materials(46% )• Mathematics sets (30%)• Non-computer games (26%)• Robotics sets (23%)• Life science sets (19%)
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Feedback from Teachers: What type of materials and how frequently?
In one or more lessons, these types of materials are used:
• Role play scenario materials (72%)• Free building (69%)• Simple machines (64%)• Motorized machines (51%)
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Feedback from Teachers: What type of activities are students doing?
• Experiments involving data collection (98%)
• Projects or competitions (96%)• Creating models to illustrate reports
(88%)• Demonstrations about a topic (80%)• Programming robots in their classwork
(53%)
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Feedback from Teachers: Influence on changing practices
• Experience with technology and hands-on materials is the most important factor affecting these teachers’ change of instructional practice.
• Professional development is another important influence on changing practices.
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Feedback from Teachers: Influence on changing beliefs
• These factors influence what teachers do in the classroom...and results also show indicated that these factors influenced changes in what teachers believe about how people learn.
• Teachers became more constructivist in their beliefs about how learning happens… that also influenced their use of hands-on materials.
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It’s not just what you use…
It becomes a question, therefore, of determining by which methods this social milieu that is school will achieve the best formative results, and if this formation will consist of a simple transmission of knowledge and of rules, or if it presupposes … relationships that are more complex between teacher and student and among the students themselves.
(Piaget, To Understand is to Invent, p. 55)