If you’re a STEM educator reading this, welcome and thank you! From working with STEM teachers all over the world, we’ve had the chance to hear the challenges science teachers face as they try to make a classroom out of a Zoom room. And there are plenty of challenges. One of the biggest? Many students are disinterested. No surprise there. Remote learning is hard. Burn out comes quick, and it’s harder for you to be there to intervene.
The best solution we’ve discovered?
Let the kids make stuff that excites them. In other words, interest-driven, project-based learning. Easier said than done when you’re confronted with the logistics of a regular school day, let alone an online school day. But the research shows that kind of learning is worth doing. It can lead to huge leaps in new STEM topic interests, and new STEM careers. FUSE is a research program, and an elementary and secondary STEM curriculum out of Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy.
We’ve been researching interest-driven, project-based STEM for the better part of a decade, and we get a ton of data and insights from the 200-plus schools using FUSE. You can learn more about FUSE at our website, but we think the insights we get from the data are valuable to anyone in the STEM education world. That’s why we’ve distilled some of the best actionable steps we’ve seen in FUSE for you, to help bring the interest and drive back to your kids’ online learning.
Five Moves to Make Project-Based STEM Work Online
1. Have them find a tool and make something cool
Ask kids to go forth and find a free online tool they can use to make something that excites them, be it music, video, a building plan-whatever! The internet is chalk full of free, browser-based tools to make your dreams a reality. In FUSE, we steer kids towards them all the time. SketchUp, SculptGL, ClipChamp-heck, we could (and probably will) do a whole article on all the great free tools out there.But don’t just ask them to make any old thing. Ask them to make something that they’re interested in. A good jumping off point is asking them to pick something they love and make their version. As long as it’s something they’re jazzed about.
Why do this? Well, when students are working on something they are interested in,they have an intrinsic stake in the quality of their learning. You don’t have to convince a kid who loves making music that it’s important to know how to add low notes. If they think it will improve the song they’re excited about, they’ll be all about that bass.So, if you’re worried about engagement and persistence, letting the kids work on something they already love, while learning a new STEM tool is a great start!
2. Don’t answer any questions
If kids are using software from all over, that’s going to be a lot of questions they have for you. How do you answer all of those questions? You don’t. Don’t worry, we’re not talking about letting your students sink or swim, or be raised by wolves. What we’re suggesting is that rather than giving someone an answer, help them get good at finding where answers lie. In the real-world answers lie, not with a teacher, but with peers, within documentation, or with those community minded heroes who make YouTube tutorials. Getting your kids good at looking for answersbeyond the teacher is going to go miles towards building their independence.How do you do this? Well, it takes practice, and to see the results you have to do it consistently, but when a kid says they’re stuck, ask them what they’ve googled to help solve the problem, or which of their peers they’ve asked. You could even suggest people or places they might refer to. The only thing that’s off the table? Just getting the answer from the teacher.
3. Make it cool to fail
In FUSE, we constantly tell teachers to remind students that “failure is just another try.”What we mean is that if you want to cultivate a classroom where students learn by making improvements on failures, then you first have to make it normal (even cool) to fail.We see some FUSE teachersmake trophy cases out of failed projects. In the age of remote learning, you might ask your students to submit their best STEM bloopers for a slideshow each week. If you keep pushing the fact that failing is part of the process, kids will be clamoring to get their catastrophes into your slideshow.
4.Keep track of interests and experts
Something we here at FUSE talk about all the time is the idea of “relative experts.” Maybe you have a kid who loves building architectural models in SketchUp and is the best in the class at it. That means when someone else needs help, they’re a great person to turn to.Directing kids to their peers is a great way to help them get used to finding answers outside of the teacher, and it gives that expert a chance to shine!In the same way, you can keep track of who is interested in what. That way, when someone is at a loss for a project, you can suggest a person or group to collaborate with.
5. Let kids choose how to show what they’ve done
Some kids love the limelight. They’d talk about their work on a jumbotron if they could. Others, not so much. That’s why we suggest letting kids pick how to show you and their classmates what they’ve done. Maybe that’s a screenshare, maybe it’s a recording, maybe it’s a slideshow, audio log, or a journal. Every way of communicating is valid, and if kids get to pick one they’re comfortable with, then they’ll probably be excited to show off what they’ve done.
So, to fit it all together, take advantage of the great free browser-based software that’s out there by inviting your students to make something they care about. Don’t worry about being an expert in any of the software your students are using. Instead, turn their questions into opportunities to learn how to find answers in the real world. Encourage transparency and iteration by normalizing failure. Encourage skill sharing and collaboration by tracking who is interested in what, and who is excelling at what. Finally give your kids a choice in how they share what they’ve created.
Remote learning is tough.
But we do have unprecedented access to the kinds of tools STEM professionals use to build things that they’re passionate about. Your kids have the same passion, and with a little clever facilitation from you, they can learn the skills and tools to make their passions into projects!If you’d like to learn more about FUSE, and our research-based approach to STEM education, check out our website, or drop us an email at hello@fusestudio.net!