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Our Maker Missions don’t finish when the stories end... We prepared Maker Mission Cards for you to take into your classroom and challenge your students! Have fun!
In each Maker Mission kit, you will find a set of cards with some challenges. They were designed to help you go on your own journey. They are not like the usual teaching materials you may find out there. Some teachers may even expect an answer or a tutorial, but then everything would be just the same... And in the end, it would be so boring!
So, the idea here is to help you find YOUR own way to solve the challenges.
There are different possibilities, and you will only know which are the best if you test them properly. It’s a great opportunity to investigate, explore and find solutions. And you can also teach your students about trial and error in order to solve problems.
You know me, so of course, we can go deeper into each of the parts.
You know me, so of course, we can go deeper into each of the parts.
So, fasten your seatbelt, and let’s go!
So, fasten your seatbelt, and let’s go!
Observe + Question > Here, you slow down, observe, notice, and ask questions.
This first step in the card should be to take some time to look closely into the material the students are going to use. It’s time to motivate students to ask questions and discuss what they need to know to solve the challenge. Taking notes of things you observe is highly recommended.
It is not a long process, but it is essential. If you feel students are neglecting this step, they might not have understood its importance. In this case, help them slow down and take notes of what they see, what they think about it, and what they wonder about it.
Tinker + Discover > Here, we explore the parts, design plans, discuss ideas, and try new things.
Tinkering is the moment to explore different materials and different ways to solve the card’s main challenge. Let the students explore and discover, and never give them the answers right away. If they are to find which material makes a faster robot, let them test with all of them. Teach them how to take notes for later reference so they can keep track of their experiments.
However, be sure to set a time limit for this step, usually from 10 to no longer than 20 minutes. If it takes longer than that, students might not be collaborating (which slows down the process). If it takes less than 10 minutes, students are rushing their experimentation based on their previous knowledge. Ask them if they have evidence of their findings or if they’re just guessing.
Make + Learn > Here, we collaborate and make things together, learning in the process.
Making is supposed to be fun and engaging. The cards were written in a way that will give your students a main task/challenge. This is the moment to make it happen! It’s usually the longest part of a Maker Lesson, and it should take at least 20 minutes.
Students should work on the challenge purposefully. They need a clear plan and a shared vision regarding how the project is going to be. Writing down their plans, questions, hypotheses, and need-to-knows is a great way of Making Thinking Visible. This type of documentation is a wonderful tool to refer back to when we want to talk to students about what we have learned.
Make sure that all students are collaborating and help them engage with their team if they are not. This is not a free play moment; students are expected to use their observations, questions, and findings to guide them through this step.
Reflect + Remix > Here, we compare what we used to know and what we know, now to make it better.
Learning by playing is only meaningful if there’s reflection afterward. Students need time to understand if they were able to execute the task and assess if they have made the best choices throughout their project.
Through reflection, they will also find opportunities to remix their projects, improving them and tweaking some of the designs to achieve better results.
Ask them questions such as “How can it be more (beautiful, for example)...?” Also, check what they have learned. You can ask them to write statements such as “I used to think... Now I think...” to check if their hypothesis was correct or not. Remember to foster a safe learning environment and let students know that failure is also an important step in designing and making things. Whenever I ask my students to give feedback to each other, I use an amazing tool from Harvard called the Ladder of Feedback. You can check this out in my Maker Educator Toolbox.
Share > Here, we revisit our notes and share them with our community
Sharing is caring! But it is more than this. Honestly, it may be the first time students will carefully look at their project in order to deliver a product to the public.
They do not want to show something half done or that they consider “ugly”. This step will give them this extra motivation to show what they have worked so hard to produce. It gives them a sense of the importance of the task. Also, it is the perfect opportunity for you to observe their language output and how much they have learned through the process.
Asking them to make videos, draw, sketch, write a paragraph or even make a short presentation to an authentic audience are some ways to wrap up the project.
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