STEM and underestimating girls

We generally think of boys as needing to be hands on and out of their seat. They are our builders and tinkerers and if teachers would give them the chance to show their intelligence in a different way, then we would see what they are capable of. This year in my classes, it's the girls leading the charge. They regularly beat the boys in almost all categories when we do any design project. Additionally, it was the girls asking why we don't do more of "this stuff", not the boys. It was a group of girls competing at the regional science fair, it was a pair of girls that had the best wind turbine and was ultimately copied by most others, it was an entrepreneurial girl who sold her design plans to all the male dominated groups for a nice price, and it was two girls who split from their group to create a simpler and more efficient turbine than their former male group mates. Finally, they are proud of what they do. They don't fall victim to the ridiculous idea of "I don't want people to know I am smart." Not content with being the unsung heroes, they want to make sure everyone knows just who is leading the pack.

Proudly displayed front and center.

Student (as) Teachers

S1: "If I could teach SS it would be so much better. I can teach better than him."
Me: "Really? It's a little harder than it looks."
S1: "No, I can do it. I can make the class fun. He makes it boring. I can do so much better."

This conversation coupled with this post got the wheels turning on how we could make this work. Two weeks later we turned over our classrooms to the students. Each teacher chose from a number of applicants two students who were interested in teaching that class for the day. "The whole day? Like, every class? All four of them?" was a common string of questions when the idea was proposed. Yep. Every last one of them and all the work associated with it. There were some major positives to come out of it, and a couple of teachers had a big slice of humble pie served up over and over and over....and over. I think all the student teachers learned a little something about themselves ("Next time I have to be way nicer", "I was so exhausted I just went home and slept. That was hard." "I realized you have to give the students what they want. It's not just about MY plan."). And I learned that one of my activities makes me want to rip my eyeballs out, although the students in my group didn't seem nearly as bothered by it as I was.

However, my biggest concern is how students view our classes, and what the potential for those classes could be. I try hard to offer a variety of activities in class, yet only two of the submitted lessons were lab based. The others were book work, lecture, notes, and handouts. There is research that suggests that teachers teach the way they were taught. Through that lens, I can't blame them for the pretty generic lessons. 95% of their schooling has been exactly what they turned into me. But it's not what they want (or is it?) and certainly not what I want to see for an exemplary, once a year lesson.

In the Spirit of the Game

I am not sure how I feel about today's lesson. On one hand students found creative ways to accomplish the task. On the other hand, there was no elegance or artistry to their work. Even now I am surprised with myself at how disappointed I am. The assignment was to create a wind powered vehicle that would move forward. They had limited time and materials and I wanted all students to feel that they could definitely succeed at making it go forward at least a little bit. I thought this would encourage them to take risks and do something creative knowing that if they had an even half way descent design it would be move a little. Instead what I got was the opposite. Very little thought and a "what is the quickest way we can do this to meet the requirements" mentality. I am not sure if it's just the nature of the classes or if the word spread on "the easy way" to do it but by the end of the day all I had were balloons taped to straws with a piece of paper acting as a "wing". It was pathetic from an aesthetic standpoint and severely limited their chance of going the furthest. For me, rarely do I find myself just "doing enough" but really wanting to be first. They were looking for completion, I was looking for excellence. On a positive side, with the exception of 2-3 cases, there was lots of collaboration and discussion going on and everyone enjoyed themselves. Hopefully that will be the take away, but to be honest, I am seriously considering revising my windmill lesson for next week. If I have to create a 1 page list of requirements of do's and don'ts, it is not worth it to me. I need them to want to succeed, but do so with a little creativity.

A little bit of creativity. They ended up redoing the wheels after seeing the cardboard didn't work very well.

Getting ready at the starting line.

*12/10 update. We had our county spontaneous science competition which is more of an engineering competition but whatever, we had fun with it. AND WE ROCKED IT. I couldn't stay to the end but I did get to see the chair competition. They were given a months worth of newspapers, tape, poster paper, string, and a 12x12 carboard "seat". One school decided to stack all their papers together and wrap them in duct tape. Then the next school over came to the same conclusion. Then a third school which had previously been building something like a chair, tore it all down and stacked their paper together with minor modifications to get the height bonus points. I was so proud our team stuck to their plan and actually created something with a bit more creativity and engineering (and a whole lot less material) which ultimately won them the event!