Getting Started with

Tinkering & MakingA presentation deck for training educators on the Project MASH approach to Tinkering & Making, from The Exploratory.90-minute version

Understand What Tinkering and Making Is.

Experience A Tinker.Make.Innovate. Activity

Discuss how you can incorporate Tinkering and Making into the classroom

Today’s explorations

What is tinkering?

Tinkering is to engage with materials, tools and ideas to construct knowledge of their possibilities.

Tinkering is open-ended and encourages self-motivated engagement in learning

What is making?

Making is learning by DOING. Making develops the capacity for innovative problem solving by engaging students in hands on and creative skill building projects that incorporate science, technology, engineering, art, and math subjects.

Making is social. Making provides opportunity to collaborate and develop effective communication skills.

Making develops a growth mindset that demonstrates how grit, flexible thinking, perspective-taking, perseverance and embracing failure leads to achievement and success.

Learning environments that are rich in tinkering and making require students to develop the dispositions of designers and innovators and build in them the confidence and competence to solve real world problems.

Tinker.Make.Innovate. is a three-step process developed by The Exploratory that combines tinkering, making and design thinking to provide students the opportunity to build the skills they need to propose and devise innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Tinker Phase: Developing Engagement

Make Phase: Building Skills and Knowledge

Innovate Phase: Demonstrate skills and knowledge by inventing a solution to a problem

TIME 10 MinutesGOAL Assess what you know about electricity and circuitry

and what you want to know about electricity and circuitry.

During this activity, you will construct your own knowledge of how electricity and circuitry work by playing with Squishy Circuits and Circuit Blocks.

TINKER: Spy vs Spy

MAKE: Circuits Blocks/Squishy Circuits

TIME 30 MinutesGOAL Construct a fundamental understanding of

simple circuits and parallel circuits

PROVOCATION What kind of animal could you make that could be a fun spy character. Use Squishy Circuits to add 2 LED lights and maybe a buzzer.

TIME 10 MinutesGOAL Share Ideas, Get Ideas, Get Support, Give

Support

During the plussing session, you will come together as the whole group to:

Share your experience with the circuit blocks and the squishy circuits.

Share what worked and what didn’t work.

What you would do differently next time?

Ask questions of other participants.

PLUSSING SESSION: Circuit Blocks/Squishy Circuits

Reflection Activity

What other provocations might you use for the squishy circuit activity?

How else might you use the squishy circuit activity in different subjects/topics?

Common Core and NGSS

TIME 10 Minutes

What connections do you see between tinkering and making and the skills identified in the Common Core standards?

Which Next Generation Science Standard could you see fulfilled by the circuit blocks and squishy circuits?

Tinkering and making offer an approach to teaching and learning that is at the heart of Project MASH, a social network for educators, students, and the organizations that serve them. Visit www.projectmash.org for student activities and projects from The Exploratory and others that rely on these and other unique teaching strategies.