Make a Toy Boat From Recycled Materials

This is a module I designed for a Hong Kong primary school that want to implement learning by doing into their General Study curriculum. The topic this time is electricity and energy.

Lesson Objective:

• Let students to trail and error, learn from mistakes
• Let the kids to explore and construct their own knowledge
• Integrate learning by doing with school curriculum

In this instructables, I will show you how did I design and run the learning by doing lesson at a classroom setting.

You can find the detailed lesson plan here. The plan is written in Chinese. The materials and tools needed are also included.

For the space setup, I put the pool in the centre of the room. This is because I want every kids can test their boat more easily during the building sessions. I encouraged them to test their boat earlier and more frequently, instead of spending all time building and only find the problem at the very last minute. This also reinforce the message of "Learn from mistakes" that I want to tell the kids.

This serves the purpose of align objectives and expectations. For the first time to run learning by doing lesson, it is easy for teachers to fall into the habit of teaching and talking too much. So it is recommended to remind the teachers to keep their hands off, instead they will observe how students learn and ask students questions. Another pitfall school teacher may fall into is expecting the students finish their work at the end of lesson, half done work is an evidence of he/she not being a good teacher. This is not the case! Actually what does matter is the lessons that students learnt from their mistakes.

1. Inspiration hunting

This is the only input I gave to my students. I printed out 13 pictures about sailing and boats and hide them in classroom and corridor. The students will then have a chance to go outside the classroom to search for "treasures". After they returned to classroom, students share what they found, what surprises them etc.

2. List out challenge groups

I discussed how should we test and measure their boats together. This is also a good practice for students to learn how to set rules and fairness.

Me: "Let's test our boats in 3 ways. What challenge groups should we have?"

Students: "Speed!" "Stability!" "Creative!" "See how much weight the boat can hold!"

Me: "That's cool! So how can we measure which boat is the fastest/ is the most stable etc.?"

3. Form teams and set team goal

Students form a team of 1-3 persons, they practice setting goal for themselves. So the design of the boat need to follow the goal.

Example of questions:

• What is the aim of your team? You want to make a boat run fast, stable or creative?
• How do you power your boat?
• What materials are best suit for your purpose?
• (watching kids testing their boat) Oh wow, you made a nice propeller from a soda can. Um...but why it makes the boat spin? How can you improve your boat to make it move forward?
• (a student approach me to ask why her motor cannot rotate) What do you think is the possible reason? (if he/she still cannot answer, guide them to breakdown the problem into small chucks) What parts are involved in this circuit? Can you test each part to find out which one goes wrong?

One Thumb rule: do not TELL your kids what to improve and how to solve the problem, instead you ASK them back "What", "How" and "Why".

I take note on what I observed during the building sessions, for example how kids struggle to make their boat move forward with their diy fin, how they tackle problems and common challenges etc. Just one rule, be specific. I found that it helps if I can give example from a specific group and summarise their problems, the kids will be paying more attention.

To guide the kids be more mindful about their own making and iterative process, I asked the kids to write their testing results and how they improve on the whiteboard.

The challenge begins!

The kids gathered around to watch the game and cheered for their classmates. They were excited to see their own boat sailing in the pool! In fact, there is no winner in this challenge and there are no prizes. It is important that the students learn from each other and appreciate each other, and each boat is unique! The classmates summed up today's feelings: "Excited!", "Happy! Meet your hard work," "Satisfied!", "Disappointed! Despite success or failure, it is still a breakthrough for them! Challenge yourself is a kind of success!

Visualise the Design/Engineering process with the students. To do this, I ask "What did you do in the first place during the building session?" students answer can be "I explore the materials." "We went out to search for pictures about boats and sailing!" I put these down on whiteboard and summarise it as "imagine". Then, move on to the next step such as plan, or create ... Usually the kids can tell the process, what i do is just visualise the design process and remind them they can apply the same model to solve problems in their daily lives.

Another time I did, I invited students to share their feeling right after the boat challenge. With the excitement brought from the challenge, the kids are more willing to open their heart. To my surprise, there are more students able to tell how did they feel and some of them even said "I am satisfied because I got chances to test out my own idea!" This is exactly what I want to achieve in this class.

I ran this lessons 4 times for 4 different group of P5,6 students. So it allows me to do reflections and tried different ways to deliver the lesson.

Reflections:

Before the lesson - gave briefing to the teachers and facilitators does help strengthening the messages we want to communicate. Also, it is better to get them make their own boat once and test run the lesson once. It helps me spot out what materials are missing and how should I make some fine adjustment to the lesson plan.

During the lesson - In my first class, I didn't control the building time tight, so students spent quite a long time on building but didn't do testing a lot. This leads to overrun 15 min. Therefore, in my second class, I changed my plan. I asked the kids to get their boat test on water within the first 30 min of the building session. This 30 min is also a time marker for "Stop and reflect". I picked out 2 - 3 boats that is worth to discuss and invite the kids to make some suggestions and comment on the boat. For example, I chose a sailboat with a centreboard and another without a centreboard. We observed and compare how straight and stable these two boats can make. The kids learnt from each other and then went back to improve their boats.