EDET 677 Mech App Week 2 Blog

Week 2 Blog EDET 677: Mechanical Application

Essential question: What is the link between “tinkering”, “hard play”, and the “growth mindset”?

            Tinkering, hard play, and growth mindset are three parts to an overall picture of a potential classroom environment. Now how do the three fit together? Well let’s first look at what each means in the realm of education. Then I will attempt to connect the three into a meaningful thought that we can apply to our studies of mechanical application.

            Martinez and Stager explain that tinkering is “a playful way to approach and solve problems through direct experience, experimentation, and discovery.” (2013) Tinkering is where students experiment on how to create a product and can mess up or not get the product fully created the first time. Tinkering is done when you don’t quite know what to do but what you do is lead by your previous knowledge and curiosity. For example I have many friends who like to homebrew (who doesn’t in rural Alaska?). The friends who have the best homebrew and your not too worried on drinking their beer try different methods, ingredients, flavors, bottling techniques, etc. They have been doing this for years versus my one attempt on homebrew with some inexperienced friends is thrown out about every other bottle. We did not tinker around and therefore haven’t learned how to properly brew beer.

            My understanding of hard play is still developing but of what I can come up with follows. Students learn through play because it gives them a chance to practice what is being learned through playing. In play a child usually behaves above their average age and also creativity flows because wants and desires are becoming true and kids usually see how this can happen. Hard play is identifying this learning through play and providing these opportunities in classroom. Sometimes the play is more on a conceptual level but sometimes it is on a physical level.

            As explained by Popova, growth mindset “thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.” (2013) In contrast a fixed mindset is the idea that a person has only so much talent and ability. A student with a fixed mindset would say that they can’t do math or they can’t learn a language.

            All of the terms connect back to the way that many inventors, mathematicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, actors, etc. have learned, created, and been successful in the past and present. In the area of a makerspace, students and teachers need to have a growth mindset while coming up with ideas in hard play and then tinkering with these ideas. Tinkering will always have what some people think as failure because the product won’t be perfect the first time but if one has a growth mindset, then they know that this is not failure but a learning opportunity.

            Heggert gives some great ways on how to develop a growth mindset within the adults of the school and I think these are very applicable for students in the classrooms. To develop a growth mindset it is helpful to model by being a growing a student as a teacher, build time in the classroom to have self-reflection, and provide formative feedback to the students. (2017) If we begin in the classroom and school with a growth mindset, I believe everyone involved is more willing to use tinkering and hard play as a way to learn in the classroom.

Resources:

Heggert, K. (2017). Developing a Growth Mindset in Teachers and Staff. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/developing-growth-mindset-teachers-and-staff

Martinez, S. L., & Stager, G (2013). Invent to Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom. Torrence, CA: Construction Modern Knowledge Press.

Popova, M. (2014). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives. Brain Pickings. Retrieved from https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/