(2012-10-24) Kaun The Benefits Of Ill-structured Problem Solving Through Making

Karen Kaun: The Benefits of Ill-Structured Problem Solving Through Making. Maker Kids engages students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) through actively engaging them in their own learning through creation

elementary school

The design processes involved in making are iterative, messy and flexible and often involve ill-structured, problem solving to achieve a goal

This kind of problem solving makes learning more lasting and helps students to transfer what they learn in the classroom to real-world situations

One of our Maker Kids activities includes making propeller racers

How do children learn from making through ill-structured problems? For one thing, they tend to argue about the best design solutions and this is a building block of content-knowledge acquisition

Collaborative debate helps students support their hypothesis. (argumentation)

many of our fourth grade students were challenged to build a battery from a special conductive and insulator play dough, copper wires and nails and to complete a circuit with the dough

Students worked in groups and videotaped each other, over several days, explaining how they were building the battery. A goal of the videotaping was to create an informative “how to build a squishy battery video” that could be posted on the Maker Kids web site

Brianna, who is listening to the exchange and has also made batteries from conductive squishy dough, challenges Sheila by quickly adding, “or test it with a volt meter” knowing that they may only need to increase the number of energy cells in the battery to get it to work. Sheila realizes this is a good strategy.