Hands-on activities can be fun, even inspiring, and they’re a great way to introduce people to different concepts and new ideas, first-hand. Getting people active and chatting with each other helps get the ideas flowing… sometimes in ways we’d never thought of before, and sometimes with people we hadn’t realised have so much in common with us!
It’s these kinds of cross-disciplinary experiences that can help teachers “[detach] themselves from their segregated [subject disciplines]” and “… experience the value of learning in an integrated… environment” (Wilhelm, Sherrod, & Walters, 2008, p. 222).
Interdisciplinarity, collaboration, hands-on learning – that’s the spirit of Make, Create, Innovate! We want to promote enthusiasm for sharing and learning across age groups and across subject disciplines.
Make, Create, Innovate: Getting Hands-on with Learning Design
Event Recap: September 10, 2019 Tuesdays in the Foyer
Sometimes getting hands-on means getting your hands dirty.
That’s exactly what Teacher Candidates were doing at the inaugural Make, Create, Innovate! activity session held on Tuesday, September 10, 2019.
Hosted by the Scarfe Sandbox, the opening session theme was appropriately about “planting a seed.” With help from UBC Education Librarian, Wendy Traas, teacher candidates learned how to fold a strip of newspaper into the shape of a pot. After adding a scoop of soil, they planted a small pea and became the proud parents of a future baby plant!
In fact, UBC has its own Seed Lending Library! Just as students can borrow books, they can also take out seeds and soil from the Seed Library. Visit the Seed Lending Library for yourself.
Teacher Candidates also enjoyed posing for photos in front of a green screen with Learning Design Manager, Yvonne Dawydiak, who was sharing how using a green screen can support storytelling and activate students’ creativity and imaginations. Using a mobile app (Green Screen by Do Ink. The actual green screen, itself, was a lightweight 8’x8’ fabric screen, which folds up easily for carrying and storage. Check out the Green Screen by Do Ink resource on the Scarfe Digital Sandbox for more info and options for green screening.
Finally, using an open source, on-line visual note board, Scrumblr, teacher candidates were able to co-create their understandings by sharing their thoughts and questions.
Participants’ real-time reflections, displayed on a nearby TV monitor, were there for all to see as an example of idea co-construction and question sharing using an open educational and FIPPA compliant technology (hosted in Canada as part of the OpenETC Project). Such applications can be used for gathering assessment info, publicly sharing feedback or promoting ‘all class response’ (vs. one at a time hands up).
Learn more about Scrumblr on the Scarfe Digital Sandbox.
Make, Create, Innovate sessions took place during the Fall 2019 in the foyer of the Neville B. Scarfe building and were hosted by Scott Robertson, a project assistant on a small TLEF grant with Dr. Lorrie Miller, Dr. Marina-Milner Bolotin and Yvonne Dawydiak, Teacher Education.
Post author: Scott Robertson; Editor: Y. Dawydiak
Reference:
Wilhelm, J., Sherrod, S., & Walters, K. (2008, March–April). Project-based learning environments: Challenging preservice teachers to act in the moment. The Journal of Educational Research, 101(4), 220–233.
