What is a student centered classroom?

What is a student centered classroom?

A student centered classroom is one that is based around the students' needs, not the teacher's. A teacher's curriculum and planning for class should represent what the student wants to learn/needs to learn, not what the teacher has to teach. A teacher can come up with a prompt, or challenge, for the students, but it must be the students that solve the problem, not the teacher telling them how to. In the Maker program, Dr.MC gives us challenges, and we find solutions for them. When Dr.MC told us to build a rover out of LittleBits, she didn't tell us how to do it, she just gave us the challenge. It was up to us, the Makers, on how we wanted to go about doing it. In a classroom, if a group of students were weak in one topic, say, probability, but the teacher only taught geometry, the students' needs would not be met. Instead, the teacher should alter his/her lesson plan to include probability. In a student centered classroom, the student not only enjoys the class, but most importantly, they learn the most.

After the 1st Trip to Millstone!

Collaborating with the elementary school students. 

Today, we traveled to Millstone River Elementary, the 4th-5th grade school nearby Community.  We had 1 goal in mind: Teach the MAGIC kids about littleBits.
MAGIC is the elementary school equivalent of PRISM, and as we stared back at the sea of 4th grade faces, we knew awesomeness was in store.

Working through littleBit challenges.

It started with chaos.  We were all rushing around in different directions, trying to do stuff.  Sundhar and I were kinda competing for chances to talk.  It was not exactly the way we wanted to start.
But eventually, we got through all that stuff, and started showing the kids how the Bits worked.
"They fit together with magnets, so you can't put them together wrong, and, like, electrocute yourself."
"Green bits do something.  They might glow, or spin, or annoy eighth graders..."
 "Who knows what THIS thingummybob is?" (points to a battery)
Yeah.  It was pretty crazy.
After that, we turned the 4th graders loose to experiment on their own.  We challenged them to make thing that moved, glowed, and made sound.
Now we heard them start really getting into the "maker" mindset.
"Hey, I wonder what happens if I flip that switch?"
"Check this out!"
"Hey, how'd you do that?"
"I wonder how that works..."
And then, I heard the best one of all.
"Hey 6th graders!  This is AWESOME!"
Yes.
It was.

How Bits Work (The basics)

How do bits work, really?  I mean, it isn't like the buzzers will just magically beep and the LEDs just magically glow.  So this is what I learned about what makes the littleBits work the way they do.
Everything starts with energy.  No, this isn't some crazy acupuncture lesson, it's just science.
There are multiple forms of energy, such as electric, heat, sound, nuclear (which doesn't really apply to the LittleBits), and more.
The battery stores the electric energy, which is transferred to the blue module.
When you attach a green module, that electric energy is turned into different kinds of energy.  If you attach a buzzer, it will turn into sound energy.  If you attach an LED, it turns into light energy, and et cetera.
Now on to pink mods.  Say you have a switch.  When it's switched to "off," the circuit is interrupted because the wire inside isn't connected.  When it's switched to "on," it connects and the green mod does whatever it's going to do.


Some Bit Pics:

Pre-Washington Thoughts and Realizations

A month ago, Dr. MC told us that we were going to Washington DC to present to many people and meet congressmen and senators, we didn't know what to think, or how to react. Now, a little more than one week until the day we leave for DC, I finally know what to think, and what I realized in the past month about organizing a presentation working with a team.

Organizing a Presentation

Organizing a presentation is no easy task. The hardest part, in our case, is getting our LittleBit rover ready for presenting. The rover has gone through many prototypes, but every day, a new problem seems to pop up. Be it the wiring, batteries, or treads, there is always something that goes wrong. As a Maker Ambassador, I have learned to deal with problems as they arise, and if I can't solve them, I work around them. If I can't find a pair of small treads for the rover, but have a lot of large treads, I alter the rover's wheels so they fit in large treads instead. Of course, these are only problems with the "prop". Preparing for questions people may ask is another hard part. My fellow Makers and I must be ready to answer any question. This means we have to know exactly how the LittleBits and our rover works. However, as much as we plan, we all know, deep down, that there will always be that one technical glitch, or that one question, that will stump us. When that happens, we will only be able to improvise, and come up with our best answer, or solution to the problem.

Working With a Team

Working with a team is no easy thing, but working with a group of eccentric and quirky Makers is even more of a challenge. At first, our largest problem was communication. I would come upstairs to work on the rover, only to find that it was disassembled. Then, I would have to waste twenty grueling minutes rebuilding the parts of the rover that were completed yesterday. Also, sometimes a team isn't focused. It's good to fan out and each work on a different part of the presentation, but eventually, a team needs to come back together and fit together the different "pieces" or parts they are working on, into a final presentation. We as Makers divide up our jobs, but we are inclined to completely ignore what another group is working on. In other words, working together is not easy. The most valuable lesson that I learned from this experience is that you can't always get people to do what you want to complete. Instead, you have to work with them, and compromise.

Being part of Makers this year in PRISM has taught me many important life lessons, and valuable skills that I will use for the rest of my life.

How the Maker Movement Connects Students to Engineering and Technology

Student Voice Matters

Student voice is a concept that's very important, especially in classrooms.  In many conventional classrooms, the teacher is supposed to teach and the students are supposed to listen. Not so with PRISM.  In PRISM, our voice matters, and our opinions are considered vital.  And according to researchers, this has a very beneficial effect on learning.
For example, studies have found that students being able to express themselves freely is extremely helpful in improving student-teacher relationships and helping kids really dive deeper with topics and look at how they connect to their own life.
Another benefit is that sometimes teachers might even be able to learn something from the kids, and understand their perspective to find out how learning could be made better for them.
At PRISM, we understand these benefits and use them in our projects.  For example, this very blog post you're reading right now is an example of student voice.  We get to share our opinions and views with the world.
We also use the website Edmodo to share resources, cool insights, and ideas with each other. 
Plus, in PRISM, we get to make the rules, and are treated like equals, and valuable team members.  We get to plan, build, and share, all on our own.
In short, at the PRISM room, we're not supposed to conform, be seen and not heard, never question people, and never let our opinions be heard.  
We're expected to explore.
We're expected to redefine.
To discuss.
To argue.
To design.
To question.
To dream.
To think and build and present and write, discover, test, go our own direction, let our voices be heard, share our opinions, and, in short, be #makers!

Have Persistence

What is the most important thing to have if you want to be successful?
Talent?
No.
Education?
Never a bad idea, but no.
Money?
No.
Technology and resources?
Still no.
No, the key to success has been around for almost forever.  The key to success is grit, perseverance, and the ability to keep going when everyone else has stopped.
It's the thing that allows you to bounce back from failure.
The thing that allows you to keep trying no matter how hard things get.
It's the thing that allows you to work harder than anyone else and create something that will change the world.
Grit is sooooo underrated.
The effects of persistence weren't really formally studied until Angela Duckworth entered the stage.  Angela Duckworth was one of the first psychologists to study perseverence's effect on kids, and her work leaves a lasting influence.  It has been found to be more important that IQ, and the reason there are so many promising kids who fizzle out later on.
At PRISM, we try to emphasize grit, so along with learning about circuits, programming, and technology, we also learn how to keep our head up in failure.
For example, in late January-early February, we were working on our rover.  It was for multi-terrain use, but we kept encountering setback after setback.  The baseboards didn't work. The wheels always turned to the right.  The controls were seriously limited.  The materials were occasionally falling apart in our hands.  You name the problem, I assure you, we had to deal with it.  But we kept trying, kept improving and testing and redesigning and... persisting, and in the end, we got a rover, a rover we would have never had if we had quit, and with that, an experience that would last us forever.  
Meanwhile, another story of overcoming failure in the PRISM room was not from Makers, but from the Scenario kids.  We had all worked harder than we ever thought we could on our stories, but in the end, there could only be one winner. (Congrats, Stella, btw.)  We could have just curled up into a ball and sobbed our eyes out (Which I'll admit, we did do for a little while,) but we managed to get back up on our feet again, and we're ready to blow away the competition next year.
All in all, PRISM has taught us how to think, and how to never give up.  Not only did we learn how to use Arduino and other cool gizmos, we learned how to keep going, and this is a skill that will stay with us, even when the technology becomes a thing of the past.