Setting Context
In Setting Context you (a) begin to build a community of educators, (b) reflect on failure moments as adults, and (c) discuss personal/professional associations with failure.
Building Community
Engage: Take a walk around the museum. Video record a short clip highlighting your favorite place to play in the museum, and explain why. Share your video clip with your group of educators.
Reflect and Discuss: (1) What connections did you notice around shared experiences, similar emotions, and/or locations in the museum? (2) How did you feel sharing a short video clip with another individual?
Additional activities to engage in community building:
Individual definitions of failure
Experiencing Failure
Engage: Design your own grabber and see what you can reach. Watch the video below to learn about this activity/task.
Reflect and Discuss: (1) During this activity, why did you experience failure (e.g., materials, prototype, unclear task or instructions)? (2) How did you feel when you experienced a failure? (3) What were approaches you took when you experienced frustration or experienced a failure?
Additional activities to engage in failure as learners:
An exhibit or activity available in your space
Defining Failure
Engage: Reflect on your personal failure moments and your personal/professional associations with failure. Individually respond to the following: (1) What is your definition of failure? (2) What is your definition of failure within STEAM-making activities and programs? (3) Which of the youth’s quotes below do you agree with? Why?
Reflect and Discuss: (1) How might your views of failure differ from others in your organization and educational team? (2) How might you categorize these varying views of failure (e.g., youth-focused, educator-focused, environment-focused, cultural-focused, system-focused, etc.)? (3) How comfortable are you with saying “failure” in your STEAM-making activities and programs?
Additional activities to build a shared language of failure:
Youth Failure
Engage: Revisit the grabber activity. Rethink the activity through the lens of youth. Brainstorm a list of approaches or designs that youth might create for their prototype. For each approach and design, consider where failure might occur from the viewpoint of youth. This might include unexpected outcomes, lacking skills and/or knowledge, not trying or not trying again, when comparing self and/or prototype to someone else, etc.
Reflect and Discuss: (1) How easy was it for you to put yourself in the position of youth? (2) How was this similar to and/or different from your experience with this activity during the prior workshop? (3) Did you consider youths’ potential emotional state? Why or why not?
Additional resources for reflecting on or gathering youth perspectives:
Pedagogical Failure Moves
Engage: Consider the following scenario within a Physics of Roller Coasters workshop developed by The Tech Interactive: Danny, Quinn, Juniper, and Rosa are fourth graders having difficulty with their roller coaster. They have built their structure and attached their track, but are visibly frustrated and having difficulty getting the marble to stay on the track.
How would you respond to youths’ failure moment? Why? How might your response be dependent on the youths’ emotional state?
Reflect and Discuss: (1) How might your response be similar and/or different from others in your organization and educational team? (2) How often do you consider youths’ emotional state when they experience failure? What verbal and non-verbal cues do you attend to? (3) What if these students were sixth graders, would you respond differently? Why or why not? (4) When you are facilitating, how will you know what kids are thinking, feeling, learning about failure?
Additional activities:
Plan for Failures
Engage: Consider the making activity that will be a focus of the FiM project. Engage in the activity, thinking through where youth might experience failures (e.g., materials, lack knowledge of how to use tools, testing prototype).
Reflect and Discuss: (1) Where might youth experience failure during the activity? (2) Where should experiences with failure be avoided (e.g., adult scissors for child-sized hands) and where should experiences with failure be fostered and supported? Why? Consider how the available materials, tools and human resources may also lead to experiences with failure. (3) How might the age of your participants influence your plans for failure-rich moments?
Additional activities to Plan & Prepare for Failure (as part of STEAM activities):
What’s Next?
Record and Reflect on facilitation of failure moments. Go to Recording and Reflecting activities