Tony Wagner

How to teach

•Modeling

•Scaffolding

•Coaching

•Reflecting ( Meta-cognition )

•Fading

Two Hour, One day   Overviews

2 day 

5 day 

Interested in Professional Development in your school system?

• We conduct on-site train-the-trainer workshops. Our team will design training sessions to meet unique training needs of your organization.
• What are the requirements? Arrange for at least 10 individuals to be trained. And buy a curriculum for use by each participant in the training.

“Educating PreK-5^th grade students to love learning in an exciting world of engineering and thinking skills (tools of engineering)”

 This program for PreK-5^th grades introduces teachers to engineering design and thinking skills (tools for engineering) in an interdisciplinary project based learning environment. The program uses the engineering design process, as defined in the Massachusetts Science Framework, as a connector between students’ literature (fiction, fairytales and history) to their mathematics and science curricula. It infuses the use of thinking strategies (including creative and critical thinking, provocative questions and meta-cognitive reflection), skills that are part of the engineering process.

This approach is based on the definition, “Engineering is about designing useful products & processes for society using all disciplines, but mainly science & mathematics”.  Teachers can use the design process to engage their students while dialoguing about literature or social- studies/history.

For example, kindergarteners might respond to a common fairy tale by designing a house for one of the little pigs (or perhaps a means of blowing down a house for the wolf!); fifth graders might respond to the book Island of the Blue Dolphins by identifying needs and solutions for Karana, the marooned main character of the novel.

This program gives students the opportunity to be part of the lesson development as their design may be different then a scripted version.  It engages the students in the process. It is empowering for students to have a voice in what they are creating and in how they show what they know.  When we teach through interdisciplinary units, it is much easier for students to make connections and bring their thinking to a higher level.  The teachers are exposed to learning about the Massachusetts Science Framework, strand 4, as well as learning about what engineers do.

It provides the following benefits to the education process:

·                    Promotes higher-order thinking skills.

·                    Invites the incorporation of instructional technology into the curriculum.

·                    Offers a differentiated learning environment.

·                    Creates rich cross-curricular possibilities.

·                    Integrates math and science in an important way that show students how and why they are relevant and useful in the world.

·                    Connects directly with improvement of living conditions/safety/health and welfare of people.

·                    Supports a collaborative joyful and playful creative attitude in the classroom.

 How does the program teach innovation or entrepreneurship?

 This program explicitly addresses innovation and entrepreneurship in a number of ways.

First: there is an explicit focus on needs finding. Students must identify with characters in in the story, and decide what opportunities might exist to help those characters. As such, the program is heavily focused on the entrepreneurial skill of opportunity identification and assessment.

Second: because the program is heavily oriented toward the kinds of thinking skills that the engineering design process requires, it includes substantial emphasis on the kinds of thinking that lead to innovation. In particular, teachers and students use divergent and convergent thinking processes and techniques (e.g., brainstorming, criteria-based idea selection) as they develop their ideas for how to respond to the needs of characters in literature.

Finally: the design of the professional development workshop is meant to lead to curricular innovation. While participants will be introduced to various techniques and the framework, the participants will be responsible for designing their own projects, and will utilize innovation-oriented design techniques to do so.

Why is this important to society?

The US is losing out to other nations who are developing the innovative and creative systems and products for society.

Lesson Plan

Educators can make the changes to improve learning for students in the 21^st century. Understanding the past and building on new educational methods has shown that a more involved student using an interdisciplinary learning process will create an engaging and exciting environment. We can connect stories (from literature or social studies) that children are reading to math and science using thinking skills and the engineering design process to provide a collaborative learning environment.  Bringing different subjects together is a natural way to provide an interdisciplinary environment that fosters a creative and exciting learning environment which allows children to see the relevance and take ownership of their learning.