A Practical Experience Versus Textbook Learning

I recently stumbled across an interesting article, "Take STEM lessons outside of the box with these 3 approaches", by Lauren Barack of Education Dive, which talked about a few ways educators have become more creative in teaching practical skills to middle and high school students. Before I delve into some of my views and experiences of learning by "experience", here is a summary of the three approaches given in the article.

The first example asks for fourth graders to work in groups of eight to build a vertical freestanding ring with Pringles. During the class, some students finished before other students and ended up going around the classrooms helping other students. By the end of the class, all students were able to finish the project in the end but all with different methods. According to a teacher, a key lesson that students learn from this is that there are multiple ways of solving a problem in STEM. 

In the second example, an elementary school in Georgia asked their students to build a replica of Berlin, Germany, with a focus on the Cold War Era which included the Berlin Wall. Students were asked to incorporate mathematics in this replica by finding the volume of buildings. This project reinforces the lessons the students learned from both mathematics and the Cold War era.

In the final example, a K-8 public school in Ontario started a rock curling competition and a halfpipe competition. Students in the rock curling competition coded robots to throw rocks at a target. Their main goal was to get the rock closest to the center of the target. In the halfpipe competition, students applied their engineering skills to build ramps for robots to launch.

In my opinion, all these examples are fabulous ways educators have revolutionized learning because students simply remember experiences much better than words in a book. In the future, they will remember the cool project they made a few years ago that included the Berlin Wall and be able to recall what happened during the Cold War. Another way these projects are great is because it demonstrates that innovative and effective learning absolutely does not have to be expensive. The two examples with the Pringles and the replica of Berlin were certainly low-budget projects.

In addition, these projects evoke practical skills and experiences students will eventually need one day for a job. Problem-solving skills or the ability to communicate effectively with other group members are required skills in many jobs. Like training any muscle for a sport, these things also requires constant practice to improve.

The sad truth is that many schools nowadays are too focused on test results and hound their students with textbook after textbook. Even though having the textbook knowledge to any subject is essential, not having the practical skills such as problem-solving, leads to the inability to apply the material to real-world usages. Instead of chasing for the best school ranks, schools should attempt to prepare their students to be the most effective workers in the labor force. To do this, schools need to make the three examples listed above to be a norm, where we don't need to be reporting on these "special cases" because every school does it frequently. With this, I encourage educators to take their classes to the next level with more hands-on experiences and less lecturing. Even though this will be more work, I am quite certain your students will reap the benefits of more effective learning while at the same time enjoy school better. Remember, interactive and effective does not mean expensive!

Link to the article: https://www.educationdive.com/news/take-stem-lessons-outside-of-the-box-with-these-3-approaches/555142/