How do you get 15 year-olds to commit to a project in class? Excite them. How? Take them to the circus.
The integrated teaching team of Jeffrey Leaf, Mike McKinstry, Eric Richardson and Jan Taylor at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County, Virginia is working with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey's Circus to stimulate 63 9th grade students. The goal is to motivate the students to extend themselves in creativity, critical thinking and communications.
Feld Entertainment has undertaken a new effort to support Education in the United States. One endeavor is to demonstrate math and science principles using the backdrop of their Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Feld has contacted Inventions, Inc to help develop materials for Middle School classrooms using the circus scenario. The specific task is to:
To stimulate creativity and motivation, Feld will award a prize to the team in each Inventions, Inc. Division which produces the most effective product and sales presentation. Judging will be based on:
Deliverables include:
Dates within ( ) signify student product due dates.
Completing a project of this magnitude in 9 weeks will require effective teamwork. The creation of teams has never been easy or completely successful. Methods used include:
Each of these methods is almost effective. Most of the
time, no matter what method is used, at least one team stands out as dis-functional.
This time, an attempt was made to balance interests and avoid, as much
as possible, personality conflicts. The following student input form was
used:
Circus Design Project Jobs
The following are the various team jobs that will be performed on the circus design project. Read each job description and prioritize your level of interest in each. At the bottom of the page list in order the jobs you would like to perform from most interested to least interested. You will still be required to work on all or most of the aspects of the job, but you will not be given lead responsibility for the areas where you have the least interest.
Scientist-In charge of brainstorming and selecting the act and the science and math principles to teach.
Designer-In charge of the detailed design of the display including materials selections, parts lists and drawings.
Builder-In charge of building the display.
Planner-In charge of the instructions for building the display, developing the sales presentation and keeping others on task.
Educator-In charge of developing the lesson plans.
______________________________ Most desired position
______________________________
_____________________________
______________________________
______________________________ Least desired position
______________________________ Someone I really can't work with
______________________________ Someone else I really can't work with
______________________________ Someone I can work effectively and efficiently with
______________________________ Someone else I can work effectively and efficiently with
______________________________ Who I am
This provided very interesting results. A few students were very astute and asked to stay away from friends to avoid socializing that would keep them off task. A few people evoked very strong negative sentiment, which made the balancing of interests a real juggling act. The final result gave most students their first or second choice of position and kept everyone away from those designated. (3/2/97)
To
get acquainted, the teams worked a team-building exercise at their first
meeting. Each team was given a sheet of paper with one large circle connected
by lines to a number of small circles. Each team member was to select an
image or symbol that represented him or her. Then, each drew that image
inside one of the small circles. After that, the team was to develop an
image or picture that represented the entire team. This was to be a unique
symbol, not just a compilation of all of their individual symbols.
The
variety of images showed the creativity of this diverse group. One team
saw themselves as various body parts. The group image was that of a whole
person with all of the individual parts working together. Another group
all showed fire in their individual symbols except for one who saw himself
as a tranquil waterfall. Their group symbol included a hurricane of fire
swirling around the calm eye.
Putting 5-6 high school Freshmen together on a team makes for interesting interactions. Personalities ranged from the perfectionist to the totally unconcerned with details. The arrogant but insecure, "My way is the right way!" worked with the "Whatever you want." Some teams meshed from the outset and rolled along. Other teams weren't so lucky. Imagine two perfectionists working with a "My way is the right way!" Compromise was not a word in any of their vocabularies.
The assignments gave each person the responsibility for a specific part of the project. One person, the Planner had a small additional responsibility of making sure everyone on the team stayed on task. Some Planners unilaterally expanded their responsibility to a position of total control. This created some friction within teams.
One way conflicts within teams showed was in the amount of work that had to be redone. On the Friday before the Wednesday final presentations, one team realized that one of its lesson plans was wrong and need to be completely rewritten. They worked on it over Memorial Day weekend.
Whatever the difficulties and however bumpy the read was, they came together in the end. Though some were better than others, all of the products and presentations were efforts each student should be proud of.
A design was supposed to be completed on paper before the product was built. That sounds good, but trying to get Freshman to think before doing is next to impossible. And they have such elaborate excuses for not designing first. One that recurs regularly uses the psychobabble thrown around in education as an excuse. "I don't do things that way, its not my learning style." They're good
Some of the teams designed and built extremely elaborate models initially. A few of the students showed off their machine tool skills. This is great, except that the criteria required that the model be easy to build by middle school students and it minimized the use of machine tools. A number of the teams, after prodding, went back and simplified the design of their product. Some were annoyed that they had to do more work. Others were hurt that their design wasn't perfect the first time.
These students, in some ways, have been living in a dream world. They believe that a product can and should be perfect on the first try. This is an unrealistic belief. Almost nothing ever designed worked the first time. A product goes through a number of itterations before being released for sale and then continues to be improved. A good examples of this are the wide variety of product recalls. From automobiles to toys, all of the defects are not found until people use the product for a while.
The process of design, build, analyze is part of the normal problem-solving process. When these students realize it and do not become defensive whenever a discouraging word is spoken about their design, they will become excellent problem-solvers.
Writing instructions, whether how to build something or how to teach something, is not as easy they thought. To give them an idea of the difficulty, students were tasked to write the instructions for How to Eat a Cupcake Without Your Hands. Before getting to do it, students wrote instructions. Then, another student read and edited the instructions. Next each student revised the instructions. Finally, everyone got the chance to eat the cupcake, following someone else's instructions. The eaters commented on the difficulties on the procedures used. Finally, they all revised their procedures baseed on the users' comments. Here are some of the students in action:
After reading the drafts of fabrication instructions and lesson plans, it became evident that some of these students either did not know correct grammar and were not effective proofreaders. To assure a good product, a policy was instigated that required three separate team members to read, edit and sign-off on an inspection sheet for a number of specific aspects of the writing. After the paper was revised, another, different team member was required to read, edit and sign-off the inspection sheet. Within each group, there were enough good writers to assure that the final product was well done.
What A Setting! |
 A hair-raising experience. |
 | A new song for the occassion. |
The conditions were awful! Students presented in the lobby of Ringling's headquarters building in Vienna, Virginia. The two-story mural distracted the audience. Delivery people walked throuh the lobby during presentations, elevator doors opened with a piercing ring, elevator doors held open too long put aut an annoying buzz. Some of the teams' difficulties were self-induced. only two students out of the twelve teams bothered to scout the facility. Some finished the support materials for the presentation the day before and didnt' have an opportunity to practice with them. Some practiced individually, but didn't practice as a group with all of the props. Some didn't know how to use the equipment.
These problems didn't stop them. One of the evaluators, Dr. Don Boileau, Communication Department Chairman from George Mason University commented to the students afterwards, "I wish my college students could present this well." They were good. Many showed a stage presence well beyond that of the usual 15 year-old. Those that were scared of the crowd pulled it off without cracking.
Creativity shone. One group wrote a song and presented it. Two of the groups tested their lesson plans in actual classrooms. Many of the groups gave computer-generated slide presentations. Some produced videos.
The evaluators, two from Ringling and Dr. Boileau, were on the spot. They had a very difficult time selecting only three groups that stood out. The only point of differentiation was a unique twist in each of the groups selected. The level of professionalism demonstrated by these students was outstanding.