The 4th, 5th and 6th grade students worked on toy cars today, and the high school students worked on their projectile launchers. Easton brought in an incredibly well engineered model that he had worked on at home. You will see it in action on Friday when we battle it out for number one. My own launcher looks great, but is so puny in its effect that it should provide some comic relief.
So, looking at the photos of the kids working on their projects, it occurs to me that part of the benefit seems to be the sharing of ideas that can't really happen in the traditional classroom.
ReplyDeleteMario
The kids learn so much from watching each other wrestle with ideas, problems and solutions. While kids in most classes compete to arrive at the "right" answers and discussion is dominated by those with the most highly refined discursive power, in the woodshop, there are many right answers and the fastest to be delivered is not always the best. In fact, being quick to spew can be a disadvantage rather than an advantage.
ReplyDelete