The school of tomorrow

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gladsaxe.dk

gladsaxe.dk

School of tomorrow Gladsaxe Municipality, Denmark

Index

Background 3 Who and why..............................................................................................3 Goals.............................................................................................................3 Resources.....................................................................................................3

Didactic framework

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Iterative didactics ......................................................................................4 Feedback and motivation ........................................................................4 Citizenship as a design frame .................................................................5 Transdisciplinary group work ................................................................6

Technologies 7 Maker Zone ................................................................................................7 Code Zone ..................................................................................................7 Media Zone ................................................................................................7

Results 8 Pupils’ inventions ......................................................................................8 Evaluation and next steps ......................................................................10

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Background Who and why The School of Tomorrow Pilot Project (Fremtidens Skole) was carried out as a collaboration between The School Department of Gladsaxe Municipality, the school administration at BagsvĂŚrd School, and the edu-tech company Hippomini. The project is part of an ambitious strategy, seeking to prepare the children of Gladsaxe Municipality for a future of self-driving cars, sharing economy, and artificial intelligence. As ground-breaking technologies are finding their way into mainstream society in the coming five, ten, and twenty years, new types of jobs appear while others become redundant. The children who start school now will finish after ten years of education. To prepare pupils for the world they will meet at that point, schools need to change their strategy and it needs to happen as soon as possible. Gladsaxe Municipality acknowledges the importance of reconsidering the way public schools approach everything from their physical spaces to how they are formally structured with subjects, schedules, teachers, and pedagogues. This willingness to rethink schools and test new ideas experimentally was the foundation for the School of Tomorrow.

Goals In Denmark, most politicians and school administrations agree that the children of today need to become creative innovators, who can communicate, solve problems collaboratively, and participate as active citizens - but how do we accomplish that? Changing the physical surroundings and adding technology are important elements; but what needs to happen on the pedagogical and didactic level to support the learning of 21st century skills? This was a core question to investigate. The four overall goals of the School of Tomorrow pilot project were to generate: 1. Knowledge about how the educational environment needs to change physically in order to create authentic and digitally supported learning environments.

2. Knowledge about how a digitally supported learning environment contributes to the learning of 21st century skills.

3. Building and strengthening relevant IT skills among school employees and leaders, ensuring that learning processes concerning digital media, digital technologies, and digital literacy can be facilitated and supported.

4. Knowledge about what to include in a prototype makerspace in order to support the learning objectives of Gladsaxe Municipality.

Resources In many pilot projects at schools the experimental learning needs to fit into existing schedules, limiting the timeframe and hindering natural flow and progression. Luckily, for this project a special permission was granted, enabling BagsvÌrd School to completely restructure the teaching for four weeks. In this project, Hippomini had the multifaceted role of delivering the hardware, contributing with technological expertise, as well as designing frameworks for iterative learning processes. Working closely with the school administration and a team of 12 teachers and pedagogues, consultants from Hippomini designed a new schedule, focusing on digitally supported problem solving and communication. Scrapping the subject-specific 45 minute lessons, the school day was structured around communication exercises, workshops and design challenges, as well as some individual activities focused on the pupils’ personal progress and experience.

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Didactic framework Iterative didactics In a traditional school context, many assignments are framed as linear processes: The pupil is told to write a report on a specific subject, so she writes the paragraphs one by one, hands in the report and then receives feedback from the teacher afterwards. But why do we postpone feedback for the moment when it is too late to change anything? Instead, we can structure our process around continuous testing and feedback – a circular, iterative process, heavily inspired by agile software development and product design. Innovation is not just about generating ideas, but about executing them in a way in which they make sense to the intended user.

Whether the finished product is an app, a prosthetic arm, or a piece of kitchenware, it is designed for someone else – and listening to that someone gives you invaluable input. Still, many children (and adults) dread feedback, as it is easily perceived as personal criticism rather than a helping hand.

A central part of the School of Tomorrow project was to change this mind-set by introducing design thinking and communication tools, and let the pupils go through the iterative process repeatedly. To visualise the main stages of the design process, a model was designed and printed in two versions: One for the staff and one for the children. The model divides the design process into four phases: Analysis, Innovation, Production and Entrepreneurship. Often, a project starts with the analysis of a problem, but depending on the project, it can make more sense to start in another phase.

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Feedback and motivation For this project, we wanted to facilitate a healthy feedback culture, where it felt safe for the pupils to try out new things, and failure was described as a natural part of the design process. Teaching students to fail faster might sound a bit off, but this design mantra played an important part in building a learning environment of innovation. The idea of failing faster is that you should test your ideas as early as possible, so you discover the flaws quicker, which gets you one step closer to a better solution. The more time you invest in something that does not work, the less time you have to make something that does.

As this pilot project was a prototype of a new kind of school, we wanted to practice what we were preaching; thus, we wanted to hear the pupils’ feedback from start to finish and continuously implement changes to improve their experience. Getting detailed feedback from 85 pupils could turn into a chaotic and time-consuming task, so we went with a well-tested and simple solution: The HappyOrNot smiley stand, which is used in many shops. As a central problem of the public schools is to keep pupils motivated, we chose to ask pupils to rate their motivation with one of four smileys, ranging from really happy to really sad. The children were asked to rate their current level of motivation three specific times a day (morning, at lunch and before going home), and outside these periods button inputs would not be registered. The data was constantly gathered and visualised by the HappyOrNot software, making it possible to see drops in motivation and connect them to the educational activities. When motivation dropped, consultants and teachers would initiate a dialogue with the pupils in plenum, allowing them to voice their frustrations and suggest solutions.

Citizenship as a design frame A principle from design theory is that it is difficult to come up with ideas if there are no constraints. Adding constraints or obstacles, or finding a concrete problem to solve, frames the process and provides a starting point for the creative process. To avoid a situation, where technologies would become the goal in themselves, more than functioning as the means for innovation, every technology was framed as a tool that could be used for solving specific design challenges. This was the case in the workshops that introduced the technologies, as well as in the pupils’ self-defined design projects. For the introduction of technologies, the design challenges were simple: For instance, working with LittleBits, the first challenge was to build something with an input that controls an output.

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The next LittleBits challenge added a constraint in the form of a material: Build something with LittleBits and bubble wrap, where you use the special properties of the material. For one group, the cushion-like quality of the material inspired them to build a neck massage pillow, using LittleBits vibration motors. Another team of pupils utilized the transparency of the bubble wrap by designing a glow-in-the-dark teddy bear, which automatically lit up with LEDs, when it became dark.

All prototypes were tested by classmates and teachers, and the teddy bear group even visited the first graders, because they wanted their feedback. For some groups, the technology workshops sparked ideas that they developed further during the project month.

Besides the workshops, every week featured a larger design challenge, where all technologies and tools were available to the pupils. The overall theme of these challenges was citizenship. The first week the theme was local citizenship, identifying problems relevant to fourth graders at the school and inventing solutions; for instance, designing a system that signified with LEDs where to find a vacant spot for your bicycle, so you would not be late for class. The second week the perspective was expanded to national citizenship. One group invented a system for sorting rubbish, where a machine would lead pieces of rubbish to different material containers, when the user threw them into their chute.

For the last week of the project, the theme was global citizenship, using the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

as inspiration. A project worth mentioning was a self-heating bike saddle, powered by a dynamo. This group wanted more people to bike in fall and winter, both for health reasons, to improve infrastructure, and to minimize CO2 emissions from cars.

Transdisciplinary group work Clear tasks and roles are an essential part of working together in a project group. Understanding your own role, as well as the roles of your teammates, enables you to develop your projects effectively, utilizing the different competencies in the group. Group work is a lot about communication and empathy, and to strengthen these social skills, we started each day with The Empathy Toy: A simple game where one player builds a model, a second blind-folded player gets the model, feels it, and tells the third blind-folded player how to build a copy. Swapping roles, the children explored the difference between inventing a design, communicating it, and receiving instructions. In innovative and collaborative workflows, where the goal is not yet determined, roles might bleed together, but as the end goal gets closer, roles should be more defined. Throughout the School of Tomorrow pilot project, pupils were encouraged to explore different roles and specialise in one of them for the last citizenship challenge. It was communicated clearly to the children that diversity was a strength, and that they should seek out people with different perspectives and skills than themselves. To clarify and visualise this, we designed a set of icons, each of them representing a role needed in the project group. The roles were as follows: Planner: A planner is the equivalent of a project manager, as main tasks are to keep an overview, delegate tasks, and help the group collaborate. The planner is good at finishing tasks, encouraging the group, and leading the way by asking the right questions.

Tester: Continuous testing and feedback is the heart of any iterative design process. The tester has the responsibility of testing and delivering the feedback to the group in a constructive manner, much like a QA manager. A good tester manages to balance a systematic approach with empathy and patience.

Designer: The designer is a visualising role, which likes to explain ideas with sketches, cardboard models and 3D illustrations. The designer is often the one to pitch ideas, but can also develop concepts in collaboration with others and deliver the graphics needed for the project.

Media: The media role communicates with people and documents the group’s projects. The media person likes to interact with their surroundings, dig out interesting stories, and frame them with pictures, film, and text, as well as sharing information online on community platforms, social media, and Youtube.

Tech: The tech role is responsible for the more technical aspects of the project, working systematically with programming and analysis. Whether the task is to convert sound files, share files on OneDrive, or program a robot, the tech solves problems with logic, patience and an eye for detail.

Technologies

Maker Zone The Maker Zone included one of the classrooms, some of the hallway and a smaller room that was transformed into a makerspace. This makerspace functioned as the centre of the Maker Zone, equipped with four Ultimaker 3D printers, a laser cutter, a vinyl cutter and a heat press machine. Working in the Maker Zone, the pupils would learn how their ideas could be turned into digital models and realised as physical prototypes. Using different materials for testing different aspects of their designs, the children would learn about filtering dimensions; how you cannot evaluate all aspects of a design at once, but need to separate parameters such as function, aesthetics, tactile experience, user interface and production concerns. For instance, the 3D printer is good for making highly detailed miniatures, but for testing how large the final product should be, a rough laser cut cardboard model might be better.

Code Zone The code zone included one of the classrooms as well as some floor space in the hallway. In this zone, the pupils worked with electronics, single-board computers and robots to gain an understanding of how electronic circuits and digital technologies work underneath the surface. Starting out with LittleBits, a system of electronic building blocks, the children experienced the connection between inputs and outputs, for instance by using a motion sensor to trigger a sound module. Building on this physical programming experience, the pupils were introduced to Scratch-like graphical programming and quickly utilized it to control the robots Dash and Dot and the microcomputer Quirkbot. Besides these programming exercises, the children worked with the Arduino-based Bare Conductive; a product that combines electric paint with single-board computer, enabling the children to paint a piano that actually played sounds.

Media Zone The media zone had its centre in a classroom, but practically involved the whole area used in the project, as pupils would go around, documenting what was happening in the Maker Zone and the Code Zone. As each pupil had a personal iPad already, these were put to use for photographing and filming. With the right iPad accessories, it was possible to work with zoom lenses and better sound recording. After finding their good stories and conducting interviews with other pupils, the children would cut and edit their movies in an app. Along with the visual documentation, the pupils had to write articles for the online community platform www.edruption.com, communicating about technologies as well as their classmate’s inventions. Working with an online media, where you can publish your original content, the pupils were encouraged to share information with each other, strengthening peer-based learning. This led to important conversations about digital literacy, like how you navigate, act and collaborate online, and how you need to approach “internet facts” with a healthy degree of source criticism.

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Results

Pupils’ inventions As 85 pupils worked with innovation for four weeks, numerous projects came out of it. They were not always finished, and some of them failed, but this too was part of the learning process. Being in a space where failing is permitted makes it easier to present your work and try out things that have not been done before. Even the best innovative creations started with an ugly prototype, which probably did not work as expected. Some things were changed, some darlings were scrapped, and this long road of trial and error led to a finished, functional product. When working with children, some of their ideas might sound a bit too outlandish or futuristic to carry out – but on the other hand, the touchscreen smartphone did not exist 10 years ago, and now it is hard to remember life without one. Remembering this, we can encourage children to prototype everything they can imagine, while empowering them to use digital tools with the same naturalness as they use any other crafting material.

Many inventions from School of Tomorrow consisted of composite elements, combining physical materials with electronics and coding, as seen in the project examples below: Self-heating Bike Saddle ‘We have made a saddle warmer, and it can heat your bike saddle. If you click the button on the side of the seat, the heater starts warming up. If you click the other button, the saddle battery charges as long as you push the pedals.’

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The Picnic Pan ‘We have made a pan that heats itself. The power comes from solar cells and a crank. This is a good idea, because the pan does not pollute and does not use firewood either. When you are not using it, you put it down with the bottom up (as this is where the solar cell is), so it is ready for when you need it. The pan is for people who are out camping, maybe on a scout trip. […] We have learned a lot about citizenship and that you should take care of the environment. This is why we made this invention.’

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Evaluation and next steps The School of Tomorrow project demonstrated that young children are able to work with innovation, if they get the right tools and supervision from adults. Opening up the classrooms and transforming them into a Maker Zone, a Media Zone, and a Code Zone visibly affected the social dynamics between the children, as well as enabling transdisciplinary problem solving. Still, the physical changes need to be supported with changes on the pedagogical and didactic side, not only regarding the technical know-how. In a learning environment driven by the pupils’ ideas, the teacher needs to be flexible and able to improvise, functioning more as a facilitator than as an instructor, asking the right questions instead of giving instructions. No teacher can be an expert of everything from robot coding to 3D modelling, and distributing the competencies of teachers and pedagogues is a challenge to explore in further projects.

Gladsaxe Municipality expects to run 12 pilot projects, some of them in schools, and some of them in kindergartens and youth education. For the next two pilot projects, Hippomini is deeply involved in educating key employees and pupils, so the following projects can be conducted by the local leaders, teachers, and pedagogues themselves. The key is to embed the iterative didactics and the maker -, media -, and code technologies in the educational practice. The next few projects attempt to do so by involving informal learning spaces like after school programmes and youth clubs, enabling pupils to explore technology in a more playful manner.

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Redaktion: Kirsten Haase • Layout: Hippomini • Tryk: GPV • (Trykt på miljømærket papir) • 1. udgave • november 2016

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gladsaxe.dk

Gladsaxe Municipality Rådhus Allé 7 2860 Søborg Denmark gladsaxe.dk Telephone: +45 30 54 07 77 Mail: bkdkha@gladsaxe.dk