inventing: a way to achieve standards ct invention convention workshopsept. 20, 2008 to understand...

Copyright CT Invention Convention 2008INVENTING: A WAY TO ACHIEVE

STANDARDS

CT INVENTION CONVENTION WORKSHOP SEPT. 20, 2008

To understand is to Invent Jean Piaget

Copyright 1983-2008 CT Invention Convention

Copyright CT Invention Convention 2008

Agenda for Today

9:30 Introductions

Your Presenters: Honora Kenney, Karen Brennan, Donna Rand assisted by Charlie Baumgartner and Helen Charov

9:45 – 10:15 Overview and Purpose 10:15 – 11:30 Breakout Session #1

Take Apart Workshop and Essential Lessons (Rm. 147) How to Run an Invention Convention in Your School or Program (Library

Media Center) CIC Meets the Standards – Try Inventing Yourselves! (Rm 303)

11:30 –12:15 Working Lunch - CIC Meets the Needs of All Students 12:15 - 1:30 Breakout Session #2 1:30 - 2:45 Breakout Session #3 2:45 – 3:00 Review of Resources, Wrap-up comments, Evaluation,

Drawing for books and other goodies, CEU Certificates awarded


Presenters Connecticut Invention Convention

Karen Brennan – CIC Board Of DirectorsMarlborough Elem. SchoolSchool Wide Enrichment ConsultantMarlborough, CT

Honora Kenney – CIC Board Of DirectorsEducational ConsultantPortland, CT

Donna Rand– CIC SupporterE. Htfd. / Glastonbury Magnet SchoolE. Htfd., CT


Let’s Warm Up - Who are you?

You each have 20 seconds to tell us your name, school or program, district, and what you hope to get from today’s workshop.


Howard Gardner on Standardized Tests and Learning

“ Getting higher test scores on standardized tests is not the real need – What we need in America is for students to get more deeply interested in things, more involved in them, more engaged in wanting to know…”

Howard Gardner


Talents Unlimited Reference

“We are attempting to educate students today so that they will be ready to solve future problems that have not yet been identified using technologies not yet invented based on scientific knowledge not yet discovered.”

-J.J. Lagowski


Essential Question: Why Study Innovation and Teach Problem-Solving to

Children?

Society

Community

Child and Family


Economics

The need for a high quality, knowledgeable workforce is more apparent than ever in today’s competitive national and international markets.

As America’s economy moved from a traditional manufacturing base to high-technology manufacturing and services, the need for innovative young people continued to increase.

The demands for people who possess solid basic skills, as well as the ability to engage in problem solving and to develop inventive solutions are rapidly increasing.


What Work Requires of Schools: A SCANS Report

A Three-Part Foundation Basic Skills

Reading Writing Arithmetic/Mathematics Listening Speaking

The Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills

U.S. Department of Labor, 1991


SCANS Report (cont.)

Thinking Skills Creative Thinking Decision Making Problem Solving Seeing Things in

the Mind’s Eye Knowing How to

Learn Reasoning

Personal Qualities Responsibility Self-Esteem Sociability Self-Management Integrity/Honesty


Invention and the Learning Cycle

Engagement: stimulate students’ interest, curiosity and preconceptions;

Exploration: first-hand experiences with concepts without direct instruction;

Explanation: students’ explanations followed by introduction of formal terms and clarifications;

Elaboration: applying knowledge to solve a problem. Students frequently develop and complete their own well-designed investigations;

Evaluation: students and teachers reflection change in conceptual understanding and identify ideas still “under development”.


What Is Inquiry?From I N S T I T U T E F O R I N Q U I R Y:

www. e x p l o r a t o r i u m . e d u / i f i © E x p l o r a t o r i u m

Good science education requires both learning scientific concepts and developing scientific

thinking skills. Inquiry is an approach to

learning that involves a process of exploring the natural or material world, and that leads to asking questions, making discoveries, and

testing those discoveries in the search for new understanding.

Inquiry, as it relates to science education, should mirror as closely as possible

the enterprise of doing real science.


Research on Learning

Old Teaching New Teaching


Inventing As a Process

We have a great idea for you!


Young Children Invent at the East Hartford/Glastonbury Magnet School

The focus of this clip is the connection to social conditions (handicapping circumstances), the diversity of invention ideas, and students who solve their own problems with invention.


“It’s Only a Paper Bag”

1. Examining “Bagness” and Bag Attributes

2. List the many, varied, and unusual bags. (brainstorm and record your ideas)

3. SCAMPER the bag.


Remember the rules of brainstorming

no criticism, work for quantity, hitchhiking welcome, freewheeling

encouraged


Let’s “SCAMPER” The Bag

Substitute What other material? Other approach?Combine Combine with another thing? Another idea?Adapt What else is like this? New uses?Modify Modify the form - Add to - Take away?Magnify Greater frequency? Stronger? Higher? Longer?Minify Condensed? Omit? Subtract?Put to Other Use

New uses? For whom?Eliminate Remove portionsRearrange Interchange components? New pattern or layout? Sequence? Transpose cause and effectReverse Positive to negative? Opposites? Reverse roles?


The Inventive Mind –Elements of Inventive Thinking

Creative Thinking

Fluency

Flexibility

Originality and

Elaboration

“Creativity is Intelligence Having Fun”

- Anonymous

Critical Thinking

Cause and Effect

Classification and Relationships

Sequencing and Planning

Making Decisions

Comparing, Observing

Generating Questions

“The whole of science is nothing more than the refinement of everyday thinking.”

Albert Einstein


Inventive Mind (con’t)

Inventors: Demonstrate Openness and Courage Observe Skillfully and Deeply Acquire and Use Much Information Creatively Know how to Generate and Analyze Possibilities Know and Listen to Their “Inner Voice” Engage in Continuous Improvement


Einstein has the Final Word

“The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution,

Which may merely be a matter of mathematical or experimental skills.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and makes real advances in science.”

Albert Einstein


Young Inventors Hit the Big Time

Jay Leno segment


I Need to Know More!

•Need books? Contact the UConn Bookstore at www.bookstore.uconn.edu•Need more materials? CIC Website is www.ctinventionconvention.org•Trying to start up? All new programs will be assigned a mentor you can call or email for support and assistance•Need tools? Try the FIXA kits from Ikea for $7.99•Need money? Sorry – wrong number!


Thanks . . . and remember the “Horse

Story”

Common advice from knowledgeable horse trainers includes the adage, “If the horse you’re riding dies, get off.” Seems simple enough, yet in education, we don’t always follow that advice. Instead, we might:

• Buy a stronger whip or tighten the cinch• Switch riders• Move the dead horse to a new location• Ride the dead horse for longer periods of

time• Say “But this is the way we have always

ridden the horse”• Appoint a committee to study the dead

horse• Arrange to visit other sites where they ride

dead horses • Complain about the state of horses these

days• Blame the horse’s breeding


Thank you!

For more information contact

www. ctinventionconvention.org

Email addresses:

Donna Rand [email protected]

Honora Kenney [email protected]

Karen Brennan [email protected]

inventing: a way to achieve standards ct invention convention workshopsept. 20, 2008 to understand...

Documents

ct invention convention

ct slide

lagowski slide

howard gardner slide

ct donna rand cic supporter

jean piaget copyright

breakout session

necessary skills