Learning by doing? How to make the most of it?
If I tell my two uncles who are cabinetmaker and watchmaker that I was involved in Learning by doing courses, I guess they would make fun of me and my crazy new master. As an EdTech master student of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinarity, I had the opportunity to participate in different Learning by doing experiences and as many of you, I first asked myself knitting strongly my eyebrows : what is hidden behind this trendy expression? What does it mean for students, teachers and education? Is it cool words for describing a mix between art classes and lab works?
Well… not exactly.
Learning by doing could be defined as a project-based approach aiming to create a product or a solution to tackle a specific issue and I would add to the definition, in a constraining context. Spread into groups, the students are free to decide which topic they want to work on. In my case though, to avoid chaos, the projects should always address at least one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations. As a former student of Sciences Po Paris, my first reflexe would have been to read research papers for hours on the SDGs and it was a constructive challenge to switch to a hands-on approach.
As you can guess, I have realized some of the benefits of fast-prototyping -organizing the different steps of a creative process, knowing where to search the information, expressing what you need without being ashamed of it, etc.- but in this article, I wouldn’t focus on what kind of competencies students develop in such exercises. If you are interested, I invite you to check the Agency by Design multiyear research initiative by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. You would notice that they rather use Learning by Making (vs. Learning by Doing) and Do It Together (vs. Do It Yourself).
In the following, I will try to sum up the factors for success (and failures) to organize a Learning by doing class or workshops. Of course, it should not be taken for granted and it will only reflect what I could say from the three different formats I was involved in : a 4-days boot camp, a 4-months class at the CRI and a 10-days program in Mumbai, the STEAM School.
What are the factors for success in organizing a maker-centered learning workshop?
Globally speaking, I am strongly convinced that creativity fulfills when constraints are high: no time, no money, no nothing. It appeared to me that being creative is compulsory in a maker-centered learning workshop: you have to think with what you already know, create with what you have — machines or materials available — and go straight to the point to give birth to your idea. Because of these features, I also believe that gathering people from different backgrounds and skills is a key factor for success.
✅ Working under strong constraints to keep you motivated
▶ ️A short amount of time. 4 to 10 days maximum.
Meeting a tight deadline forces your mind to rapidly select what really matters for your prototype. Glitters, unicorns or rainbows drawings are cool but most of the time not necessary. 🦄🌈✨ It is very likely that the perfect object you had in mind won’t be the same as the one you have in your hands. Don’t worry, you will be proud of what you have achieved anyway. The final result doesn’t matter, it is how you build it — sharing, discovering and failing — that is important.
▶ A common and unique space dedicated to creation. A MakerLab.
If you can see a 3D printer or a laser cutter while you are brainstorming with your teammates, it will guide your thoughts. It has two-side effects: it shows you a potentiality and at the same time it may happen that your desire to work with a specific machine will shape your project. Besides that, I have realized that it helps to define with your group a common space dedicated to your collaborative tasks. First, you could let your creations without bothering the others, and second it says to your group that when you are in this space, you would like to exchange with them about a technical issue or a new idea for instance.
▶ A framework. The SDGs.
Even if the SDGs framework covers a very wide range of issues, it helps focusing the conversations and thus making the group walk in the same direction.
✅ Creativity and innovation come from diversity
▶People from different backgrounds. The example of STEAM School.
On December 2017, for 10 days, I was one of the 100 participants of the STEAM school at the Maker’s Asylum in Mumbai. The STEAM School -STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics- was an amazing experience of peer-to-peer learning and sharing. With my fantastic team, we created a Moodometer for teachers in order to get pieces of advice, exercises, inspirations to feel better with their class. Using anonymized data, the principal could also get an overview of the “mood” of the school.
I would advice everyone to apply to the next STEAM School. It represents an unique experience to improve your abilities to build prototypes with great people, to work with different expertise, to convey a message, to create links between ideas… Somehow you even enhance your pedagogical skills since you have to always pitch your thoughts in a clear but catchy way.
And maybe the most important, you have lot of fun !
▶ A common mindset. Check-in and check-out.
In large groups, it could be complicated to get people on the same page. A good way to appraise the mood of the participants is to organize check-in and check-out sessions. Take 5 to 30 minutes at the beginning and the end of each day to ask the participants to share a feeling, a dance, a song, a wish, a story, anything. Taking this time to get everybody’s attention could also be an opportunity to ask for some feedback or for help for your project.
▶ A great team of mentors.
In a Learning by doing learning experience, mentors are keys. They challenge you to help your projects getting better but their comments should not be too sharp, otherwise it could kill your creativity. From practical aspects, there should be enough mentors to help all the participants. In Mumbai, they were 40 mentors for 100 participants. Also, some of the good practices are : not more than one mentor talking to a group at the same time (except if the group asks) and keep always a time to debrief with your teammates after a conversation with a mentor.
✅ The compulsory goal: a Minimum Viable Product
▶ A final presentation.
Ideally the final presentations should be a real show, an entertaining celebration of the past days. If there are many groups to go on stage, adding diverse activities between the presentations could enliven the 5-hours flow of conference. Organizing an impressive final show will strive you and your mates for creating something you will be proud of.
▶ A good documentation tool.
Google Keep, PowerPoint, Medium, any support that is easy for you and relevant to diffuse to the others. That’s maybe the most important thing I have learnt. Being in a documenting process will help you realizing that you are doing so many things and learn so many stuffs.
Don’t be naive, failures are coming…
“Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds” — Candide, Voltaire.
Of course, in any Learning by doing workshop there is a high risk to fail. I don’t mean the inherent failures that go throughout the creative process — such as a bug in the code, connecting wrong wires to the electrical circuit or even a physical collapse of your prototype — but I would like to point some of the failure factors that made one of my project aborting.
During our 4-months course, we were trying to create an interactive doll with specific feedbacks for its erogenous zones — it would have been part of a wider project: an Escape Game on sexual education (*). While the idea was motivating us a lot, the project burst into a million pieces. As important as the factors for success, I have identified some risky components impacting a project completion. All of them are linked together.
❌ Don’t communicate enough with your teammates
Ensuring a good communication flow in your team goes with active listening, making sure your teammates are happy about the ideas, the process and what they have to do in the project. If there is an ounce of frustration, address it ASAP. If you don’t, they won’t pop up anyway (or stay stuck to the coffee machine ☕️🤔
❌ A blurry timing
When it comes to project-management with students, make sure the deadlines are clear for everyone. “After 10 days”, “at the end of the week” are quite clear deadlines. It is easier for your brain to realize that you have no time to procrastinate.
As a facilitator, if you leave a space for a negotiable deadline, make sure you are opening a new window of choice for individual motivation… that will have an effect on the rest of the group. For those reasons, I believe it is easier to produce something in short-term workshops.
❌ When you lose the pleasure of it
The experience should always be fun. Sharing difficulties in a friendly atmosphere is the best that can happen: at the end of the day, it creates unforgettable memories. However, sometimes, you may feel that you spend more time in organizing the working sessions than actually working on the project. The demotivating vicious circle is on : you are fed up updating your teammates when they arrive late, contacting them to know if they will come… and then you don’t even enjoy brainstorming, creating or talking about the project with them anymore.
If I had to choose only one factor for success in organizing a Learning by doing workshop, it would be a tight calendar. Thanks to time constraints — as it occurs in hackathons, in design or communication agencies — you force yourself to go straight to the point, to get out of your comfort zone:
- instead of reading research papers, you’d rather ask for feedbacks;
- instead of watching a tutorial on the internet, you ask to your peers or mentors;
- instead of thinking how you would present your ideas, you just say it;
- instead of organizing future working sessions, you just do it together now!
To me, one of the greatest effect of a maker-centered learning experience is to reconnect with working with your hands, a feeling that we tend to loose –and sometimes even to scorn — in our societies. This idea is worthing more than another paragraph, I let you with Matthew Crawford (Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, 2009) and his inspiring talk on manual competence.
(*) The Escape Game was a success and the room is still set ! A website explaining our project is coming soon 👏 👏 👏
