Posted by Jake Mazotas, Other on team #177, Bobcats Robotics, from South Windsor High and International Fuel Cells.
Posted on 4/8/99 10:08 PM MST
Hey, I’m doing a college reaserch project on how and why FIRST inspires high school students. If anybody knows where I can get some concrete material let me know. I know there were several magazine artiles, etc about FIRST, and I’m trying to dig them up…if you have any idea, I’d apreciate it if you would drop me an e-mail.
Thanks,
Jake
Posted by Dan, Student on team #10, BSM, from Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Banner Engineering.
Posted on 4/8/99 11:16 PM MST
In Reply to: HELP! posted by Jake Mazotas on 4/8/99 10:08 PM MST:
>>Hey, I’m doing a college reaserch project on how and why FIRST inspires
>>high school students. If anybody knows where I can get some concrete
>>material let me know. I know there were several magazine artiles, etc
>>about FIRST, and I’m trying to dig them up…if you have any idea, I’d
>>apreciate it if you would drop me an e-mail.
My experiences with FIRST have led me to question how it works also and I’ve found some information on it.
You’ll find a wealth of info on the the Epistemology and Learning website at MIT. They research how technology can help us learn - you can thank them for great toys like the Lego Mindstorms.
You may also want to look into the idea of ‘Constructivism.’ The excerpts below may help a little, and this link should too: http://www.inform.umd.edu/UMS+State/UMD-Projects/MCTP/Essays/Constructivism.txt
I hope this helps, I’d like to know what you come up with. :-Dan
‘What are the underpinnings for a constructivist learning
setting and how do they differ from a classroom based on the
traditional model (sometimes referred to as the objectivist model)?
The current American classroom, whether grade school or college
level, tends to resemble a one-person show with a captive but often
comatose audience. Classes are usually driven by ‘teacher-talk’ and
depend heavily on textbooks for the structure of the course. There
is the idea that there is a fixed world of knowledge that the student
must come to know. Information is divided into parts and built into
a whole concept. Teachers serve as pipelines and seek to transfer
their thoughts and meanings to the passive student. There is little
room for student-initiated questions, independent thought or
interaction between students. The goal of the learner is to
regurgitate the accepted explanation or methodology expostulated by
the teacher (Caprio, 1994).
In a constructivist setting, knowledge is not objective;
mathematics and science are viewed as systems with models that
describe how the world might be rather than how it is. These models
derive their validity not from their accuracy in describing the real
world, but from the accuracy of any predictions which might be based
on them (Postlewaite, 1993). The role of the teacher is to organize
information around conceptual clusters of problems, questions and
discrepant situations in order to engage the student’s interest.
Teachers assist the students in developing new insights and
connecting them with their previous learning. Ideas are presented
holistically as broad concepts and then broken down into parts. The
activities are student centered and students are encouraged to ask
their own questions, carry out their own experiments, make their own
analogies and come to their own conclusions.’