working with parents. models for activities in science ......science-oriented issues can be...

FEAST – Working with parents. Models for activities in science centres and museums 1

Working with parents. Models for activities in science centres

and museums


Index A robot in the family .............................................................................................................. 3

1. Objective and aims ............................................................................................................. 3 2. Introduction on general aims of FEAST workshops ............................................................. 3 3. Rationale for this specific workshop .................................................................................... 3 4. Workshop strategy and rationale ........................................................................................ 4 5. Topic .................................................................................................................................. 4 6. Target audience and recruitment ........................................................................................ 4 7. Time scale, schedule and description of specific activities .................................................. 5

7.1 Introduction | 15 min ............................................................................................. 5 7.2 Activity | 1 hour and 15 minutes ............................................................................ 6 7.3 Discussion | 30 min ............................................................................................... 7

8. Materials ............................................................................................................................ 8 9. The role of the explainer ..................................................................................................... 9 10. Successes, challenges and observations ......................................................................... 9 11. Take/do at home activities and materials for parents ...................................................... 10


A robot in the family A model from Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia

Leonardo da Vinci, Milan, Italy This workshop takes up the theme of robotics as a stimulus for encouraging collaborative work between adults (parents) and children. It aims to build basic knowledge of robotics and experience in using inquiry. The activity is a time trial. Family groups are asked to use specifically-designed software and LEGO kits in order to build a robot able to make three laps of a circuit as fast as possible. Once robots are ready, the race starts; the faster and more efficient robot wins. During the last part of the activity the groups analyse the way they undertook the task.

1. Objective and aims The workshop aims to:

• encourage the collaboration between parents and children on the basis of a common task;

• build some basic knowledge about robotics using collaborative-learning activities; • help parents become more aware of how they and their children build science-related

skills and knowledge. 2. Introduction on general aims of FEAST workshops The FEAST workshops aspire to empower parents as facilitators of their children’s learning in science, equipping them with skills and tools that go beyond the museum visit. At the same time, they are developed with the objective to build specific tools and methodologies that can help museum educators and explainers enrich and strengthen their work with family audiences. In the context of these objectives, the partner museums have designed a series of interactive/experimental/inquiry-based workshops that could be integrated within their museum provision, which can also be offered to other institutions outside the FEAST consortium. Families are a very important agent when it comes to developing (or not) a relationship between young people and science; adults’ own feeling about science and their level of involvement in science-oriented issues can be determinant for their children’s attitude. Creating the conditions so that parents can feel more competent, self-confident and aware both of the value of science and of the importance of their role constitutes the challenge for the FEAST project and the prerequisite for the development of the workshops. Topics, methodology and parents’ role within the workshops have been built in such a way as to create an informal, active and engaging context of learning in which parents (with or without their children) can focus on their own learning as scientifically literate citizens, as well as on ways in which they themselves can help children’s engagement in science. 3. Rationale for this specific workshop The workshop focuses on robotics and aims to build some basic knowledge on the topic. At the same time, robotics works also as a pre-text for the development of a collaborative context for family groups. The activities need to be carried out in such as way as to encourage collaborative learning and help parents reflect on their role as mediators. The suggested activities have been developed on the basis


of the theoretical framework of the FEAST project (see FEAST resourse “FEAST - a discussion of the literature”), and in particular on the following elements:

• Robotics becomes the ‘juicy question’. The worskhop challenges the family agendas (usually greatly shaped by parents’ views) since it considers a more or less equal knowledge on the topic. Children and adults start on the task with limited previously-acquired knowledge (or even, we might say, sometimes more knowledge from the part of the children). Parents’ personal efficacy can be of help but it does not become a burden in children’s engagement with the task.

• The workshop encourages collaborative work during which each member of the group finds their own role. There is individual discovery and there is learning together. Parents are invited not to stand back but to explore alongside the children.

• The task of building a robot for a time race encourages conversation among family members as the tool for exploration, negotiation and consolidation of notions and choices.

• The final discussion aims to help parents to reflect on their role as mediators, therefore the topic becomes a second priority.

4. Workshop strategy and rationale The reason for the choice of this topic is that robotics as a science and technology field is usually not familiar to children nor to adults. This offers the opportunity to start from the same level of knowledge in family members, both when working on the task and during discussions. Moreover, a collaborative experimental activity offers the opportunity to work on a current science and technology theme and present notions, tools and related technologies with which individuals will inevitable engage, if not immediately, certainly in the near future. Moreover, the robot itself is an interesting object. People's engagement in the process of building a (simple) robot as well as their interaction with the machine can be a very enjoyable experience. Participants are able to employ elements of informatics, maths, physics, biology and mechanics for their work, integrating them in an experimental process. Groups will use their already-existing knowledge in order to develop a hypothesis and a plan. The activity is based on problems to resolve working in small groups (family group or more-than-one family groups among them) and through experimental challenges. In this situation parents and children should collaborate among them in order to make hypothesis, build experimental processes, try out solutions, discuss alternatives and negotiate choices and decisions. Every discovery is a process and not an acquisition of a ready product. 5. Topic Robotics. 6. Target audience and recruitment The target of this activity are families with children from 9 to 13 years old with a maximum of two adults for every child. The main channels for the recruitment are:

• Museum website; • Museum Facebook page; • Blogs for parents (mothers); • Newspaper communications.


7. Time scale, schedule and description of specific activities

7.1 Introduction | 15 min The explainer welcomes the group and presents the FEAST project and its objectives. In order to introduce the theme of robotics and orientate visitors, two warm-up activities is proposed:

• The explainer pretends to be a robot while visitors give instructions asking the 'robot' to go from one point of the room to another.

• Each person uses a small pole (see photo) and makes it stand on the palm of their hand trying to keep it in equilibrium for as much time as possible. The aim is to help visitors observe and understand which body movements are necessary for keeping the pole in vertical position: o observe the pole (take the data from the environment); o understand if the pole is at the left or right side of my target (vertical position) o decide the action of my arm: move right if the pole is on the right side and vice

versa.

This is the same logic of control process for the robot following the black line.

The explainer then introduces the main activity and the task as follows:

Each family group should build a robot putting together the basic module, a light sensor and a sound sensor using the LEGO brick.


The group has to discuss and try to understand which is the best position for the two sensors. A basic solution might be the following:

They then program it using one laptop computer for each group. The robot’s movement should start following a sound stimulus. It should walk the black line (circuit) on the white race board running the whole circuit three times and as fast as possible. The explainer presents the main commands of the software (“activate motors”, the command to have the robot turn in the curve, the command “if” (that is, “activate motor only if”), the command “repeat”).

7.2 Activity | 1 hour and 15 minutes

Using the software, parents and children in cooperation need to reason on the variables influencing the behaviour and velocity of the robot. For example:

• How should we use the light sensor or the sound sensor so that the robot makes the

right movement? • How can we make the robot follow the line?

Families should put together the different components of the robot, measure light and sound sensibility in the two sensors and program the robot to follow the line of the circuit. The work should allow them to reflect on the following aspects of the topic:

• What is a robot

We often think of a robot as a machine with supernatural capacities, coming mainly from our knowledge of science fiction. It is however a machine of a specific structure and characteristics.

• Programming a robot The robot is a machine which carries out only those operations for which it was programmed. For this reason it is important to give the robot specific and detailed instructions which indicate step by step how it should behave in order to meet the objective.

• Design a robot The robot should know the environment in which it should act; it should be able to verify the characteristics of the environment and perceive any changes. The designer of a robot should choose the appropriate information - and the appropriate sensors - to be used by the robot in order to meet its goal.


• Strategies for autonomy The robot is a machine capable of self-control. This skill is based on the feedback, that is, that particular way of acting when for example we want to keep a ball with one finger or when we go on a bike (here they would have to remember what they did with the pole).

This kind of notions should be developed and understood gradually by participants with the help of the explainer, mainly built on the process of putting the robot together and on the choices to make so that the robot can carry out the required task. They can run as many trials as they need in order to control the efficacy of their choices of programming. In the end, the robot should be able to stay on the border between the black line and the white surface and follow the shape of the circuit. The activity ends with a race of the robots. The race does not aim to establish one winner and many “losers”. It is regarded as among the main characteristics of the challenge. It helps in bringing the activity into a conclusion, in getting the whole group together again in a shared task and it also helps participants to make comparisons regarding their own and other's choices. It is also a fun and noisy moment, when all participants are able to cheer up their robots racing on the circuit, before they get into the final moment of discussion and reflection.

7.3 Discussion | 30 min The workshop participants get together after the activity for the final discussion focusing on the theme and on the process. The explainer asks participants to write down (on a post-it paper) the definition of a robot as well as the different phases of work they undertook in order to arrive to the conclusion trying, if they can, to define the evolution of the learning process, the weak and strong points, the behaviour of the different members of the group. The different answers are then put on the flip chart, one sheet for each question. Once all answers are on the board, the explainer first comments the definitions drawing attention on the main characteristics of a robot.


Most of the discussion should be focused on the adults’ comments on their learning process, aiming to make them reflect on what they did and how they worked with their children. Doubts, curiosities as well as ‘conquests’ and developments should come out explicitly feeding the discussion on how we learn, what is learning and what the role of parents can be in similar situations of cooperative learning.

8. Materials The activity uses the LEGO kit NXT Mindstorms. One kit is given to each group. The kit contains a robot with four wheels, a motor going with batteries, one light sensor and one sound sensor. NXT Mindstorms lego pieces and circuits are available for connecting the sensors to the motor. Each group also receives a laptop computer containing a software for programming the robot. The robot should be able to move onto a race board with a black line designed on a white surface. The kit also contains the technical instructions for the software and the different parts to assemble.

It is possible to find the instructions for the model vehicle at: http://www.nxtprograms.com/castor_bot/steps.html or download the pdf document called CONSTRUCTOPEDIA 2.1 at: http://legoengineering.com/library/cat_view/30-building-instructions/38-nxt-based-creations.html?start=10 In this document there many other simple models. There is a very important thing to keep in mind: the vehicles must have two motors (left and right) otherwise the logic of the program changes. The light sensor works well if it is close to the table, because it receives more accurate data. The robot follows better the line if we program it to switch on one motor and switch off the opposite, like in the following basic example where the logic is: if the light sensor sees bright then turn left, else turn right:


NOTE: There is not a unique way to program the robot to obtain the same result; visitors might come out with something different which works equally well: GOOD THING!!! 9. The role of the explainer The explainer has the role of facilitator. During the activity he/she monitors how the family programs the robot, supports the teams, asks them questions and gives them simple examples to reflect without giving the solution (generally there are many solutions to reach the task, not only one). He/she does not mention to the participants the concept of “robot” at the beginning. We expect that it emerges from what the groups will be doing as well as from the final discussion. 10. Successes, challenges and observations The strong aspects of the workshop have been the following:

• The positive attitude of the participating groups and the interest to go on.

• Parents said that they were able to take part to the activity in an active way and to observe their own attitudes when working with their children: they appreciated the importance of direct experimentation, of cooperation upon a common task and of discussion in times when a complex notion needed to be understood. They also mentioned to role of 'patience' and commitment when undertaking a challenge.

Suggestions for improving the weak aspects:

• Parents asked to have more time to carry out the activity. This implies a complexity of the task, especially given that participants were not experts. More time can be devoted therefore and/or, where possible, more than one explainers can be employed to facilitate the experience (especially helping with the commands and use of the software).

• The workshop showed that sometimes children are more prepared or quicker in reacting when they are asked to solve a problem. This is an new element in the context of the FEAST project: we started thinking about parents as the 'experts' in the Vygotskian zone of proximal development and about the best ways to equip them to facilitate and reinforce their children's learning in science. In this case, there might be situations where parents feel embarrassed or with limited ability to undertake a role of facilitator in a scaffolding process. This is however an interesting point and should be taken up for further reflection as science and technology become ever more complex but, apparently, are handled more easily in young people's hands. Parents' role - in this case but in general too - should not be that of specialist support, but a role in helping awareness


about how we learn and how we can feel confident and competent when undertaking a science-oriented task.

Observations: This has been actually one of the facts observed during the workshop, especially with regards to adults engagement in the activity, The final discussion (and the adults comments noted down on paper) showed that adults were able to reflect on what they did when pursuing the task, often describing the process using the very phases of the scientific process. 11. Take/do at home activities and materials for parents At the end of the workshop, the explainer asks participants to observe their everyday world:

• Which kinds of robots are present in everyday life? • Which kind of sensors do these utilize? • Which sensors or processes seen during the activity can be observed in nature?

Participants are invited to write back to the museum sending the results of their observations.

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