Learning from Experience

‘Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching’?

– Kirill Korshikov

This year I introduced to my DP1 students the concept of ‘EXP’. What exactly is ‘EXP’ you may ask?

‘EXP’ stands for:?

'Explore' 'Experiment'

'Expand' 'Experience' 'Express'

It’s a practice that I used to use with my DT students in England too. It’s a very democratic approach, as it begins with the assumption that, in DT class, both students and the teacher can learn from each other and grow both as individuals and as a team. EXP goes hand-in-hand with the IB profile ‘Reflective’ and ‘Risk-Taker’; and it is very much ‘Montessori style’!

It’s all about creativity, stepping out of comfort zones, and allowing students to experience a wide variety of materials and processes in unconventional ways. The goal for these activities is to offer students the possibility to create a material/process library which they will then use as a base for the development of their Internal Assessment (IA). In Group 4, this approach can also help to build bridges in between subjects to enhance students' knowledge too.?

It is well known that most of the world’s greatest inventions were not invented by geniuses; instead they were developed by normal people, by accident! Think about the 3M? scientist, Dr Spencer Silver, who was trying to develop a super- strong glue, but instead accidentally made a reusable, pressure-sensitive glue and, prompted by colleague Arthur Fry, invented the first ‘Post-it'.

Think about William Mason when he was compressing wood fibre into insulation boards, but forgot to shut down his equipment and ended up with a durable thin sheet of MDF instead…

Think about chemist, artist and book binder, édouard Bénédictus who accidentally dropped a glass beaker that had once held cellulose nitrate and came up with the idea of laminated glass…!

Ok, I am not asking students to leave dangerous equipment unattended like Mr Manson did, or to drop shards of glass all over the classroom... What I am saying is that experimental processes are fundamental for the development of new composite materials which could potentially have a use in the future.?

Students benefit from an open-ended approach to their experiments and the follow up reflection on their findings. Material libraries teach students that they do not need to be geniuses to be successful, and that perseverance, passion and creativity are important steps that help to bring an idea to life.

Thankfully, most Design and Technology curriculums devote a big part of their content to the study materials, which gives students time to invest into these TDA activities. As International Baccalaureate Design and Technology teachers we are given total freedom of choice regarding the order to which we approach the curriculum (which it’s quite unique to this subject I think!) I personally believe that Materials -Topic 4- should be the core foundation of DP1 and be the running thread to which all the other topics correlate…

I observed my DT students being very shy in practical lessons this year. Some struggled to understand the freedom of this ‘EXP’ approach. It seemed as if some were ‘walking on eggshells’, not really sure whether ‘they’d be allowed to do this’; perhaps because they had never been given the freedom to play around with materials before, or because they never really experienced workshop practical? lessons before this year.?

I definitely think that by applying this philosophy in the Middle Years we would be equipping students with more knowledge and understanding which will inherently prepare them for their DP journey. Most DP HL students embraced the ‘EXP’ process and had so much fun with it. HL students have two additional periods a week. It doesn't seem like much - but actually a lot can be achieved in two periods, as the class is smaller which means less distractions for the pupils, and a lot more one-to-one support for each student from me.

To summarise: we do not need to be afraid to lead open-ended lessons in class. Starting always with an inquiry question it’s a great way to draw pupils in and grab their attention. But allowing teenagers to have their own freedom, to decide and shape the course of their practical lessons, to learn from their achievements as well as their mistakes without judgement; to be inspired by each other - it’s an amazing way to nurture their passions and project them into the future!