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ITERATION STATION

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ITERATION STATION

This activity introduces students to iteration, which means making many versions of an object or idea in order to make it work really well. Paper airplanes are a great vehicle for teaching this process because they are simple to make, can be designed and redesigned in many different ways, and can be immediately tested and evaluated.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES  ANALYSIS and EVALUATION, KINESTHETIC LEARNING, PERSISTENCE
MAKE

Invite everyone to make a paper airplane, using whatever technique they like best. Mark your runway, ideally 20+ feet long; hallways and cafeterias make great runways.

LET ‘EM FLY

Release your planes—either all together or one at a time. Record how many seconds each plane is aloft, and measure how far they fly. Post the results on a big to make it exciting, or record the stats in your notebooks.

IMPROVE

Choose one quality of your plane to develop further. Let everyone decide what quality they want to pursue—longer hang-time, greater distance, better spiral, etc. The category is not important; what is essential is that you are working toward a specific goal with each new model you create.

REPEAT

Make a new airplane after each throw, improving your design to help reach your goal. Make sure to record stats for each throw you make, including what changes you’ve made to your new model and why you’ve made those particular changes.

DEBRIEF

Reflect on your insights from the process, then use what you’ve learned about iteration to help improve the solution(s) your group has generated for your main design problem.

BOARD WALK

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BOARD WALK

Getting people to share personal stories about their experiences can reveal very specific and often useful information. When told in a group setting, you can identify themes and patterns between the stories as well. This activity also works well as an icebreaker!

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES ANALYSIS and EVALUATION, VERBAL COMMUNICATION, SYNTHESIS
DEFINE

Identify 3-4 key questions that will help you better understand the challenge you’re addressing. Keep them open-ended, and wherever possible, allow people opportunities to share their individual experiences.

PAIR UP

Everyone is given a poster board. The facilitator invites people to partner with someone they don’t yet know, or assigns partners randomly. The first question is read aloud, and each partner is given a set amount of time (usually 1-3 minutes each) to respond in turn.

LISTEN

While each participant is sharing their story, their partner is listening attentively and writing down the key words or phrases they hear on individual sticky notes, which are then stuck to the speaker’s board.

SWAP

After both partners have shared their responses, the facilitator signals a swap, and everyone takes their boards with them and finds a new partner for the next question.

BOARDWALK

After the questions are complete, the boards are displayed and the entire group takes 5-10 minutes to do a “Board Walk” of the room and review the key ideas that have emerged.

SHARE

The facilitator leads a quick share-out of ideas and asks the group to sort their keywords into thematic clusters to see what patterns emerge. To take this activity one step further, invite the group to steal key words from any board and use them to craft a sentence or poem about the challenge being addressed.