"Messing About"
In 1974, David Hawkins in his book about science and education
entitled The Informed Vision wrote an essay on
"Messing About In Science". This phrase and others like
it have been used to describe the early phases of inquiry.
It is a time of becoming familiar with the feeling of
materials, with haptic experiences where hands-on experiences
of forces and dimensions and mechanisms are the building
blocks for making design choices. Constructivist learning
emphasizes this phase as one where learners reactivate
memories of objects of study, or create new impressions
if the object is novel. In both cases, learners make new
connections as they learn about the features and constraints
of the objects they explore. MOVIE 1 has Janet
Kolodner telling how a "messing about" phase
is included in the Learning
By Design™ curriculum soon after the design
brief has been presented. With its Model Parachute challenge,
students explore materials and get their chutes to work
before talking about key design variables. With its
Machines That Help unit, students investigate different
simple machines before combining them into a more complex
device to meet the challenge. With the Stuff That Works
materials, students take the results of a Scaverger
Hunt (collection of shopping bags) and then explore
how they are made, different kinds of bags, and where
they are weak when they test them to failure.
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