Today was my first day as a volunteer tutor/mentor with the Tully Elementary School's After-School Program. I was very eager on the half hour ride there. Tully Elementary School is a cute school with labeled hallways and is located next to the high school. However, Tully is in a poor area. I never would have suspected as it's bigger than the elementary school I attended and no one seemed as if they were in poverty. First, I met all the children who attend the TREP Program on Thursdays. They are all 5th and 6th graders and are adorable! At first, I couldn't believe that they're that old because when I first got there I thought they were younger. I enjoyed watching them go around a circle, starting with Connor, stating their name, grade and something about his or herself. There wasn't very many of them, only eleven kids and there were only two girls, Maggie and Grace. Maggie looks like a girl I used to know and I like Grace because that's my cousin's name. After meeting everyone Ms. Podsiedlik, who directs the program, discussed engineers and their importance in society. She introduced the engineering process model we will be exploring. The Engineering Design Process involves The Goal and 5 basic steps: Ask → Imagine → Plan → Create → Improve. Keeping this in mind, Ms. P. explained that today's challenge is a simple design challenge that is accessible to children of all ages. They worked with a partner to create a card tower. This was a good introduction to fun in creativity and problem solving.
I was assigned to work with the groups to facilitate the challenge activity. The children worked with a partner to build a tower out of playing cards and tape. Each pair got one roll of tape and one deck of cards. They were instructed to build a card tower as tall as they could, that can stand independently, using only the materials they had. They were told to plan first (which I noticed was the hardest part for them, I needed to remind them to think before acting) and then build, adjusting their planning as necessary. I worked with Anthony and Vincent's group. I really enjoyed watching them plan and build. I even got to know them a little better, talking about our favorite movies, candies, etc. The boys were both very funny, Vincent is a comical character. The building process lasted about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Following the challenge they compared designs and reflected upon how they used the engineering design process to arrive at their creation. My group's tower didn't quite work out. The girls, Maggie and Grace's tower turned out to be the tallest. They named their tower "Magrace" which I thought was funny since it's both of their names combined. At 5 pm they packed up to go home. The challenge for me was to not help them build or problem solve. I could not intercede in the process. The groups needed to work out the challenges on their own. No suggestion making was allowed, only questioning. I asked questions such as, What could you do to make your structure stronger and more stable so it doesn't tip over? What isn't working with your tower? How can you change something to fix that? It was pretty cool observing the kids build their towers and how they fixed it when things didn't quite work the way they thought they would.
I had a great first experience and I can't wait to continue to grow as a tutor/mentor. I'm looking forward to working with Mary and the children this semester in the following weeks to come!
I was assigned to work with the groups to facilitate the challenge activity. The children worked with a partner to build a tower out of playing cards and tape. Each pair got one roll of tape and one deck of cards. They were instructed to build a card tower as tall as they could, that can stand independently, using only the materials they had. They were told to plan first (which I noticed was the hardest part for them, I needed to remind them to think before acting) and then build, adjusting their planning as necessary. I worked with Anthony and Vincent's group. I really enjoyed watching them plan and build. I even got to know them a little better, talking about our favorite movies, candies, etc. The boys were both very funny, Vincent is a comical character. The building process lasted about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Following the challenge they compared designs and reflected upon how they used the engineering design process to arrive at their creation. My group's tower didn't quite work out. The girls, Maggie and Grace's tower turned out to be the tallest. They named their tower "Magrace" which I thought was funny since it's both of their names combined. At 5 pm they packed up to go home. The challenge for me was to not help them build or problem solve. I could not intercede in the process. The groups needed to work out the challenges on their own. No suggestion making was allowed, only questioning. I asked questions such as, What could you do to make your structure stronger and more stable so it doesn't tip over? What isn't working with your tower? How can you change something to fix that? It was pretty cool observing the kids build their towers and how they fixed it when things didn't quite work the way they thought they would.
I had a great first experience and I can't wait to continue to grow as a tutor/mentor. I'm looking forward to working with Mary and the children this semester in the following weeks to come!