Tinker Squads: A pilot program at Ellis

The Learning Innovation Institute at The Ellis School, with a HIVE Grant from The Sprout Fund, partnered with regional connected learning organizations to develop and run Tinker Squads, a pilot program to foster engineering skills in girls ages 10 to 13. Tinker Squads met at schools and community centers from September to January and encouraged girls to develop design thinking, tinkering, and making skills. The program, which concluded with a Tinker Meet in January 2014, was so popular that it will run as an Ellis summer camp program.
“Our goal is to help young people develop the capacity to engage with the world as makers. Our challenge as educators is to create environments in which skills can emerge naturally in the process of making—a process which often occurs in the company of others,” said Dr. Lisa Abel-Palmieri, Head of the Ellis Learning Innovation Institute, and founder of Tinker Squads. “By ensuring girls have the opportunity to make and tinker we can ensure they build/practice their creative confidence today so that they have a shot at becoming the successful leaders oftomorrow.”

Tinker Squads utilized “connected learning” methods. Connected learning is an educational approach that deploys out-of-school learning environments (such as afterschool programs and museums), partnerships, and digital learning tools to increase engagement and ignite curiosity in young learners. A cross between technology, art and community engagement, Tinker Squads introduced girls in 5th to 8th grade to human-centered design methods through which girls define and make solutions through hands-on prototypes that address real issues students experience in their communities. This approach helps students develop problem-solving and technical skills while also gaining empathy for others.

“Problem-solving, teamwork, and empathy-building are considered extremely valuable skills by STEM employers, universities, and research institutions. By helping girls build these skills as early as possible The Ellis School hopes to help more girls become interested in STEM majors and careers,” said Dr. Lisa Abel-Palmieri.

Partnering with Ellis for Tinker Squads were ASSEMBLE, the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, the FIRST Robotics Program at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, and Invent-abling.

How Tinker Squads worked: The Ellis School developed the first squad and recruited four other all-girl squads from the Environmental Charter School, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh-Brookline, ASSEMBLE. Tinker Squad teammates help each other through projects, offer critiques, and show their work at Tinker Meets (Faires) where they will earn digital badges and meet other makers in the community. Each of the four founding Squads will host a "Tinker Teach" session before the Tinker Meet to help team members build skills.

Each Tinker Squad team member is provided with a toolbox that includes the switches, origami, textiles, and materials kits from Invent-abling as well a poster that explains the Human Centered Design process and method like those created by the LUMA Institute. Thanks to the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse, teams also received a stipend to acquire additional materials for use in prototypes for the Tinker Meet. The Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse also led a workshop with each Tinker Squad to coach them through the process of sourcing and selecting materials.

Ellis developed digital badges as an alternative assessment tool and to reward girls for successfully completing each challenge. Peer-to-peer mentoring was key. High school aged girls from FIRST Robotics worked with each Tinker Squad team. The mentoring program builds on existing FIRST programs such as Girls of Steel, the all-girls robotics team.

Benefits of tinkering: Tinkering helps kids learn dexterity, ideation, teamwork, and have fun while building creative confidence. Creative confidence fosters a heightened sensitivity to the “made” dimension of objects, ideas, and systems.

“Creative confidence leads to an inclination to hack, tweak, reinvent, or create. Tinker Squads, like the larger maker movement that inspired them, celebrate hands-on activities, and learning what you need from wherever and whomever as you go along,” said Dr. Palmieri.  

Learn more about Connected Learning here: http://connectedlearning.tv/what-is-connected-learning

www.tinkersquads.org
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