Invent To Learn Quotes

“But the “jobs of the future” do not need scientists who have memorized the periodic table. In fact, business leaders say they are looking for creative, independent problem solvers in every field, not just math and science. Yet in most schools, STEM subjects are taught as a series of memorized procedures and vocabulary words, when they are taught at all. In 2009, only 3% of high school graduates had any credits in an engineering course. (National Science Board, 2012) Technology is increasingly being relegated to using computers for Internet research and test taking.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Students engaged in direct experience with materials, unforeseen obstacles, and serendipitous discoveries may result in understanding never anticipated by the teacher.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“The phrase, “technology and education” usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dumbest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable results can be obtained by treating the children like pigeons in a Skinner box. (Papert, 1972a)”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. — Dr. Seuss”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Like all learners, an educator is not a vessel to be filled, but a lamp to be lit.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“tinkering is closer to the way real scientists, mathematicians, and engineers solve problems.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Making, tinkering, and engineering are ways of knowing that should be visible in every classroom, regardless of the subject or age of the students. In a makerspace these processes may be defined loosely: Making is about the active role construction plays in learning. The maker has a product in mind when working with tools and materials. Tinkering is a mindset – a playful way to approach and solve problems through direct experience, experimentation, and discovery. Engineering extracts principles from direct experience. It builds a bridge between intuition and the formal aspects of science by being able to better explain, measure, and predict the world around us.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“As teachers, we often promote the idea that process is more important than the end product, yet it is often the product itself that provides context and motivates students to learn.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Research suggests that teachers who use more progressive or project-based learning techniques are more satisfied in their roles than teachers who use traditional instructional techniques.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Despite a dystopian depiction of social isolation and inaccessibility in the popular culture, all children should enjoy computer science experiences. It is simply unacceptable to celebrate the occasional kid who makes a fortune programming an iPhone app when his classmates are relegated to keyboarding instruction.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“In Teaching Children Thinking, a paper originally written in 1968, Seymour Papert makes an audacious claim: The phrase, “technology and education” usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dumbest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable results can be obtained by treating the children like pigeons in a Skinner box.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“When someone else says: We should teach our teachers about this technology first so they can use it in their lessons. Answer in the following way… We operate on the assumption that teachers love children and are employed to benefit kids. Learning with and alongside students affords teachers an opportunity to see what’s possible through the eyes and screens of their students. Experiencing this potential is a powerful motivator.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Children have always known things their parents and teachers didn’t. What’s different today is that what kids know, or think they know, is feared or coveted by adults. Teachers need to get over their “fear” of modernity and reject the simplistic notion that children are “much better at technology” than adults. If there is any truth to this myth, it is because children use the technology. Doing develops expertise. That should come as no surprise.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Grading student work is likely to result in students being less willing to challenge themselves and to search for the easiest path to “done” rather than risk taking on another iteration of their projects.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Assessment is the work of teachers. It is judgment. We wish we could wave a magic wand and free teachers from all formal assessment responsibilities so they could use their time working with students. However, as long as teachers are required to assess, it should be as nonintrusive as possible and not distract students from the learning process.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Anytime an adult feels it necessary to intervene in an educational transaction, they should take a deep breath and ask, “Is there some way I can do less and grant more authority, responsibility, or agency to the learner?”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“The former student wants to reminisce. She enthusiastically begins a sentence, “Remember that time we...” The rest of the sentence is never “crammed for the standardized test,” or “used all of our spelling words in a sentence.” The student’s reminiscence always concludes with a description of a project created in your classroom. Projects are what students remember long after the bell rings. Great teachers know that their highest calling is to make memories.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“The best projects push up against the persistence of reality. What is a B+ poem or musical composition? How does an engineering project earn an 87? Most mindful work succeeds or fails. Students will want to do the best job possible when they care about their work and know that you put them ahead of a grade. If students are collaborating and regularly engaged in peer review or editing, then the judgment of an adult is really unnecessary. Worst of all, it is coercive and often punitive.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“For those of us who want to change education, the hard work is in our own minds, bringing ourselves to enter intellectual domains we never thought existed. The deepest problem for us is not technology, nor teaching, nor school bureaucracies – it’s the limits of our own thinking.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“When we allow children to experiment, take risks, and play with their own ideas, we give them permission to trust themselves. They begin to see themselves as learners who have good ideas and can transform their own ideas into reality. When we acknowledge that there may be many right answers to a question, it gives children permission to feel safe while thinking and problem solving, not just when they answer correctly. When we honor different kinds of learning styles it becomes acceptable to solve problems without fear.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“In most school activities, structure is valued over serendipity. Understanding is often “designed” by an adult committee prior to even meeting the students. Play is something you do at recess, not in class where students need to “settle down” and “be serious.” Schedules and bells tell students where to be and what they are to learn. Textbooks set the pace of learning, and teachers tend to follow the pattern of chapter assignments and tests. Too often, kids are hooked on teachers and teachers have a faith-based relationship with the textbook.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Seek out open-ended projects that foster students’ involvement with a variety of materials, treating computers as just one more material, alongside rulers, wire, paper, sand, and so forth. Encourage activities in which students use computers to solve real problems.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Talking should not be the primary work of teachers – learning about their students should be. A teacher who is mindful and involved with student work without being the center of attention can teach without lecturing.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“A teacher who allows a child time and support to rethink and revise gives a child autonomy and the ability to trust themselves to be problem solvers, even if their path to success is different than everyone else’s.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Great teachers know that their highest calling is to make memories.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Too often the term “project” means any activity that is not worksheet-based or that takes longer than a 42-minute class period.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“It is impossible to teach 21st century learners if you have not learned this century. — Gary Stager”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“I think it’s an exaggeration, but there’s a lot of truth in saying that when you go to school, the trauma is that you must stop learning and you must now accept being taught. — Seymour Papert”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“Piaget reminds teachers not to present students with pre-organized vocabulary and concepts, but rather provide students with a learning environment grounded in action.”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom

“What can my students do instead of me doing it? How can my students be agents of change rather than objects of change?”
― Sylvia Libow Martinez, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom