In the microteaching task, I hope to explore re-materialisation, the practice of transforming intangible computational concepts (the immaterial) back into traditional formats, such as paper and wood, and channelling them into tangible experiences (Ferreira, 2022).
Context
When approaching the object-based learning task, I started by reflecting on my journey as a student and a teacher in the classroom of computational technologies. Object-based learning, especially with physical objects, is not a frequently used practice in this context, since the materiality of computational technologies is often deposited into digital data and virtual environments without their objecthood.
Although we often attempt to use real-world scenarios to demonstrate theoretical concepts, for instance, using the classic tin can phone example to demonstrate information theory, or the Alice and Bob fictional characters to demonstrate cyber security protocols, they typically remain in intangible theoretical scenarios or thought experiments.
What if we re-materialise these fictional scenarios in pedagogic practices? Will the learning experience benefit from it? Will this re-materialisation offer a more accessible language for computational technologies, particular in the context of art and creativity?
Preparation
I decided to plan a rolling dice activity to explore re-materialisation because it’s quick, lightweight and at entry-level. Rolling dice is a classic activity in mathematics pedagogy to demonstrate a concept called probability distribution: throw a die with 6 faces for a few times and tally the results – you’ll likely get uneven counts for each face even if the dice is perfectly fair – this is because rolling dice is always random and uncertain.
I prepared physical dice, papers, and pens. And also gave it a tweak: three out of the five dice are loaded (i.e., they are unfair and biased toward some numbers). In the activity, I asked participants to pick two dice and inspect if they were fair. They were instructed to roll the dice several times, count the results, and discuss their thoughts with the group.
I prepare printed task sheets shown below. It contains a quick brief, instructions, and two template tables for tallying the dice.
Delivery
The delivery on the day followed mostly according to the plan. Frst, I made some impromptu decisions on the day:
I was the first one to run the microteaching on my session, and people were sitting in quite scattered seats in the room, I decided to reorganise the space. I merged two large tables and asked everyone to join together. So this was turned into a group icebreaker – a group of two and a group of three.
Then we started the session:
- I distributed the printed hand-outs, and gave a quick introduction of what I teach and how this activity fit into my class.
- Then I briefed the participant on the activity – mostly reiterating the first few lines in the hand-out.
- Then I asked each group to pick a die and we dived into the dice-rolling.
Filled hand-outs collected from participants.
Reflection
One of the feedback from the participants was “I enjoyed seeing math concepts and jargon turn into familiar objects”. This prompted me to constructivist learning theories, describing how learning can happen when learners construct knowledge through hands-on activities (Narayan et al., 2013). This is something I always wanted to incorporate in my teaching.
I also see the opportunities re-materialisation can bring to the learning experience. Last year during the Mathematics and Statistics unit, I used a software dice roller that I programmed for this activity. But in this microteaching session, by turning it into a tangible activity and bringing participants to a closer space, they actively engaged in the task. And critical thinking also happened during their investigation of the dice – both groups were actively reflecting on the evidence they gained, challenging and updating their answers, and hopefully, learning something new.
References
- Ferreira, P., 2022. Rematerialising Digital Technologies Through Critical Making, in: Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Computation, Communication, Aesthetics & X. pp. 134–147. https://doi.org/10.24840/xCoAx_2022_42
- Narayan, R., Rodriguez, C., Araujo, J., Shaqlaih, A., Moss, G., 2013. Constructivism—Constructivist learning theory., in: The Handbook of Educational Theories. IAP Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC, US, pp. 169–183.