Laura M. Pickel
Educator / Designer
Reimagining experience.
What makes something an experience? What makes something a meaningful experience? How does, and more importantly can, experience lead to learning? The projects below represent a sample from my search for answers to these questions.
PLACEHOLDER
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Growing out of personal experiences in the d.school, a colleague and I wanted to explore the question, "What is the experience of introverts at the d.school?" We talked to about 15 students who self-define as introverts about their experiences at the d.school and to faculty and staff about teaching to all different kinds of learners. Our findings have led to several prototypes currently in testing. Read more.
In response to challenges in my classroom, including limited classtime and too many topics to get through, I played with flipping my classroom. For homework, students were given videos to watch and during class, they worked on problems that might traditionally be given as "homework." Read more.
As part of a week-long exploration of the Brooklyn Bridge at CITYterm, I co-taught a lesson about the labor that went into the icon. Rather than tell students about labor conditions, we asked them to take on the persona of a mason, a rigger or a sandhog and fight for their rights as laborers. Read more.
Our students at CITYterm were in the NYC at least three times a week. To help them see how math might apply to their city experiences, I taught "Math Cab" on their first day of math class. By running through this activity, students were able to come up with mathematical reasons for taking a subway versus a cab. Read more.
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In discovery learning environments, learners are presented with a set of inputs and are asked to develop their own understanding of a concept. I conducted a study that attempted to measure the applicability to future learning of varying levels of guidance or scaffolding during a discovery learning activity. Read more.
The Fabrication Lab in Stanford's education school hosts students from a local school to help them learn fabrication techniques. In this study, we sought to better understand what kinds of life skills students were developing and what kinds of opportunities they benefitted from by attending class at the FabLab. Read more.
For a project in my Technology for Learners class in the fall, we worked with a high school senior to make environmental science more engaging and less boring for her. We created an interactive app to help her learn about pesticides through the eyes of Rachel Carson, an environmental scientist. Read more.
By interacting with Artomaton, learners are able to use physical cues - specifically the movement of the marker - to intuit the size and shape of the cam inside of the box. Then, they could put together different boxes with different cams, to create drawings on a rotating piece of paper. Read more.