Perspectives: Hands-on learning engages teachers and students 

Innovative and affordable options for revitalizing K-12 education

Mary Simon is the founder and executive director of the Resource Area for Teaching (www.raft.net) , a San Jose-based nonprofit organization that provides diverse educational services to thousands of children in the Silicon Valley with in-kind support from over 2,000 businesses. Simon taught elementary grades for 12 years, specializing in math and science education.

PVC tubes, cardboard cylinders and duct tape have helped long-time Resource Area for Teaching member and middle school teacher Jeanne Lazzarini teach seventh- and eighth-grade students the scientific principle of velocity and much more. The low-tech, low-cost equipment for what Lazzarini calls the “roller coaster” project completely engages students who have otherwise been thought of as trouble. “It forces children to work as a group instead of encouraging some to take charge and others to stand on the sidelines,” Lazzarini says.

Research shows that children who are more engaged in the classroom stay in the classroom, giving them a higher rate of graduating from high school and finishing college. Students are more successfully engaged by the hands-on or inquiry-based learning that Lazzarini includes in her teaching strategies. And not only does hands-on learning benefit students, there is a positive “halo effect” for teachers. Observing how students respond to a particular hands-on activity significantly affects job satisfaction and can greatly improve teacher retention.

Developing solutions that encourage economic and environmental sustainability

Professional development programs that stress hands-on learning clearly improve teacher attitudes and confidence, especially in math and science. These programs also have long-term benefits for schools at a time when a third of America’s new teachers leave the profession in their first three years of teaching—and almost half leave during the first five years. The loss of a single teacher can cost a school district as much as $17,000, according to a 2007 study by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Pleasanton-based educational therapist Kathryn Tournat witnesses on a daily basis the detrimental effects experienced by students who are deprived of experiential learning environments. While some districts with significant parent-teacher partnerships have the resources necessary to make such environments a reality, budget cutbacks have compromised other school districts’ ability to do so. This is primarily due to the project coordination and customization requirements of hands-on environments, as well as the high cost of purchasing enough materials for every student.

Some districts, however, have found affordable, easy-to-implement, “green” alternatives to more costly, time-intensive counterparts. Reusable materials and free, inquiry-based learning resources—like the RAFT Idea Sheets and kits Lazzarini uses in the classroom and the multisensory manipulatives Tournat employs in her work—help incorporate hands-on learning in schools efficiently and affordably.

And the benefits extend from schools and districts to county offices of education. The Santa Clara County Office of Education, for example, offers physical science instructional programs that help fourth- and fifth-grade teachers in Santa Clara County and elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area increase student engagement through inquiry-based strategies and tactics. Corporations like National Semiconductor underwrite the Santa Clara COE’s workshops, offering them free to teachers who work in Santa Clara County schools. Santa Clara COE realizes significant savings in purchasing RAFT materials for these workshops. As a result, teachers who attend are given RAFT materials to take back for use in their classrooms.

These workshops reframe the way fourth- and fifth-grade physical science curriculum is taught. Sandi Yellenberg, a science coordinator for the Santa Clara COE who leads the workshops, says hands-on-learning nurtures critical thinking skills and makes work more rewarding for teachers and concepts more concrete for students. All it takes is a few fabric strips, some foam, clear plastic containers, coffee stirrers, packing popcorn and other reusable items, for example, and Yellenberg can construct a gigantic model of a human cell. Teachers and students are able to better understand the activity of the cell first-hand when they sit inside and experience it in a totally physical way.

Yellenberg recalls one remarkable student, Ramon, a visual learner with auditory processing issues. For Ramon, hands-on learning made a significant difference. The results included a boost to his self-esteem, giving him the confidence to meet achievement goals using everyday objects that he could feel, touch and see.

Hands-on learning has been shown to help develop language skills for English language learners and reading skills for elementary students. Manipulatives reveal the learning potential of students in special education classes and address gender and socioeconomic gaps that are often hard for individual teachers to overcome.

The importance of community support

Private and public partnerships can have a monumental impact in ensuring the success of programs that are affordable, environmentally sustainable, standards-based and do not require much time or specialized training. With the support of local businesses, community groups and parents, inquiry-based learning can be implemented in schools at a very low cost. For example, donations of surplus materials from local biotechnology companies, along with industrial and private electrical contractors, have allowed RAFT to bring the cost of having a whole class of students each build his or her own electric circuit down to just $4. Reusing materials in this way can offer an affordable alternative to resources that are commercially available.

Here are some other ways in which community-based organizations, enterprises and foundations can step up to help local schools integrate hands-on teaching into their curriculum:

• Request that parent organizations provide teachers with financial support for classroom materials that they can purchase at a low cost from nonprofit organizations like RAFT. 
• Facilitate personal donations and gift cards to teachers to help defray the cost of inquiry-based learning materials and resources.
• Create community support for programs through sponsorships by local businesses. Enlist the help of volunteers in the classroom, especially on days that include hands-on activities.
• Facilitate open communications between teachers, students, program leaders and volunteers to ensure coordination between traditional coursework and hands-on experiments.
• Volunteer or donate to organizations that support teachers.

Making every resource count

All the stakeholders in public education want what’s best for students. The challenge is to find new strategies that work in the current climate. Class sizes are increasing. Teachers are being asked to handle more with less support. School boards face the daunting job of balancing budgets. Parents demand success for their children’s education.

Yet the undeniable truth is that there is not just one modality by which children learn. There are many ways to get to a solution or the correct answer. Unfortunately, thinking through “the why” of a question often becomes secondary in current learning environments that measure learning by getting the answers correct on standardized, multiple-choice tests.A world of materials and phenomena exists with which children may interact, observe and investigate. The challenge lies in creating a scalable, educational framework to help them draw their own conclusions. At the same time, this challenge offers a unique opportunity for public schools administrators, after-school program leaders and nonprofit educational providers.

Says Ms. Tournat: “The teachers who flock to centers, stores and workshops just to spend their personal time and money on experiential learning tools and methods must be intuitively focused on facilitating every student’s individual learning, thinking and growth. Now, if we really want to improve the rankings of California’s schools, all we need to do is support them.”