Hands Up for Hands-On

TechTerra’s Commitment to Hands-On STEM Exploration.
Author: Susan Wells
TechTerra Founder, Lifelong Educator

​As a leader of a company focused on education, and educational technology, I believe in equitable access for all students by giving them engaging, hands-on learning experiences. It’s a commitment that grew out of what I’ve seen in my decades as an educator. And, most importantly, what I’ve seen actually work. 

In the 1980s, I was in a post-high-school gap year working as a bookkeeper. I dove into the four-volume instruction manual that came with the first desktop computer (the IBM 5150) and taught myself how to use it for efficient bookkeeping. 

In 1997, I was working at a district office and had the add-on duty of technology specialist. We were piloting the Newton-based Apple eMate — a tablet computer made a decade before the iPad.  

Then, in 2007, I was serving as a school principal with a large group of non-English speaking students enrolling. This was also the year the iPhone launched, which began a seismic shift in the way people communicate, create, work and entertain themselves.

At our school, students needed dictionaries that we didn't have and didn't know how to get (way before one-click on Amazon). So we used the iPod Touch as a translation device. These handheld ‘computers’ made it possible for equitable access to learning content. It was amazing. And transformative.

Over the next year or so, we began to see the consumption-over-creation battle escalate — a battle that's being waged in education technology to this day. Teachers found kids staring at screens. A lot. So, in 2009 we sat down, planned it out, and opened our first Innovation STEM Lab. 

The lab couldn’t have happened at a better time. It gave students the opportunity to be creators, coders, and explorers — not just consumers. The kids created their own apps and video games, they made movies with green-screen technology. They had space to plan, use real tools, and create. They collaborated and communicated, created, and learned critical thinking skills. (Those 4 Cs likely sound familiar. They’re widely considered to be the foundation for 21st century learning and are closely tied to the internationally recognized Next Generation Science Standards.) Our kids were doing. They were hands-on in their learning and building new understanding that extended from the classroom to the world around them. 

When I moved to a new school district we created our first STEM summer school — very intentionally, a departure from the traditional rinse and repeat work of endless worksheets and memorization tasks. These students were hands-on, planning, building and coding.

Again, these students were hands-on, planning, building and coding. And learning core content while fully engaged in their work. They were carrying out authentic meaningful integrated work. And it directly impacted their high-stakes assessments.

This notion of doing to learn is not new. My book Foundations of Makerspaces: A guide for creating hands-on STEM learning spaces, provides deep pedagogy and methodology, and compiles best-practice research. Put simply, it’s an approach that’s proven to work.

Hands-On Learning Vs. Headphones-On Learning: 
Noise-Canceling or Knowledge-Canceling? 

So, here we are, well into the 2020s. This year, I've attended numerous consumer technology and educational technology conferences, from CES to Bett to ISTE. I saw the newest, most-innovative educational tools and products coming into the market. I saw an abundance — an over-abundance, actually — of digital tools. Attendees and, by extension, students were presented with a clear message: “Put your headphones on, go to your silo, stare at your screen and learn math, reading, science…just keep staring at the screen...”

Sure, we were forced into a digital environment during Covid. But that was a pandemic — not a plan for long-term success. And it turns out, not an effective way to learn. Research shows the silo wasn't a great experience for young people. We know that it will take years to close the learning gaps that opened during Covid. And we know the solution isn’t more headphones and screen time. 

I’m not anti-technology. I’ve been immersed in it for decades and built a company with educational technology as a central component. Of course there are times when educational technology is the best way forward. Virtual simulations provide safe practice, for healthcare workers learning to handle live organs, for pilots learning to fly, for underwater welders learning to work with natural gas. Fully immersive digital environments can be a great way to learn. But for kids in schools, the digital environment alone isn’t enough.

For STEM exploration, we’ve seen that the digital environment can, it turns out, be detrimental because students can quickly become disengaged. There’s no opportunity to turn to their peers and work together to solve challenging problems. To turn to their live, in-person teacher to ask for help. To connect an actual circuit, collect real specimens, look through an actual microscope, work through a math problem by writing it out on the board. To update an old aphorism: “Teach me to fish by handing me a fishing pole and taking me to a pond — don’t just show me a how-to-fish video.” 

Ideally, STEM learning should include the four Cs: collaborating, communicating, creating, and critical consideration of ideas. Touching on all four of these essential aspects of learning requires tools, time and space for students to be hands-on. That’s how we learn. That’s how we create.

There’s so much research available that shows what makes sense and what works for learners. We should do those things. We should honor students enough to give them the chance to be engaged, to do something interesting, something where they have voice and choice. We should encourage deep exploration and passionate discourse. And we’ve seen that this happens when we give students something to physically do. It happens far less when we require them to sit still, stare at a screen, and touch a screen only when it is time.

This is TechTerra’s mission: let kids actually DO something — all kids, in every school, from every background. Every child deserves the chance to be an active participant in their learning-journey. And quality STEM education is an essential part of that journey (and a good STEM (STEAM) program always includes the arts and humanities). By providing all students with hands-on tools, we ensure that they have the opportunity to explore, experiment and excel.

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