Tinkering in Primary School: From Episode to Science Practice

TL;DR

This paper explores integrating tinkering into primary school physics education, highlighting its benefits for engagement and scientific inquiry, while addressing challenges teachers face in adopting this open-ended approach.

Contribution

It proposes a model for blending tinkering with structured learning and provides empirical insights from teacher feedback and classroom analysis.

Findings

Tinkering enhances classroom engagement and scientific question generation.

Teachers find tinkering beneficial but feel unprepared to facilitate it.

Feedback indicates positive impacts on student access to knowledge.

Abstract

This study discusses the opportunity to integrate tinkering, a constructionist practice, into formal education, highlighting its potential and challenges. We propose a model through which teachers can blend the open exploratory nature of tinkering with structured learning in primary school classrooms, focusing on Physics Education. Despite pandemic-induced limitations, feedback from 20 teachers and analysis of fishbowl protocols revealed the positive impact of tinkering on classroom dynamics, teacher engagement, and student access to knowledge. Our findings indicated that tinkering can surface relevant scientific questions. Nevertheless, teachers feel unprepared to tackle them in the classroom. This evidence will guide our future co-designs to enhance learning experiences and address the complexities of incorporating tinkering into formal education.