Making your class friendly to your students sometimes requires you to rethink how you have done things in the past. Last month we addressed the selection of an appropriate capstone project. This month we continue to explain two more tips we use to make kid friendly lessons for the Geometry in Construction program.
Safety
When we discuss how we teach safety of tool usage, we always end up stepping on the toes of many die-hard industrial technology teachers. Safety training is a must. Good teaching practice and legal responsibilities require safety to be addressed. However, do we use the best possible methods for all, students and teachers?
Many CTE teachers do all of the safety training for the entire year in the first few weeks. In fact, many CTE teachers proudly wear the badge “all my kids must complete the training before they can do anything in the shop”. Typically, this safety training is not the most exciting topic for students and you can risk turning the students off early in the school year. Most importantly, these same students that learned safety in September must remember how to safely use a power tool in February for the first time. We made a decision to change when we teach the safety standards.
When we reinvented ourselves with the creation of Geometry in Construction, each and every piece of the class went through an examination of best practices. In this process we went to a “Just in Time Safety Training Model.” Yes, we still do safety training and yes, we still meet legal requirements. What changed? We teach the safety standards of each tool just before the students are to use them. This insures that the safety of the tool is fresh in the students mind. Additionally, we adhere to a “challenge by choice” philosophy. This allows students the ability to opt out of learning any specific tool. The only consequence is that they will need to use a hand tool instead. There are a few students each year that initially opt out of some of the power tools. However as time goes on, and they see other peers using the tools safely, most will request to be trained in the use of the particular tool they have been avoiding.
Over the years, we have found this method to be far superior to the established method of safety training where we would teach the safety of a router in August but the tool was not used until April. Thus far, we have been successful....no major injuries in the 5 years of doing Geometry in Construction. An added benefit is that we are able to engage students in fun learning of the construction discipline sooner which is a desired outcome.
Choosing the Right Tools
We begin with using hand tools as most CTE programs do. However once we progress to power tools, choosing the right tools that your students use is far more important than most teachers realize. We believe choosing kid friendly tools is one of the ways that we have been successful in increasing female enrollment to 51% in our construction class.
There are 2 tools that we strongly recommend teachers of Geometry in Construction consider. First, the use of a palm nailer is suggested. It is a tool that is used to drive nails. It does not shoot nails (no worry about nail guns). The palm nailer runs off of your air compressor, costs $80, and takes 60 seconds of instruction. What it allows is of great value. This tool creates a level playing field among all students, regardless of gender. It allows students with no hammer and nail experience, to be successful in the first stages of building, framing of the house. For those of you that believe students must use a hammer to do “real construction”, rest assured we have never had a student use a palm nailer all year. The compressor and hose becomes more of a chore as the year progresses. Initially we set up the compressor. As time goes by, we require students to do this. This encourages them to naturally wean themselves off of the tool and use a hammer at the pace they are comfortable with.
The second tool that we recommend is a battery circular saw instead of a corded circular saw. It is lighter, with less chances of kick back, and much easier to manage. This is extremely important to those students that have not physically matured, whether that be female students or your smaller freshman boys. The lighter saw is much less intimidating than the heavier, louder corded saw. Numerous students have told us that the battery saw was much more friendly and easier to use than the corded circular saw. Also, wehave been told by several construction teachers that they do not allow battery saws because “the battery power saw is not used in real construction”. “Students must learn how to use a worm drive saw if they are taking my class”. Is that truly a nonnegotiable item in your curriculum? Once again, I would have to ask, “If your program is not growing in female enrollment, should you consider different ways of reaching the under represented populations?”
Next month we will look at holding students accountable in the geometry classroom and on the construction site. In addition, we will look at the accountability of the teachers to each other in a team teaching partnership.
