STEAM from the Gridiron

Kanoe Namahoe, October 25, 2017,Education ,Connected Teaching and Learning

Photo courtesy of 49ers STEAM Education STEAM.943

What happens when students experience science, technology, engineering, arts and math through lessons about football?

Practical learning, says Jesse Lovejoy, director of STEAM education and the San Francisco 49ers Museum. "Sports are generally understood and compelling," says Lovejoy. "They also happen to be a great lens through which to examine the subjects of STEAM or any other subject really."

Lovejoy coordinates the 49ers STEAM education program, launched in 2014 at Levi's Stadium. The initiative, part of the 49ers Foundation that serves K-8 students in Bay Area schools, aims to provide students with a real-world look at STEAM using the concepts of football.

I spoke with Lovejoy about what it takes to capture students' interest and open their eyes to the possibilities in STEAM fields. Here are some of his top tips:

Make it relatable. Sports make sense to students, even to those who are not athletes, says Lovejoy. "What we have in the game of football is this really simple and approachable idea," he says. "Sports -- whether kids like to play basketball, baseball, football or soccer, field hockey, swim or run -- they know what they are. They understand what it is."

More than half -- 56% -- of the students who attend the 49ers program come from Title 1 schools, according to reporting from Forbes. Many are young athletes for whom sports is their first language. Program activities -- such as math exercises around player stats -- help connect STEAM concepts to students' interests. The goal is to expose students to new opportunities that let them see how their passions connect to real life, says Lovejoy.

"Our mission [for] using this platform [is] as a way to change the way that kids perceive, relate to and want to explore these subjects," he says. "If we can reach these kids and be that moment of inspiration for them…[we want] to show them this is real life -- these are things you can approach through things that you love."

Speak about the job. It's time to redefine STEAM and help students understand it's not an "abstract concept that lives in a lab and wears a set of daisy glasses," says Lovejoy.

"Instead of speaking about the subject, speak about the job," he says. During their visit, students learn about different jobs at the stadium, including engineers, chefs, accountants, data analysts, football players and coaches, and how the work involved relates to STEAM. Lovejoy says the key is discussing these functions in practical terms students understand.

"When we're teaching engineering, I'll go in a classroom and tell a kid, 'Hand me something,'" he says. He explains how ordinary objects such as paper, pens or shoes are engineered and how that process helps continually improve those objects. Students also get to see how football helmets are built and how they have evolved over the years.

"And that whole idea is something kids are not usually presented with when it comes to the concept of engineering," Lovejoy says. "Making something better, making anything better."

Let them get their hands dirty. Hands-on activities are "very powerful for a child in terms of inspiring creativity and collaboration and critical thinking," says Lovejoy. He advises educators not to presume that students know what it means to be creative.

"You have to engage young people at a very primal and practical level to inspire creativity," says Lovejoy. "In some cases, you even have to tell them what it looks like and model it for them. I think they hear this word and think, 'Does this mean I draw something? What does this mean?' That's the first part."

The 49ers program uses technologies such as simulation and touch screens to deliver learning content but also places great emphasis on fostering creativity through project-based learning and tactile experiences. Activities such as creating face masks from straws and fitting them to helmets or using K'nex and wooden blocks to build a stadium help reinforce STEAM concepts, nudge students out of their comfort zones and let them develop creative muscles, says Lovejoy.

"For us, it's about putting things in the hands of young people, with the right information, and asking them to build something," says Lovejoy. "And intentionally doing that in a real-world environment and not in a digital environment. We want them to hold, touch and build. That, for us, has been very powerful."

Use process to teach job skills. Process is a valuable way to demonstrate practical application of STEAM concepts, says Lovejoy. Lessons about engineering begin by walking students through the steps of their day – from waking up to taking the bus to school -- so they can see how their activities connect.

"That is what's called a process," says Lovejoy. "Going through a process is what every single person does at their job every single day. Does that mean you're a scientist or mathematician? Not necessarily. But it means that you're employing the same principles that those people employ."

The exercise helps students identify the job skills needed for various STEAM-related careers. "When you start to think about the kinds of skills required to develop the capacity to become an electrician, to fix heating and ventilation and air conditioner equipment, these things are STEAM careers," says Lovejoy. "I think that's the start [of] getting out of this concept of STEAM as this really high-level concept for kids and breaking it down to relatable terms and occupations."

Fuel teacher enthusiasm for STEAM. The linchpin to a successful STEAM program is a committed, enthusiastic educator, says Lovejoy. To this end, the 49ers organization offers professional development to all teachers who participate in the STEAM education program. The half-day training sessions emphasize project-based learning and STEAM integration. All teachers return to their classrooms armed with lesson plans and access to additional resources. Lovejoy says 250 educators participated in the program last year.

"The most important part is the engagement, instruction, motivation and guidance of educators who care," says Lovejoy. "You cannot discount the importance of somebody in that room [who] will not let young people get away with giving mediocre effort -- [who] is not going to allow them to bail on the experience."

Kanoe Namahoe is the editor of SmartBrief on EdTech and SmartBrief on Workforce.

Details: Category: Inside TRIZ

Inside TRIZ

March 2012

Darrell Mann

Case Studies From A Breakthrough Innovation

"Starting in August 2004, the Hong Kong government began sponsoring a deployment of TRIZ to a cluster of eight local companies. Over the course of the next 15 months, each company was invited to assemble a team of between 5 and 8 engineers and designers each of whom would be exposed to a series of six three-day TRIZ education and utilization sessions. The aims of the program were for each company to realize new products, patents and tangible financial benefits, and to measure the extent to which TRIZ allowed companies to accelerate their rate of innovation. This paper describes a collection of some of the success stories emerging from the program."

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Inside TRIZ

Innovation Management:

A Breakthrough Approach to Organizational Excellenc Dr Harrington IMG 2 0619

Part 1

by H. James Harrington and Frank Voehl

There is an ongoing need to explore opportunities and build a healthy and prosperous future, create new revenue streams and wealth, discover new solutions, and transform our organizations, industries, and societies. This need leads us to focus on innovation management. Through innovation management, order can be found in chaos, while nations, industries and economies can be pulled out of crisis. This will lead to a new foundation for growth and prosperity, which may be realized sooner rather than later.

Attachments:
TR-How do you measure quality.pdf	[ ]	759 kB

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navneet bhushan

The objective of this paper is to present frameworks that can help companies address various strategic and tactical issues when considering adoption of GPD combining TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem solving), Customer value Proposition (CVP), and Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) pioneered by Toyota. Set Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) as a process for developing new products has started gaining traction for global product development. However, GPD projects are finding it difficult to adapt to SBCE process where time spent in the early phases of development typically is more. We propose in this paper how TRIZ & CVP based SBCE framework will make the GPD projects efficient, more robust and faster in many different GPD scenarios.

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navneet bhushan

Navneet Bhushan

Law of Increasing Intelligence of Technical Systems

We discovered that human beings by collectively evolving their technical systems, are trying to make each technical system as close to a human being as possible - or at least a model of human being and its environment based on the current understanding of the world (for example, understanding of laws of physics and chemistry in making an automobile) and the current understanding of the system called the human being. As man understands the world around it as well as its body and its mind, it wants to create an "ideal man" or at least an idealized human of all technical systems it is creating. This is an unexpected discovery and may take the readers used to classical TRIZ, sometime to accept it.

Navneet Bhushan is a founder and director of CRAFITTI Consulting, an innovation consulting and research firm focused on co-crafting innovation in global enterprises. In his paper, Navneet makes some challenging conclusions about where and how ideal systems are evolving to.

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Inside TRIZ

Quantifying the TRIZ Levels of Invention –

A tool to estimate the strength and life of a Patent

TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) classifies inventions into five novelty levels. At level 1 are slight modifications of the existing systems. At level 2 are those inventions that resolve a system conflict or contradiction using usually inventive solution or inventive principle used to solve similar problems in other systems. At level 3, the inventions change one subsystem or resolve the system conflicts in a fundamental way. At level 4, the invention gives birth to new systems using interdisciplinary approaches. The level 5 inventions are closer to a recently discovered scientific phenomenon. See article for a complete discussion.

Attachments:
Patent Strength using TRIZ Levels_Navneet Bhushan.pdf	[ ]	1526 kB

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Inside TRIZ

navneet bhushan

Attachments:
Set Based Engineering_Navneet Bhushan_SSRN-id2732688.pdf	[ ]	869 kB

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Inside TRIZ

Case Study: Applying Triz in a non-technical setting for a fuel-cell start-up

By Jean-Francois Denault

1. ABSTRACT

Denault head shot TRIZ is a systematic tool used to generate creativity and solve technical problems, but there is little litterature of its use in non-technical situations. This brings up the question: How can TRIZ be used to generate creativty and solve a non-technical problem?

The objective of this experiment was to use TRIZ in a non-technical setting. As such, the article is very exploratory in nature. Working with a private company, we identified and defined a non-technical problem, and experimented with TRIZ to generate creativity in an attempt to solve the problem.

KEYWORDS: Creativity, Brainstorming, TRIZ, Problem Solving

Other authors have explored TRIZ in a non-technical perspective, they have mostly done so from a theoretical perspective. For example, Mann (1999) and Terninko (2001) did excellent work in developing examples of applications of Triz principles in non-technical settings. With this article, I wish to add to existing literature by developing a case study solving a tangible problem.

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TRIZ Feature

THE REAL WORLD: TRIZ in Two Hours for Undergraduate and Masters Level Students!

Dr. Paul R. Filmore

School of Computing, Communications & Electronics

University of Plymouth, UK

The reality of overloaded university syllabi is very limited time for introducing challenging and comprehensive concepts like TRIZ. This paper shares e

xperience and knowledge, based on five years of ‘teaching’ TRIZ in the UK. Key areas covered are:-

Creating a need in the student to learn more e.g., demonstrate that TRIZ has more potential than student’s other present problem solving strategies
Using an interesting learning case study; researched by the author with Michelin (USA): the Tweel™
Reporting the use of a computer assessment based on the lecture and self study. The assessment focuses students to access an electronic TRIZ book, electronic resources and the internet, to self study greater understanding of TRIZ (NB this is one way to get around limited timetabled lecture time). Results from student perceptions of their understanding of TRIZ and of experiencing a rich learning environment, are also examined.

Results from undergraduate and MSc student cohorts who have undertaken a TRIZ learning experience designed around the above, demonstrate a high appreciation of the potential of TRIZ and a measurable level of understanding.

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Development of the Creativity and Formula of the

Nontechnical Systems' Transformation Algorithm

by Eugene Chikov and Nikita Chikov

The article considers potential of caricature in the development of the creative thinking and reveals the structural model of the caricature creating process; it compares logical operations while solving inventive problems in techniques (Su-Field analysis) and while getting the new result within the context of the nontechnical system. This article also offers the formula of the nontechnical systems' transformation algorithm (solving of the nontechnical creative problem), which is common for all nontechnical systems.

Key words: Su-field analysis, nontechnical systems' transformation algorithm, creative thinking development

"The potential of trial-and-error approach is exhausted... That is why creation of the algorithms for solving technical, scientific and other tasks is not only possible, but also necessary. ARIZ will be followed by algorithms for solving the scientific and other tasks. The development of General Theory of Creative Problem Solving will inevitably be started some day. But now we are at the very beginning of our way."

G. Altshuller, A. Selutzkiy "Wings for Ikarus"

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Inside TRIZ

Photo of Don Coates April 2012

Don Coates

Improving the Fuzzy Front End of Product Development for Continuous Innovation Incorporating TRIZ

Why have many legacy companies been unable to innovate continuously? A study of several famous companies that have stumbled in innovation reveals that it is not just one activity but a multitude of them that are not executed well. That is why "if it were easy everyone would be doing it." Innovation has been defined as invention brought to the market. The federal government has tried to measure innovation and found it very difficult. Work is ongoing to collect information on important factors for innovation but most measure factors that are results versus critical skills that drive innovation. A model for continuous innovation has been developed from a variety of sources, including the author's 40 years in the appliance industry. The model incorporates four key parts and arguably the most important part is problem solving and problem identification. This is where TRIZ plays a critical role since problems poorly solved or not solved lead to weak invention and innovation that can be trumped easily. The details of the model will be explained with associated forms that are useful for implementation.

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Inside TRIZ

December 2011

Tony McCaffrey

An important aspect of TRIZ problem solving is noticing the resources needed to resolve contradictions. “Resources are things, information, energy, or properties of the materials that are already in or near the environment of the problem” (Rantanen & Domb, 2008). Because of the way we humans process information, however, we tend to overlook many possible resources. The normal processing of our perceptual and semantic systems leads us to notice the typical resources for the problem at hand. The typical is the enemy of innovation; whereas, the atypical, or the obscure, is innovation’s friend. But what techniques can help counteract our propensity for the typical and help us uncover the obscure? After devising an extensive taxonomy of possible types of resources, we have created and tested a set of techniques, the Aha! Toolkit, that helps uncover the obscure resources. Even though our set of techniques is only a year old, it has already been used to solve several difficult engineering problems. Further, it can assist TRIZ with problems that involve contradictions but will also work with problems involving no contradictions. We present our new cognitive theory of innovation as well as the techniques that help humans see the often-invisible obscure resources.

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Karthikeyen Iyer, Crafitti Consulting February 2011

Karthikeyen Iyer

Holistic Value Framework using TRIZ and other frameworks

This article from Karthikeyen Iyer, Crafitti Consulting, shows opportunities can be gained by using some of the lesser know tools of TRIZ. In this context, there are several techniques associated with TRIZ that can be beneficial. Function-based thinking and Ideality can help in creating an improved understanding of value (and thereby waste). Nine Windows can broaden the context and scope of value stream mapping to provide an end-to-end perspective. For more information click below.

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Inside TRIZ

Photo of Isak Bukhman December 2010

Isak Bukhman

This article comes to us from TRIZCON2005 and is a green related case study by our good friend and associate Isak Bukhman. Isak is currently President & Global Consultant of TRIZ Solutions LLC.

Wind turbines represent an attractive source of sustainable and environmentally friendly energy. World wind energy apacity has been doubling every three years during the last decade and growth rates in the last two years have been even faster. Yet the technology still needs a higher profile and greater efficiency.

Using the improvement of Wind Turbine Development as a case study, this presentation focuses on a proven and repeatable process that overcomes common TRIZ deployment challenges by showing a workflow and methodology for how to get started working on a problem with TRIZ, how to compliment TRIZ with Value Methodologies for problem identification, and how to leverage internal and external knowledge sources to accelerate concept identification.

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Inside TRIZ

November, 2010

Donald Coates
Assistant Professor Technology
Kent State University

Improving the Fuzzy Front End of Product Development for Continuous Innovation Incorporating TRIZ

In this article, Dr. Coates explores why have famous companies failed to innovate on a continuous basis. Putting aside socioeconomic disasters, downstream product development failures, or rollout blunders, many legacy companies have failed because they lack the front end management and technology systems that allow for a continuous flow of new products, processes, or services that outperform their competitors. Many had great beginnings and now have questionable futures. He discusses the development of a model for continuous innovation has been developed from a variety of sources, where TRIZ plays a critical role.

Abstract
Why have many legacy companies been unable to innovate continuously? A study of several famous companies that have stumbled in innovation reveals that it is not just one activity but a multitude of them that are not executed well. That is why "if it were easy everyone would be doing it." Innovation has been defined as invention brought to the market. The federal government has tried to measure innovation and found it very difficult. Work is ongoing to collect information on important factors for innovation but most measure factors that are results versus critical skills that drive innovation. A model for continuous innovation has been developed from a variety of sources, including the author's 40 years in the appliance industry. The model incorporates four key parts and arguably the most important part is problem solving and problem identification. This is where TRIZ plays a critical role since problems poorly solved or not solved lead to weak invention and innovation that can be trumped easily. The details of the model will be explained with associated forms that are useful for implementation.

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Inside TRIZ

September 2010

Enhancing Air Safety for Pilots and ATC using TRIZ

Air Safety is a term embracing the concepts, theory, investigation and categorization of flight failures, and the prevention of such failures through regulation, education and training. The Pilots and Air Trac Controllers (ATC) face a whole panoply of critical decisions during the flight, and most of them are taken within split second under stressful situations. The displays of cockpit and ATC and design of cockpit, are very crucial factors for successful flights. The pilot and ATC face lot of conflicts while performing their roles. The need to display more information conflicts with the focus needed for flying. The vital information needs to be segregated from the routine information. The need to have more switches to control the aircraft conflicts with the operational e ectiveness. This article explores the use of TRIZ principles for resolution of some of these conflicts in order to enhance the Air Safety.

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Photo of Aditya Bhalla May 2010

Aditya Bhalla

Contradictions Beget Conflicts

In this article by our contributor Aditya Bhalla, he focuses on the contradictions that life constantly places in front of us.

Many people when faced with conflicting demands, whether in personal or professional life, tend to react in one of the two ways
a) Push through a solution that suits the personal interests (My way or the Highway)
b) Settle for compromises or tradeoffs

For those who are unskilled in the principles of resolving contradictions, conflicting demands are one of the unfair aspects of life and tradeoffs are the harsh reality to avoid conflicts.