{"id":16210,"date":"2019-11-05T12:37:09","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T12:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/?p=16210"},"modified":"2023-06-08T18:27:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:27:22","slug":"marshmallow-challenge-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/05\/marshmallow-challenge-education","title":{"rendered":"Education students take marshmallow challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Photos by Mark Stone<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/20191014-uw-bothell-campus-10-14-0524.jpg\" alt=\"Students building spaghetti stick structure.\" class=\"wp-image-27451\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The marshmallow challenge is a team-building exercise that gained popularity through a 2010&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/tom_wujec_build_a_tower?utm_campaign=tedspread&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=tedcomshare\">TED talk<\/a>&nbsp;that has been viewed nearly six million times.&nbsp;You give each team of four people 20 sticks of uncooked spaghetti, 1 yard of tape, 1 yard of string and then allow them 18 minutes to build the tallest possible structure with a marshmallow on top.&nbsp;Cheryl Faye Gordon, a lecturer in the University of Washington Bothell\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/education\">School of Educational Studies<\/a>&nbsp;makes the marshmallow challenge part of her course, Theories of Learning, Culture and Identity, which she teaches once or twice a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Harder than thought<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The students who took the challenge Oct. 14 had a typical initial reaction. How hard could this be? But, as with Gordon\u2019s previous courses and as seen in the TED talk, the students waited too long to put the marshmallow on top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/20191014-uw-bothell-campus-10-14-0445.jpg\" alt=\"Students build with sticks of spaghetti.\" class=\"wp-image-27452\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey wait to the very last second,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cI\u2019m usually calling time, they\u2019re putting the marshmallow on top, and it falls over.\u201d&nbsp;In her class of nine teams, only one built a spaghetti-stick structure that could hold a marshmallow. The TED talk\u2019s design lesson was about the value of building prototypes \u2014 the iterative process.&nbsp;Gordon draws a different lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Metacognition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe use the challenge to talk about the idea of transfer: How do you take knowledge from one context and use it in another?\u201d Gordon said. \u201cI want students to think about the strategies they use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/20191014-uw-bothell-campus-10-14-0451.jpg\" alt=\"Students build with sticks of spaghetti.\" class=\"wp-image-27453\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After talking about metacognition \u2014 recognizing the thought process \u2014 Gordon showed the class the TED talk and then gave her students a slightly different challenge. She gave them popsicle sticks, half the tape, half the string and only eight minutes to build a structure to support a marshmallow.&nbsp;This time, they did not underestimate the weight of a marshmallow. And with sturdier popsicle sticks, all nine teams built successful marshmallow-holding structures.&nbsp;The lesson for them as educators, Gordon said, was learning how to adapt a strategy to a new situation.&nbsp;In practice, for example, teachers could show pupils who know how to solve one math problem how to transfer that strategy to a slightly different problem. The marshmallow challenge was. It\u2019s an opportunity to translate theory into practice and to model classroom technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Deeper learning experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Gordon said her students like the challenge because it\u2019s engaging and fun. Two Educational Studies majors who are preparing to become teachers, Lauren Piloco (\u201921) and Kennedy Michael (\u201922), said they\u2019ll remember the marshmallow class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/20191014-uw-bothell-campus-10-14-0516.jpg\" alt=\"Students build with sticks of spaghetti.\" class=\"wp-image-27454\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s going to stick with us because we did it hands-on,\u201d said Michael.&nbsp;Piloco said, \u201cWe were involved in actually physically learning about what we were being taught.\u201d&nbsp;They first thought they had the challenge figured out, not anticipating the marshmallow\u2019s weight, and failed. After watching the TED talk, they saw a strategy, transferred it to the popsicle sticks and succeeded.&nbsp;\u201cThat gave us a really cool way to think about that and how our brain works,\u201d said Michael, who is a classroom assistant with preschool and kindergarten students in Mukilteo. Gordon\u2019s class has already changed her behavior. \u201cIt gives me different approaches to interact and teach them,\u201d she said.&nbsp;Piloco and Michael said the marshmallow challenge was typical of Gordon\u2019s fast-moving course, and they often leave a two-hour class wondering where the time went.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Educational Studies class took the marshmallow challenge and learned how they can teach their own pupils to transfer a problem-solving strategy to a slightly different situation.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_is_archived":false,"_archived_contact_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[355],"school":[418],"class_list":["post-16210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-news","tag-learning","school-school-of-educational-studies"],"acf":{"related_links":{"toggle_visibility":false,"link_1":null,"link_2":null,"link_3":null,"link_4":null,"link_5":null},"highlight_box":{"toggle_visibility":false,"title":"","content":"","button":null,"button_style":"angled-purple-button","button_screen_reader_text":""},"contact_type_1":{"toggle_visibility":true,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"contact_type_2":{"toggle_visibility":false,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"social_media":{"toggle_visibility":false,"facebook_url":"","instagram_url":"","linkedin_url":"","twitter_url":"","youtube_url":""},"blog_archive_sidebar_visibility":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - 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