Hackathons as a new pedagogy — from edutopia.org by Brandon Zoras
Excerpts:
Students are coming out of school expected to solve 21st-century problems and enter into occupations that haven’t even been imagined yet. Schooling is not designed in this manner, so we wanted to give students an opportunity to solve problems in authentic contexts, using 21st-century skills and collaboration techniques. We wanted to break down walls between classrooms and have students use interdisciplinary skills to solve problems with teams of their peers, with mentors, and with industry professionals.
Why a Hackathon?
Hackathons have become a new way of doing business, creating products, advancing healthcare, and innovation. The energy is high, and so are the stakes. Can you turn an idea into a product over the course of a weekend? But let’s move beyond that. Let’s look at the teaching and learning within a hackathon. Hackathons are really the ultimate classroom.
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It is within hackathons that students are utilizing their skills and knowledge to solve problems. It’s project-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and STEM all wrapped up into one activity! It’s about design thinking and truly a 21st-century learning opportunity. Students are working collaboratively within mixed-ability groups to examine problems and come up with solutions.
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Benefits For Students
A huge learning factor is failure. Often, school protects students from failure, and students always manage to mix A with B to get C. The hackathon, though, enables a support system where, once an obstacle or failure throws a wrench in students’ plans, they work as a team to get around it.
Hackatons are great within an educational context. I remember when I was getting my CS BA, we did many hackathon-like events. Those were called workshops back then but they were organized along the same rationale. It allowed students to really get into the technology at hand without having to conform to a set curriculum, often yielding very interesting projects and results. Today, in a professional context, hackathons are a clever way to get employees to work weekends ;-).
Thanks Corstiaan for the insights/feedback here! I appreciate hearing them.
I like this type of pedagogy even for K-20 students because it prepares our learners for the future workplace — where they will need to communicate, negotiate, experiment, fail, pivot, and try things again and again. It seems like one of the best pedagogies/approaches out there to prepare students for ***their*** future.
Thanks again Corstiaan,
Daniel