KIC-1 The Puzzle Exercise (to demonstrate the Improvement Kata pattern)
KIC-2 The Catapult Exercise (about run charts)
The KiC-1 "puzzle" exercise brings the Improvement Kata pattern alive through a 50-minute hands-on activity that involves teams working on a number of self-generated iterations to complete a small jigsaw puzzle.
Students follow the steps of the Improvement Kata to (1) face a challenge, (2) see where they are now, (3) establish their next interim goal, and (4) experiment toward that goal in three-minute rounds. There is a reflection on learnings after each round, which leads students to their next experiment in the next round.
KiC-1 illustrates the four-step Improvement Kata pattern and helps students recognize that ideas need to be tested, no matter how certain we might feel. After doing the puzzle exercise you can use and build on its scientific-thinking pattern in many other activities.
Everything you need to run the exercise is shown below. Instructions for setup and conducting the exercise are in the PowerPoint file, so start by downloading and reviewing that. It's recommended that you run the exercise exactly as designed once or twice. Then you can adapt it as you wish!
START HERE: Download and read through the PowerPoint file to familiarize yourself with the exercise.
Facilitate the exercise directly from this PowerPoint file. In 'presenter' mode it has prompts for what to say at each slide.
Download & print these items. Use the Coaching/Reflection card from elsewhere on this website.
Once you've run the KiC-1 exercise, think about where else your learners can apply the four steps of the Improvement Kata. It takes some meaningful repetition to develop scientific-thinking skill. A student project? A report? A particular goal? For ideas & examples visit the "Examples" page of this website.
The KiC-2 "catapult" exercise. Once you run the KiC-1 exercise to introduce the scientific, 4-step Improvement Kata pattern, your learners can apply that framework to a variety of content and activity. That's good practice!
However, the KiC-1 exercise does take these two non-scientific shortcuts,
which are teaching opportunities in the KiC-2 exercise:
-
Participants change more than one variable at a time.
-
Participants collect only 1 data point before designing their next experiment.
The KiC-2 exercise addresses these issues and prepares students to apply the Improvement Kata pattern in projects and activities that involve data. Emphasis is placed on practice in using run charts to collect, depict, analyze and interpret data as the learner strives for a goal. Data literacy is essential for many jobs & careers.
KiC-2 is a group exercise, with the educator acting as the coach and scribe. As with the KiC-1 exercise, everything you need to run KiC-2 is shown below. Instructions are at the start of the PowerPoint file, so begin by downloading and reviewing that. Run the exercise as designed once or twice, then adapt it as you like.
START HERE: Download and read through the PowerPoint file to familiarize yourself with the exercise.
Facilitate the exercise directly from this PowerPoint file. In 'presenter' mode it has prompts for what to say at each slide.
Download & print these items. Use the Coaching/Reflection card from elsewhere on this website.
An Xpult is available online from xpult.com, Walmart.com, Amazon.com and eBay. Because KiC-2 is a group exercise, you only need one Xpult.
Pro tip: use 2 clamps to hold your Xpult, it's more stable that way.
After the KiC-2 exercise, find opportunities for your learners to practice making run charts with target condition lines. What information would the learner like to track & plot? How much time is spent on homework each day? How long you brush your teeth? The possibilities are endless, and doing this helps learners think scientifically.