Students should experiment first

At Robotics Camp, everyone is experimenting!

“We are showing that exploration, inquiry and problem solving are not just ‘nice to have’ things in classrooms. They are powerful learning mechanisms that increase performance by every measure we have.”

Research at Stanford shows that students who experiment first, before they read about a topic or watch a video, improve their learning substantially.  It's great to have proof of the importance of this sequence of presenting lessons.  Hands-on familiarity with materials gives students a context in which to organize thoughts and it deepens what they learn.