Teachers and parents can learn from summer camp success

Watching excited day campers engage in scientific problem solving at one of the 19 Camp Galileo locations in the Bay Area,  you might wonder what makes good summer camps so effective at promoting both fun and learning.  Although the focus on high-interest subject areas such as science and art helps, it isn’t the whole story. What gets kids thinking and engaged at Camp Galileo is the combination of interesting problems intertwined with a fun storyline, complex ideas and the time and support to experiment and take risks.

What can parents and teachers learn from the success of good quality summer camps? Here are a few things teachers and parents can do to increase student engagement, fun and learning:

1. 1Present meaningful  problems to solve. Use a storyline from art, literature or history to create a problem or series of scientific or mathematical problems to solve.  When teaching a concept or skill, look for a real world problem to address it.
   

2. 2Learn by doing. Complex ideas are difficult to understand without discovery and hands-on experiments.
   

3. 3Encourage creativity. Encourage kids to discover different methods for finding a solution and explore their reasoning and problem-solving process.  Look for open-ended problems with multiple solutions or methods for finding the solution.
   

4. 4 Embrace failure. It’s okay to fail. Ask students to take risks and see failure as an opportunity to reflect on the situation and try again.
   

5. 5Cooperative learning. Different from other kinds of group learning, cooperative learning means working together as a team. Many kids need to learn these skills. Team building exercises at the beginning of the school year can help set the stage for cooperative learning. 
   

6. 6Enthusiasm for learning often starts with the teacher or parent. Experimentation is fun. Students quickly catch on to the passion the teacher expresses for the subject.
   

7. 7Provide a positive and safe environment where students feel valued. Try to provide explicit and non-evaluative praise. Instead of “Good job!” or “Great work!” try something like, “You made three tunnels of different sizes!” or “I like the way you twisted the cord to make the ball roll faster.” This kind of praise provides a more appropriate model for kids to judge their own work and shows that you really notice what they’ve accomplished.