Build it, Test it, Use it: A Hands-On STEM Pedagogy (Michael Fenton, MRSNZ)

Overview This record deposits a methodological and priority note defining Build it, Test it, Use it, a hands-on STEM pedagogy articulated by Michael Fenton (MRSNZ) in which learners build their own scientific instrument, test and calibrate it, and then use it for authentic investigation. The note sets out the three stages and the two-cycle teacher-practitioner structure, situates the approach within the nature of science, documents its development from 1997 to the present, and records its authorship and first use. The pedagogy and its two cycles The pedagogy has three stages: Build it, Test it, Use it. What makes it more than a recipe, and what makes it teachable by non-specialist teachers, is that it runs in two cycles. Cycle 1 is the teacher's own preparation: the teacher works through Build it and Test it alone, becoming the learner, gaining confidence that the equipment works and the activity is teachable, and identifying and removing hazards before any learner sees the equipment. Doing this first is a matter of professional duty of care. Cycle 2 is the work with learners: the teacher leads the class through Build it and Test it as an experienced guide rather than a co-novice, which eliminates equipment-failure frustration and removes the expert and novice gap that intimidates untrained teachers. Both then move into Use it as genuine co-investigators of the learners' own questions. Without the Cycle 1 preparation, the three stages are just a procedure to follow; the two-cycle structure is what carries the pedagogical insight. Significance This deposit is significant in several areas. As a definition and naming of a transferable pedagogy. It states the three stages and the two-cycle structure precisely, distinguishing the approach from general learning by doing. As a priority and attribution record. The modern classroom articulation, the explicit naming of the three stages and the two-cycle structure, and the worked teaching resources are dated to a documented record: first applied in the Nexus Research Group from 1997, beginning with a webcam repurposed as a photomicroscopy tool, extended in the 2008 Ministry of Education E-Learning Fellowship research, named and set out with resources in the 2011 SCIOS journal article, and presented publicly in a SciCon keynote. As a continuation of the nature of science. The approach is the classroom equivalent of how science has always worked: before commercial laboratory equipment existed, scientists built their own instruments to obtain objective data. As a practical resource still in use. The teaching resources built on this pedagogy remain in use nationally across New Zealand and run through a family of low-cost instrument projects. Connection to the longitudinal research portfolio Build it, Test it, Use it is the pedagogical method underlying the instrumentation work across the portfolio: the digital multimeter data loggers, the Casio calculator data logger, RIGEL, RIGEL-WEB and SMART, maker science, and the B9 robot. It is a continuation of the founding question of the Nexus Research Group: how do you do authentic science with nothing? Relationship to the Design by Subversion framework Build it, Test it, Use it is the classroom expression of the pedagogical strand of Design by Subversion, a working framework not yet formally peer-reviewed, identified across this body of work. Where Design by Subversion names the general methodology, Build it, Test it, Use it is its concrete, repeatable form in the hands of teachers and learners. The two cycles, the teacher preparing privately before working with learners, are one example of a wider pattern in the framework: the practitioner always validates the work alone before others depend on it. What this deposit includes This deposit comprises the pedagogy note (this document) together with teaching resources that model Build it, Test it, Use it in practice: an A4 learner Build it and Test it teacher-led instruction sheet, and a mini manual of learner-centred Use it activities, provided as classroom-ready exemplars. The exemplars include an activity testing sunglasses for UV protection, which has been adopted by the Tait Foundation’s SAT-STEP programme (Sir Angus Tait Science Teaching Enrichment Programme) in New Zealand.