The International Marshmallow Challenge
Experience for yourself why recent kindergarten graduates often outperform Harvard Business School students on the International Marshmallow Challenge.
We did just that this week. To introduce our new 7th grade students to MYP Design and the Middle Years Programme overall, Mingdao High School's Global Citizenship Program participated in the International Marshmallow Challenge! For more information about this creative problem-solving activity, see Tom Wujec's TED Talk, "Build a tower, build a team."
I'd like to credit my MYP Design workshop trainer, Patrick Ong, with the brilliant idea to use the Marshmallow Challenge as an inquiry-based way to, well, throw some preteens into the deep end of creative problem solving and general grace under pressure. We did the challenge in the first days of our MYP Summer Bridge Program, a three-week intensive creative summer school held in August .
Not only did the Challenge foster an intuitive way for our kids to grasp the design cycle, but it also fostered a great metacognitive discussion afterward about productive collaboration, growth mindset, student leadership, and expectations about the MYP. On our end, as teachers and facilitators, the challenge allowed us a unique opportunity to observe our students, how they approach new situations, how they respond to setbacks, and how they well worked together (or didn't!).
Sources I recommend you reading and sharing with your students and colleagues:
"Build a Tower, Build a Team," TEDTalk by Tom Wujec (http://tinyurl.com/hp9e2t7).
"The Marshmallow Challenge: What We Can Learn From Kindergarten Students About Team Collaboration," by Li Whybrow (http://tinyurl.com/h9hvuyu).
"Marshmallow Design Challenge," by Mary Lord. Use Lord's step-by-step lesson plan for a successful outcome (http://tinyurl.com/ox3olrj)
