Professional Learning for Busy Educators

The Cup Stack is a great activity to facilitate teamwork.  Some groups are able to complete the task very quickly while other groups must keep trying and trying to complete the task successfully.  It's hard not to give up when things get frustrating, and this is a valuable lesson for children to learn in a safe environment.  All you need is cups, rubberbands, and string.  I decided to put my students into groups of 6, so I tied 6 equally spaced strings (about 1-2 feet long) around a single rubber band.  Each group was given this device and 6 cups.

The challenge is for the group to build a pyramid out of the paper cups (3 on the bottom, 2 in the middle, 1 on the top - can be adjusted for more cups).  Group members cannot touch the cups with their hands or any other part of their bodies, even if a cup falls over or on the floor.  Each person holds onto one of the strings that are attached to the rubber band and they use this device to pick up the cups and place them on top of each other (by pulling the rubber band apart and then bringing it back together over the cups)."

 

Jim Lerman's insight:

 

Great activity to build teamwork skills. Excellent series of questions also provided to process/discuss the activity after it's over. Seems to be useful for just about any age. Designed as a non-tech activity. How could you integrate tech into either the activity itself or the follow-up discussion?

Via Jim Lerman