Background and Introduction
ASTI Feynman Challenge is a project designed during the COVID-19 Lockdown in 2020. We conducted this competition on-line for all communities during the pandemic lockdown, which includes families, refugees, orphanages, etc. We believe that the learning process should never stop no matter what the circumstances. As Eric Hoffer “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exist.” Thus, AFC provided the learners an opportunity to learn despite being at home.
ASTI Feynman Challenge is an online challenge where the students work as a team with a minimum of 2 person per team. The team is required to invent something to teach a scientific principle that they have learnt in school. The invention can use day to day objects they would find at home. For example, they can design a catapult with clips and rubber bands to Newton’s teach the third law of motion. The team must then video tape their explanation of the scientific concept with the invention they had developed. So in summary, the invention is basically a teaching tool. The student can also invent their own teaching method or innovative explanations or perspective for AFC. Each video can be no more than 5 minutes long which would be uploaded into a YouTube channel to be created by them. The video can be recorded using their mobile phones.
The learning principle or pedagogy is based on the Feynman Technique. The Feynman Technique was developed by the Nobel prize winning Physicist Richard Feynman. It can be summarised in 4 steps:
- Choose a concept you want to learn about
- Pretend you are teaching it to very young learners with no prior knowledge of the concept.
- Identify gaps in your explanation; go back to the source material, to better understand it
- Review, simplify and refine your explanation.
In AFC, there is an added step between steps 1 and 2 which is; STEP 1.5. Invent the teaching tool or a teaching method to teach the concept.
The aims and objectives of the ASTI Feynman Challenge (AFC) are:
- To engage students in the active learning of scientific concepts through hands-on invention and creativity.
- To foster a deeper understanding of science while encouraging critical thinking, innovation, and collaboration among students from diverse backgrounds, including families, refugees, and orphanage.
- To empowers students to apply scientific principles in real-world contexts, utilizing everyday materials to design teaching tools that effectively communicate complex concepts.
- To provide a platform for students to creatively demonstrate and teach scientific principles through the design of innovative inventions.
- To develop communication and presentation skills as students create and share videos explaining their scientific inventions.
Through their participation in AFC, students will also:
- Gain a deeper understanding of scientific concepts by teaching others
- Develop their creativity by inventing unique teaching tools and methods
- Strengthen teamwork and collaboration skills by working with peers
- Enhance their problem-solving and critical thinking abilities
- Improve their communication skills
- Foster resilience and adaptability by participating in an online competition, showing that learning can continue even in challenging circumstances.
The target group and age category for the AFC are as follows:
Category 1: Primary (Age of 10-12)
Category 2: Secondary (Age of 13-17)
Category 3: Above 18 (Form 6, University, Teachers, and Educators)
*The category is determined by the oldest member to appear in the video
- Proposal and Funding
- A simple proposal will be prepared and send for seeking financial support.
- Promotional Materials Preparation
- A promotional material such as poster, video, social media posts will be prepared.
- Promotion and Registration
- Promotions will be conducted through newsletter, social media post, emails to past participants, word of mouth and few phone calls.
- Interested teams will be invited to register to take part in the programme.
- Trainings and Q & A Session
- During the training and Q & A session, the students will be trained to further understand the Feynman Technique.
- Video Submission
- After the training, the students’ teams need to prepare their video and must be sent to the organising team for review.
- Evaluation
- Panel of judges will review the video and shortlist best videos from each category to be awarded.
- Winners Announcement
- The top teams could then be awarded prizes via virtual winners announcement ceremony
- Reporting and Accounting
- Project report with accounting will be prepared for submission to ASTI Committee.
AFC is a programme that uses the Feynman Technique for learning complex concepts. By participating in AFC, students will be able to learn this technique to use in their learning journey. Teachers can also use this technique as a pedagogical tool or teaching method that they can employ for their students. This programme also encourages peer-to peers learning.
- Since the project was introduced as a pilot in 2020, there has been an overwhelmingly high level of engagement, with participation coming from different countries including Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, India, and Singapore.
- Since 2020, the Ministry of Education (MOE) Malaysia has officially endorsed the AFC as a national-level competition.