Generation Y, also known as the Millennials, include those born from the late 1980s until early 2000s. Millennials are characterized by many positive traits, especially their technological abilities and preference to working in groups, but one significant downfall of this generation is their difficulty processing failure.
Though this struggle cannot be solved with one classroom activity, the following activity is a step to helping them reevaluate a failure and learn from their mistakes in the comfort of a group setting. The Marshmallow Challenge is an engineering design challenge that works for any age group, but when used to highlight processing failure for Generation Y it works best for middle school students and older.
Introducing the Marshmallow Activity
The Marshmallow Challenge is a simple activity where small groups have 18 minutes to build a structure. Materials are limited to 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. One rule, the marshmallow will be on the top. The activity can be introduced with the video on the Marshmallow Challenge website, but the facilitator should also be familiar with the instructions also listed there.
Once the activity begins, encourage students to compete against other groups while remembering the rules. Walk around the room and listen to how students collaborate, encourage, and discourage each other. Remember these interactions to help with the debriefing discussion that will help students process any failures.
Processing Failure After the Structures Collapse
At the end of 18 minutes, students need to stand back and show their standing, marshmallow topped structure. Most will fall or collapse; measure the height of any that remain standing. Then, initiate a discussion about the activity.
Initially, students will focus on the design itself, what would have worked better. Guide them to evaluate other aspects of the activity, such as how they collaborated or any planning. Older students tend to become engrossed in planning with little time left for trial and testing of the plans, which can lead to interesting observations and discussion about the benefits of failing.
Since many Millennials crave rewards and expect success this could be a difficult concept. The rewards of failing are intrinsic and not always easy to accept, but exposing students to how to analyze a failure and learn from it help them to understand that there are benefits such as identifying the hidden needs of a project, understanding unseen challenges, and how to be better innovators.
Introducing Generation Y students, especially middle school through college, to learn from a failure can be accomplished through the Marshmallow Challenge, an engineering design activity used to teach lessons such as collaboration and innovation. Since most groups will fail, it is also useful to highlight how to process failure and why learning from mistakes can be useful and important.
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