Learning by Doing: Turning Ideas into Creations, and Students into Creators
Updated: 4 days ago
Learning by doing gives students a problem to investigate through planning, making, testing and reflection. AI, AR and Blockly can support that process, while students explain their choices and improve their work rather than simply complete a finished product.
In late July, the General Office of Mainland China's Ministry of Education issued the Guidelines for the “Learning by Doing” Pilot Action in Science Education at the Compulsory Education Stage (《義務教育階段科學教育「做中學」領航行動指南》, “the Guidelines”). The Guidelines call for real-world problems to guide students' scientific inquiry. The point is not only hands-on activity: students are meant to become “questioners, solution designers and problem solvers”, taking part in the whole process from asking questions and designing solutions to solving problems.
Under the Guidelines, every Mainland student in Grades 4 to 9 (equivalent to Primary 4 to Secondary 3 in Hong Kong) completes at least one inquiry task each semester, adding up to no fewer than four class periods. Assessment focuses on the process: students' performance is recorded in their comprehensive quality evaluation files, with no separate examination.
Learning by doing is more than finishing a project
Building a model by following the steps is a hands-on activity. It becomes inquiry when students start asking why the model is designed the way it is, whether the test results match their expectations and how it could be improved, and then check their answers by doing. The Guidelines encourage students to “try boldly and accept failure”, finding solutions through repeated trial and error, reflection and improvement. It is this process that the Guidelines value.
Learning by doing in the science classroom
Under six themes (life and health, ecology and environment, Earth's mysteries, aviation and aerospace, emerging industries, and artificial intelligence), the Guidelines offer a range of sample tasks that show how learning by doing can work in class:
Why Planes Fly (Primary 4–6): Students build model planes from paper, KT board and similar materials, record flight time, distance, height and stability during test flights, then adjust their designs based on the data and explain the reason for each change. How good the model looks matters less than whether students can explain how their changes relate to the results.
Water and Nutrients for Green Plants (Secondary 1–3): Students design controlled experiments to see how light, water and nutrients affect plant growth, regularly recording plant height, number of leaves, leaf colour and other changes, then use their observations to put together a suitable care plan.
Solar Power (Primary 4–6): Using controlled variables, students test how light intensity, angle and area affect power output, then build a device that drives a small fan or toy car and look for ways to make it generate power more efficiently.
What these activities share is that finishing is never the end point. Every test becomes the starting point for the next improvement.
Artificial intelligence is also one of the six themes. In its “Smart Communication” task, Primary 4–6 students choose their own topics and create digital works such as posters, picture books or short videos, refining them by revising their prompts again and again. Within the Guidelines' framework, creating can itself be a form of inquiry.
From the Guidelines back to our classroom
We are glad to see these Guidelines from the Mainland. They may not apply to schools in Hong Kong, but they are well worth a look. Their emphasis on having students take part themselves and learn through trying also echoes ConnectAR's motto, Learning by Doing.
We believe learning is not only about taking in knowledge, but also about making ideas real with your own hands. Students decide what they want to express, how to design it and how to revise it. As an idea gradually becomes a finished work, learning moves beyond understanding and becomes a creation that students complete themselves.
Hands-on creation takes knowledge beyond the textbook
In ConnectAR's classes, technology is not a window for watching the world from the sidelines. It is a tool students use to express their own ideas.
With AI Fashion Designer, students combine colours, patterns and design ideas to create digital fashion of their own. With StoryTellAR, they develop characters and plot, and tell a story in their own way.
Every piece of work comes back to the same task: knowing what you want to express, and finding a better way to express it.
From design ideas to programming logic
Once Blockly programming is added to a work, creativity has to work hand in hand with logic.
Students design interactive effects and arrange the order of commands so that their work runs the way they imagined. How to order the commands, how to set the conditions and which step needs adjusting can only be found out by testing it themselves. It is the same principle as test-flying a model plane: every revision brings the work closer to what they had in mind.
Creativity gives a work its personality, and logic turns ideas into reality. Moving back and forth between planning, making and revising, students gradually complete a piece of work that is truly their own.
Learning by Doing: seeing your own ideas in your work
The learning we hope for goes beyond acquiring new knowledge: students turn their ideas into works, whether a digital outfit, a story or an interactive program they have put together themselves.
Just as the Guidelines emphasise process-based assessment, we believe what matters is not only what students have finished, but how they plan, choose, make and improve along the way.
This is Learning by Doing at ConnectAR: turning ideas into works you can see. Once ideas become works, students can study them and learn from one another, and put them on show so that parents and the wider community can enjoy their creativity!
Frequently asked questions
What does learning by doing mean?
Learning by doing asks students to work through a problem by planning, making, testing and reflecting, then improving their work in response to the results. A lesson values how students explain their choices, observations and revisions as well as what they finish.
How can AI, AR and Blockly support learning by doing?
Students can turn hand-drawn designs into digital fashion with AI Fashion Designer, create interactive stories with StoryTellAR and arrange commands and interactive effects with Blockly. Teachers can guide students to observe, explain and revise, using technology to support creation and inquiry.
Are the Mainland Guidelines a new requirement for Hong Kong schools?
The Guidelines discussed here were issued by the General Office of Mainland China’s Ministry of Education and concern inquiry tasks for Mainland students in Grades 4 to 9. This article uses them as a teaching reference for Hong Kong educators; it does not present them as a new EDB requirement for local schools.
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