Ask the Experts: Matt Gerber

Q: How does a space for hands-on learning help encourage creative problem solving?

A: “[It helps them understand] there’s not one right answer,” says Matt Gerber, director of information and education technology at Western Reserve Academy. “There’s this intrinsic challenge to solve these real-world problems. Students are more adaptable and agile in terms of their learning. They learn to adapt and to prototype. They fail. They learn from that and they take another path. They get to explore, experiment, play, make and create. That really helps in terms of their understanding. You might learn about a theory in science and you can test that theory and put it into practice. You’re no longer just coding to code, but you’re coding because that code can control this process or makes this robot walk. Then you start to see the utility of why you’re learning something.”