Tinkering is often thought of a lot like doodling. Mindlessly playing around with things certainly can't help you learn, right? Well, as writer Annie Murphy Paul points out, tinkering might actually be really good for learning.


Tinkering, or figuring out how something works just by poking at it for a while, is a pretty time-honored technique, but it's nice to know there's some science behind how it's actually pretty helpful. Paul explains how this works in kids:

Research in the science of learning shows that hands-on building projects help young people conceptualize ideas and understand issues in greater depth. In an experiment described in the International Journal of Engineering Education in 2009, for example, one group of eighth-graders was taught about water resources in the traditional way: classroom lectures, handouts and worksheets. Meanwhile, a group of their classmates explored the same subject by designing and constructing a water purification device. The students in the second group learned the material better: they knew more about the importance of clean drinking water and how it is produced, and they engaged in deeper and more complex thinking in response to open-ended questions on water resources and water quality... it involves a loose process of trying things out, seeing what happens, reflecting and evaluating, and trying again.


While the bulk of that research deals with younger learners, that doesn't mean it doesn't apply upwards as well. As pretty much anyone who has tinkered around inside a computer knows, sometimes you just have to poke at it until you understand what's going on.

The Joy of Making Things | Annie Murphy Paul