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Month: October 2017

It’s Nice To Know Where You Are Going

It’s Nice To Know Where You Are Going

Last week I had the chance to bring students on the extended walk to the city park near our school, something I’ve been regularly doing. This time though, it was their second time going. This particular group had gone during the first week of school, so really the tail end of summer. It had been hot, everything was green, including the lake. Everything about that trip was new: a new combination of students with a new teacher, a new spot to visit. It had been fun, built community and formed a base set of observations to build off of.

I was a bit nervous leading up to this latest trip. Would the students wonder why we were going back? Would they feel like they had already been there and done that and become disengaged? It didn’t take very long in our walk to realize the answer to all of those questions would be no. The walk continued to allow students extended time to socialize and get to know classmates, a simple thing that there is never enough time for during a typical day. It also became obvious soon into the walk that students were excited and confident, they knew right where we were going and had landmarks in mind to look out for. This also allowed me to give them known landmarks to use as stop and wait points, letting kids with energy run ahead if they choose.

Differences and changes were noticed quickly and naturally and became a part of the conversation. Some details that we observed inspired us to pay closer attention now so we could compare it next time we come. Which also led us to do a better job of documenting this visit with pictures and words. Students were already talking about coming back again and what might change.

Many things made this trip great for me. I loved seeing the confidence and energy, hearing the conversations and observations brought me joy. It also made me realize the power of doing something again. I think there are times when I feel a push to always be looking for the next new thing. There are times and places for innovation; certainly, if ‘everything’ stayed the same in education our students would be missing out on valuable experiences. But, this trip served as a good reminder for me that it’s also ok to bring back materials, lessons or experiences that are familiar for students. Sometimes it’s nice knowing where you are going.

Dabbling with Design Thinking

Dabbling with Design Thinking

For the past several years, I have been working on incorporating engineering challenges into all grade levels. It’s still a work in progress, but I feel good about what has developed and what the students are experiencing and learning. Recently, I’ve been learning about the process of design thinking. While different from engineering challenges, I felt like it would build on the skills that students have developed. The addition of empathy adds meaning to the process and builds a valuable skill in students.

I feel like I have a good understanding of the process and underlying concept. I am still working on authentic experiences with science content. I’m continually learning from a variety of sources, including: the Teachers Guild, searching online and involving myself in twitter chats with practicing teachers and experts.

I am likely overthinking this, but really want to find something that works. I also think that I’m spreading myself too thin by processing through all K-5 science units at once, resulting in many little sparks instead of a big light bulb.

I’ve introduced the idea of design thinking to staff as well. On three separate occasions we have experienced examples of design thinking as adults. Living through the steps as an adult helps us have empathy for what students experience when faced with open ended challenges or working with unfamiliar groups. While these have been helpful, authentic opportunities to bring this mindset or approach into classrooms has yet to occur.

Last week I had the opportunity to introduce design thinking to fourth grade classes through the use of the foil challenge (https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57c6b79629687fde090a0fdd/t/58ac88a429687fbaf4a81d09/1487702181436/FoilChallenge.pdf) Here’s how I organized the challenge: https://goo.gl/AEXCb8

This fit into classroom teachers first unit of study, community. The challenge gives students an opportunity to learn more about a classmate and use some quick critical thinking to create a utensil or device. Communication in the form of conversations was vital to success. It was fun to watch the process unfold and the joy on partners faces as they showed and explained what they had made. It was also interesting to see on several occasions a partner miss the mark. For example, one friend heard all about the ice cream his partner liked, so he made her a cone out of tinfoil. However, when he shared it with her, she let him know that actually, she eats her ice cream in a bowl. Whoops! But what a great opportunity to learn from your mistake. This also led us to a great conversation about how we have a tendency to listen with our own bias or interpretation of the information. We also got to talk about how important that interview process was, and now that we’ve done it once how we’d all likely ask more and better questions.

During the reflection, we discussed the similarities and differences between the students experience doing an engineering challenge and their experience doing this quick design thinking challenge. In all of the classes, someone brought up that they felt nervous making something for someone else, they hoped they liked what they had made. I was blown away by this insight. This caused a huge lightbulb for me, not that I had any new answers for a grade level project, but I got to witness first hand the power of this tool. I could see it and feel it. There was meaning behind the making that was valuable and insightful, that connected them to someone beyond themselves, which at nine years old is a pretty unique experience.

The ice cream cone
Foil Challenge smiles
Smiling in the Rain

Smiling in the Rain

A few weeks ago I got to take fifth grade classes for the hike to Patrick Eagan Park. This trip allowed students to compare the buckthorn-filled forest on our property with the healthy forest in the park. It was clear the city of Eagan has been working on removing buckthorn from this land too, and they have been much more successful. Because fifth graders can walk that much faster, we also made it deep into the coniferous section of the trail. This led to more comparisons, building on our previous observations. One of my favorite parts is being able to point out the ‘feel’ of the two different types of forests. The closed-in canopy of the coniferous part makes me feel cozy, like being in a room. Which was a very different feel than the wide-open, spaced out deciduous part. It’s one of those things that you can try to explain to students, but words can’t do it justice. Now that we’ve all experienced it, we can have better, more descriptive conversations and writings.

Rain was forecast for one of the days. The time estimate of when the showers were due continued to change even up until we were leaving. As I checked in with the team in the morning, a number of concerns were raised: the weather, the mud we might go through, wet kids for the rest of the day etc…  We had written in the forms it was a rain or shine kind of trip, unless it was severe weather or downpours, which it wasn’t, so on we went. We gathered under the front entrance overhang and talked through the route, the expectations, the weather and then off we went.  Light rain fell most of the way there, but continued to let up. As with other classes, students socialized with each other and me on the walk. I kept waiting for a student to tell me they were wet and wanting to turn around, but it didn’t happen.

We got into the park and between the slowing down of the rain and being in the forest, no one seemed to mind finding a spot to sit to write their observations and comparisons. The rain even brought out some slugs for us to observe. We continued on to the pond shore, a high concern area for the teachers because of the mud. After explaining boundaries, students were given time to explore the shoreline, and guess what, no one got muddy!

So on we went, getting through all of the tasks I had hoped. At one point during our conversation as we entered the coniferous forest, we got a brief burst of rain that sent us all scrambling under available trees. It was over in a matter of a minute and what I saw when I looked at the group was not anger, fear or annoyance but smiles, laughter and conversations.

This was a scene I’ll remember for a long time. Out of all the things that we try to control in the day to day life of teaching, the weather truly is one that we can’t. We can worry about wetness, mud and messes and we could have canceled. But we didn’t, and

those students got a unique and memorable experience.

Sometimes we just have to shrug our shoulders and say, let’s give it a try.

Writing in the rain
Fancy Running Into You Out Here

Fancy Running Into You Out Here

Last week, the good weather continued.  I got to work with even more classes to explore our school yard. A few more classrooms took the tour of outdoor spaces. I also tried some new lessons with several classes, including making a connection between their classroom community and our school forest as a community.

Students were careful observers while outside, diligent explores while looking for animals and signs of animals and thoughtful in their documentation. I was pleased with how all of this went and that we had the time and resources for students to do this thinking and learning.

What I was most pleased with though, was the number of classes I ran into while I was outside. Over the course of the week, we crossed paths with a second grade class collecting leaves to identify the trees around our school yard with field guides. We ran into a first grade class collecting acorns for a math lesson. We also came across a fourth grade class using the outdoor classroom for quiet writing.

After only four weeks of school, I’ve already seen more students outside learning than most of last year. Sometimes all it takes is a simple reminder and a few examples. I feel like inspiration has become the norm rather than the exception, and that’s a pretty good place to be.

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