Maker Day VPK

It could be that I am a product of my mentors, or that I choose my mentors as a product of my mentality.  Either way Susan Crichton remains an important connection whom I am privileged to share an remarkable amount of pedagogical ethos.

Yesterday I was invited to participate in a Maker Day hosted by Victoria Park High School in Lethbridge AB facilitated by Susan and Deb from the UBC Okanagan Innovative Learning Centre.

A Social Wall as a way for Introverts to Connect

I was invited because within my local network it was felt that what we are doing in the Westmount Learning Commons is very much inline with what this PD opportunity was addressing, and it was time to visit and measure where we are at against this research-based, professionally driven ideology of "Make".

What has struck me, seven years later, about why Susan et al are important mentors is that they teach philosophy not by speaking about it, but simply creating within it.  You buy into the philosophy not because of their rhetoric but because you experience the positive results of having learned from within it.  I believe it is no accident then that we have found ourselves employing "design-thinking" in how we are addressing the desire for structural change for the population of special-needs students within our school walls.

To begin with you may wish to peruse this Tool-Kit provided by @UBCOILC.  This information has been used now to show that Gifted Ed at Westmount naturally aligns with Design-Thinking because as a gifted educator (duality implied) I believe in;

1. Inside Out: the idea that a student requires accommodation, or rather "space" made for the student's innate abilities and proclivities the which have been derived through a reflection of oneself within one's community, and reinforced by all whom they encounter in a day.
2. Lateral Thinking:  the idea that an 'exceptional' student is naturally inclined toward 'outside the box' attitudes, interests, aspirations, and abilities; in particular the ability to approach an abstraction with ease.
3. Enriched Content: the idea that without meaningful and relatable challenges, the exceptional student struggles with desire to learn unless motivated by a desire to 'please'.
4. Community: the idea that 'exceptional' students feel isolated unless offered access to peers and mentors who are capable of, or trained to relate to the complex abstractions, emotions, or anxieties of those students.
5. Ego: the idea that the 'exceptional student' is aware of their exceptional abilities and must be coached to appreciate and value the contributions of those who may not share the same exceptional abilities.

To Make (according to Mark Hatch, writer of The Maker Movement Manifesto 2014) "is fundamental to what it means to be human.  We must make, create, and express ourselves to feel whole."  To be "gifted" is to be "human" and the essential humaness of a "gifted" student is to "feel that humaness" in exceptional ways.

Novices are allowed access to Tools

Making (according to the Manifesto) involves "sharing what you have made and what you know about making with others... the act of making puts a small piece of you in the object.  Giving that to someone else is like giving someone a small piece of yourself... [it is a] movement, and it requires emotional, intellectual, financial, political, and institutional support."

Here we see that Making reflects the first and the fourth values on our list.

Continuing, "You must learn to make".  Here my own personal philosophy, and that shared by some of my group on Thursday is that it might also be true to say "you must MAKE to LEARN."  Mark mentions that Making is "being playful with what you are making [ultimately allowing you to] be surprised, excited, and proud of what you discover".  The spirit of "a maker" is that a maker desires to "learn, and push yourself to learn new techniques, materials, and processes."

Part of our Design Churette

Here we see the modern educators desire for rigor and mastery of curriculum, but it is paired with the intrinsic motivation of the student to be curious and the follow through on that curiosity, in a structured, intentional way which allows the student to document that experience, and ultimately allow others to evaluated the efficacy of that experience.  This model allows for enriching, personalized learning which is also structured in such a way as to allow a teacher to navigate mandated curricula.  It also provides, in the design of the "Churette" a way to coach those whom have been engaged in the sharing to properly express feedback that is deeper and more meaningful than flattery or derisiveness.

The design thinking method itself (which is very similar to the rules laid out in Improvisational Theatre - a topic I explore in a "Why Dramaticscience?") allows for a student to develop abstract, lateral thinking solutions to important, valuable, meaningful problems, but the solution itself is corporately derived and demands contribution from all parties.  It is never done "by oneself" and by nature does not allow one person to "own" an idea.  It allows a community to draw from its strengths without relying on mandated corporate buy-in; something I have found to be very unsuccessful in a classroom environment, particularly so with gifted students.  The anecdotes shared in another post, "The Excellent and Most Lamentable Tragedy of Teaching" speak to this. To sum up, here we see the third and fifth values of our school reflected in the structure of the design thinking exercise.

So I now understand why our Library Learning Commons Maker Space has been so well received, and has encouraged disenfranchised students to step out of isolation and approach the school for support of their own personal learning goals.  The Maker Space has provided the technology that was missing; the tools, accessibility, supervision, and space for students to independently arrive at their own conclusions, explore things which are curious, report their curiosities, and be in proximity (ergo relationship) with master-makers and mentors.

It has been grounded accidentally on purpose in the ethic and structure of "Design Thinking" and has been crafted carefully and intentionally in "relationship" with the stake-holders.

The next step is to provide this experience to the staff who routinely encounter new meaningful, valuable, important problems in education and have at least two days at the beginning of every year to bond and align as a community united in vision, or spiral out to their "silos" engaged in the ritual of classroom management... but now I'm just being petty. ;)

Authentic Yearning

Click Here to FF to the Media!

Every year our drama program struggles to create a space for students to use film media to convey their stories, and examine their processes.

Problem 1:  They don't want to film at school.  There's no where good.
Problem 2:  They don't want to story-board.  What's the point?  With digital technology we can just take one long shot and splice them together afterward
Problem 3:  They don't want to tell a story.  It's more fun for us to look at ourselves making silly faces on camera than stick to a script.

Been there?

With the advent of an iPad classroom, and the willingness to open up a project to something beyond getting a mark here is what has happened, and how:

The Story

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Problem 1:  Mandate a project with a note home from parents that no students are allowed to film at home.  That's work to be done in class.

Problem 2:  Create a project where you charge them for the film that they use.  For my students I charge them $0.80 per minute of digital film.  I don't really charge them, but I make them keep track of it in a budget.  At the end of the project their mark is scaled between a ratio of how well they were able to meet the bench-marks (good story telling, coherent story, likeability) and how much it cost.  They are to make 10 minute films.  They can be shorter, but must not be one second longer after editing.


Problem 3:  Examine the mystery genre.  Split them into groups of four or five and then lead them to these two sites:
a) The 5 Deadly Sins of Amateur Film Making
b) The film techniques of Alfred Hitchcock

Having approached each of the problems in this fashion start them off looking at Problem 3 with the understanding that this is a problem of the past that they are certainly more than talented enough to over come.  Give them time and the resources to investigate these sites in their groups and then create some time to share the more interesting details they discovered.

Then announce the project: "We're going to be hosting the School 10 Minute Film Festival, and your films will be featured just like at an industry Gala Event".  The look on their faces when they realized that this project was something that mimicked the film industry was one of excitement.  As soon as I stopped the pitch the creativity started.

The Yearning

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Quick note:  All media appearing below belongs to and was posted online (without encouragement) by my Grade 9 students.

 What happened in our class is that as soon as they understood there was a budget they started to come up with other things they should charge for.  For instance, several students are excellent editors, but other students have no idea where to begin with film editing.  So they wanted to charge for editing time from the experts in the Career Technology and Society class.  They knew of other actors they'd like to include in their project, but they needed to charge a rate to get them in their movie.

Mostly they wanted this project to mirror the things that actually happen for film-makers. Including and not limited to creating their own movie posters and the following "teaser-trailers". Stay tuned, we plan on streaming their videos!

I can't guarantee that this will happen every time this project is pitched, but for these guys it was working.

Finally, tell them that because this is a festival format they must meet certain deadlines and be able to speak to the work they are doing at the end of the project.

For the last two weeks they kicked me out of class so they could work toward their project goals.  They approached me only for permission to film in certain areas of our school (just like film-makers acquire licences they had to get licences).  And there are posters, trailers, and just a whole lot of excitement surrounding these films, because they want to do something valuable and authentic.

The Man in the Shadows (Teaser) from Grant on Vimeo.

I want you to participate in their film festival too, so I'm inviting you now to follow us on Twitter, keep up to date with this blog, and watch for a date (following Feb 7 when we will live-cast our event).

Peace.

10 Step Graphology (or; what does my writing say about me?)

(disclaimer: this is my first attempt at blogging using the google app on the iPad2. Thinking about the content to follow; I really should be writing this by hand...)

Alright, today I witnessed thirty minutes of dedicated, controlled and productive group work for 20 Grade 6 students in WIDE open space followed by another thirty minutes with three teachers available to 50+ of the same.

If you're wondering how it came about, or where we're going then read-on, because that's the intent of this post.

Forensic Science is a small unit in Grade 6 for Alberta students. They are required to demonstrate that they can observe and make inferences regarding things like fingerprints, graphology, chromatography, foot-print-ology (that's the technical term, right?)

Drama is a course we invented for the students this year to prepare them to make a choice about what arts stream they would like to follow in Grade 7 throug 9. @bar_qu (the science teacher) and myself have worked the past couple of weeks to use our 90 minutes of drama time, and the science classes to allow the students the space to "create" their own mysteries.

My last cryptic post illustrated the details on how to roll out something like that. Today is to tell you about the opportunities that present themselves when the schedule of two partnered teachers happen to overlap.

With less than 20 minutes of planning we took one combine science class of about thirty students, with another twenty drama students, brought them to a wide open area and set the, to task decoding a mystery.

• First: Intro the idea (People don't write the same)
• Second: Indicate what some important observations of handwriting might be
• Third: Wake them up again.
• Fourth: Have the available teachers sign a giant mobile whiteboard away from the students, and then have each teacher write the same sentence.
• Fifth: Challenge the students (who wrote nothing down because this is all so easy) to match the signature to the sentence.
• Sixth: until they can explain the observations that led to their inference do not allow them to work on the premade practice sheets.
• Seventh: Do not reveal the correct answer, simply provide students with the handouts and explain they'll have one chance to get the answer after they work on the practice sheets.
• Eighth: Let the students work (wherever, and with whomever they wish)
• Ninth: Have students submit their final conclusions on the handwriting (ideally through a google form, or other online repository)
• Tenth: For the students who are writing the "Snow White" mystery, (see last post) allow them to tailor their work toward building their evidence package.

Drama students, like scientists must spend time observing, creating, and communicating ideas. They must work collaboratively but ultimately they have to stand on their own to demonstrate individual statements of knowledge and skill. Can we justify the time spent? I think so. Can the process be refined and improved? Absolutely. Are we proud of the results! Yes. Are the students engaged?

Well in answer to that question, I point out that in one wide open classroom with over fifty eleven year olds, only one sheet of a two-page handout each student received was left behind. That in-and-of-itself is representative of what I consider to be a near-ubiquitous buy-in by the students indicating that they've found the intrinsic value of a practice sheet... But that's just an inference.

Differentiated Structures

Resources:
For a Grade 6 Science, Drama, and Career & Technology Studies Cross Collaboration

When things don't work out in class, I'm often excited because I usually get a chance to try things twice.  In drama I am always harping on the potential of failures as the best learning experience, and the most amazing fun is had in improvisation games when people "play on the edge of losing".

Problem
How do you give Grade 6 students an inquiry project that involves group work, each task allows space for differentiation and the whole thing takes place in a huge open auditorium without the whole group descending into a scenario which might inspire a story along the lines of, oh, let's say, "Lord of the Flies"?

The struggle is allowing them to complete tasks and objectives at differentiated speeds, and keeping group members accountable to each other, when the maturity level to keep numbers of tasks, and impulse control in check.  The first time I tried this, no matter how much structure  I hoped to create, the structure would break down within minutes.

The solution came today:  Task oriented assignments, where individuals in the group are responsible for ensuring that the order of tasks are kept in place, that no one is allowed to get ahead of the group, that the sequencing is constructive, and that the objectives are given in simple, easy to remember language.

I know, not that revolutionary, but for a teacher of older students it came as somewhat of a shock when the results came in so easily.

To Begin:

• Five students in a group.
• Four groups.
• Two different assignments in the room.
• One assignment per group.

To Solve:

• Five objectives.
• One per group member.
•  Each designed to accelerate the brainstorm process, but also support the structure of the activity.

Observations
Each group met the objectives at a pace that worked for them.  Though the assignments were different, the structure for completing the assignment was left intact which allowed for easy guidance as students ran into road-blocks, or had questions.  Students who had the responsibility of guiding the first objective were being prodded by the student who had the second objective to do a good job and complete it quickly because they were waiting to take leadership for the next objective.

There was evidence of strong intrinsic motivation in the students, there was less disruption in the large room. There was more focus on the work in front of them and consequently there was more success.  Each student was granted space to be creative and work in ways that brought their personality and strengths to the group, but there wasn't so much room that they had no idea where to start, or became "overly creative".  There was accountability to each other, and I'm pleased to say that I was able to do this all in half the amount of time the second go-round.




Mystery Tales by Thomas Currie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at docs.google.com.