Understanding Life in 1800 When You are 12

https://www.pinterest.com/Lugsail/merchant-ship-1750-1800/

This week I am wrapping up a project with my 7th graders that is about traveling to Texas in the year 1800. All of my design students take either French or Spanish and I have them in corresponding "delegations" with a student governor. Within the delegations are groups of students (3 to 6 in a group) who are working together as a sort of travel company.

Their task is to create a diorama of a settlement for a certain number of people that will be going on a trip from a country, of their choosing, to somewhere in Texas. They also are creating a presentation where they are to "sell" this trip to the rest of their classmates.

Tasks they must perform include figuring out how many people they will take (including their skills) and the number of ships that they will need to transport these people to the New World. They have researched where the ship will land in the New World and how long it will take to get to the place they plan on settling from the ship landing.

Throughout this task I have been bringing it back to the importance of building empathy. The latest paper I had them write me was to tell me about a young person who is planning on taking their trip. As this person, they have to describe their home that they are leaving; how long it will take to get to the ship; what it will be like on the ship (including what they plan on doing to keep from getting bored); and what it will be like when they first get to Texas. I want their character to be about their own age.

My students didn't have much of a problem doing basic research and calculating things like speed and distance. They had a harder time with calculations of scale for their buildings in their dioramas. But when they had to write that empathy paper there were some fun thoughts shared with me by these young folks.

While the majority of students told me of one room, broken-down, huts that they were leaving, several told me about these huge multi-room mansions that they were leaving. And one student told me all about the apartments he would be moving into when he got to Texas.

When it came to getting to the shipyard most walked or rode on a wagon but several said they would take a taxi - (what, no Uber or Lyft?).

The ship ride for most students was cramped with not much to eat. But many of my students planned on having 3 meals a day provided by the captain. And a few had very nice accommodations - "Better than the bed they had at home!"

It is interesting to see students struggle with understanding of what life was like prior to 1980 - never mind what life was like in the year 1800!  I'm only hoping that this process will help them with their Texas History class that they are taking at the same time.

Let's Make a Maker Space

https://hildakweisburg.com/2016/01/04/on-libraries-makerspace-magic/

Right up front I want to say that any school that has a Maker Space because that's what great schools have, is missing the whole idea. I think playing with things and trying out things is really cool. I do. But if we haven't thought through what we will have in our space then will it truly be a space for all students?

There's that WE again. When WE are thinking about a maker space, then the first thing to think about is who is this WE we are talking about. WE should include anyone who controls the purse strings for purchasing items. WE should include the students who will be using the space. WE should include parents who might want to be involved in the space. WE should include teachers who might want to encourage students to use the space but also might want to use the space themselves.

Purse String Holders - How much will it cost for the initial purchase of items, for the maintenance of items, and for the replacement of items? If WE haven't thought about those items then the space won't be a success.

Student Users - What do the students want to do in the space? And, at the same time, what should be included in the space that the students haven't even thought of wanting?

Parent Participants - Some parents always want to be involved with the school. Some parents feel that they just don't have time but they are willing to purchase/collect/make items for the school. What do the parents want for the space? Do they want time when they can use it? Do they have expectations for what happens when their child is in the space? Do they want to volunteer to be in the space so that other adults (from the school) won't have to be in there?

Teacher Participants - Do the teachers have a certain expectation for what items should be in the space? Do the teachers want to be able to send students to the space at any time, knowing that there will be an adult presence to monitor the kids? Are there other ways the space can be used?

Last year was my first year at my current school. Several times I was told that there were parents who wanted the school to have a maker space. Well, where would this space be? What are the hours of the space? Will there be a requirement that there has to be an adult in the space at all times - or could we have a certification program for our older students who could be in the space during their study hall or after school.

Here are my top dozen questions compiled into one list:

      1. What do the parents want?

      2. Where would the space be located?

      3. Who would monitor students while it is open? 

      4. What would be the hours that the space is open?

      5. Will parents be able to provide items for the space? 

      6. What is the initial budget for materials for the space?

      7. What is the annual budget for materials for the space?

      8. Would there be a certification process for any tools and for general safety?

      9. Will teachers monitor the space? And, if so, when is this going to happen?

    10. Will parents sign up to monitor the space? How does that look from an insurance stand point?

    11. What do the students want (at each level. We're K-12 2nd graders and 10th graders have different desires) ?

    12. Will students be allowed to leave their classrooms to go to the space to work? If yes, how do we make sure that there aren't too many students in the space?

http://www.fractuslearning.com/2016/01/26/how-built-school-makerspace/

And now, for my readers, help me compile a list of materials that should be in a maker space (leave your thoughts in the comments section). Who knows, maybe there'll be a grant with our school's name on it and we can get this thing off the ground.  Here's a general list to whet your whistle -

     A. Legos and a Lego Table, KNEX, Blocks
     B. Basic hand tools (screw drivers, hammers, allen wrenches, adjustable wrenches, pliers)
     C. Yarn and Thread
     D. Tools for knitting, crocheting, sewing
     E. Painting Supplies (But what, exactly???)
     F. Computers/laptops for online access
     G. Rulers, T-Squares, Straight Edges
     H. Paper of various types
     I. Nails, Screws, Bolts
     J. Circuitry and wire
     K. Various types of tapes and glues
     L. Storage Containers and Shelves
     M.Craft supplies (Popsicle sticks, tooth picks, material, card stock, cotton balls etc.)

Design Thinking or PBL, A Chicken/Egg Scenario? My journey.

http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/chicken_and_egg_problem_view_evolution-107927

Last night I missed a great conversation during a Twitter chat hosted by #MeritKCI and involving my friends who frequent the #dtk12chat. As I was scrolling through the tweets from the chat I noticed some discussion of PBL and how different Design Thinking (DT) is from PBL. A blog post that was referenced (and also one of my favorites) was written back in 2012 by Ewan Mcintosh of Notosh.com.

What's missing in these 140 character exchanges is some historical perspective and some grounding in where classroom teachers are in 2016. Before going further though, it's important to understand where my belief system lies and where I come from. I love student exploration - fueling inquiry and that innate desire to learn about things. I am against grades and, instead, am for student assessment through creativity, self analysis, and reflection. I believe in backward design but also in problem creation. I am also grounded in where the education world is today.

Parents, and I'm one, want their kids to be able to "be a kid," to explore, and (at the same time) get into great schools that will introduce them to unique learning opportunities. These school should then provide a foot into the door of a company that will help the students pay off their college debt. Many (most?) of these "great" colleges require a certain score on a standardized test (SAT/ACT) and a certain class rank based upon a 4.0 grade point average.

High schools are charged with getting students college and, lately, "career ready." Students must learn certain things mandated by their community, their state, and by the national government. The national government creates a list of "standards" that must be met. The state government creates a list of standards that must be met. And then school districts create standards that their students must meet to be labeled a high school graduate. More and more of these standards include the words "Explore" and "Hands On" but it really is up to the the teachers to bring in the "how" to do that exploration.

At some point years ago teachers started finding ways to engage students in their learning through an idea of centering the learning around a specific task or problem.  Although the idea of teaching in a mode that was focused upon a project had been around for about a century, it was a couple of dozen years ago that this was labeled (as we know it today) as Project Based Learning or Problem Based Learning - PBL. Schools/Companies/Corporations in Northern California jumped into this and we suddenly had the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) and the New Tech Network (NTN).  As these entities trained teachers and/or opened PBL schools the popularity of this PBL-thing increased and more groups started training teachers in their version of PBL.

http://www.peertutoringresource.org/2014/07/a-quick-start-guide-to-using-project-based-learning-pbl-in-the-classroom/

Around the same time this was happening schools were rapidly removing "Shop" classes and other hands-on classes for students because schools wanted to focus on courses that were academically rich. But this wasn't happening everywhere. In Upstate New York a company was created that focused on engineering principles - Project Lead the Way (PLTW).  In 2010, as I finished my 2nd year as a math teacher in a New Tech Network school, I was given the opportunity to teach a PLTW class, Introduction to Engineering Design (IED), and I went to my first PLTW course. That same year I saw for the first time a Nightline piece about a company called IDEO.

I started thinking about the marriage of the design process and the pbl process. And, coincidently, I found out about and read a new book called Make Just One Change from the Right Question Institute.  If we could get students to ask more questions at the start of each project might we improve the student inquiry process? And, in turn, might we not help teachers see that we can allow students the opportunity to explore the content and not just follow a road map that we (the teacher) created?

From PLTW

In 2012 as I was about to "finally" figure out this PBL-thing that I was floundering in, I was promoted to an Instructional Coach position with the charge of helping a middle school bring in PBL as the primary mode of instruction. So, before I was able to perfect my own teaching practices I was asked to help a staff of nearly 50 learn and perfect the art of being PBL teachers. That's when I started to really see the push back from teachers who felt that they were in a no-win scenario: state test scores must improve and they must be doing PBL in their classrooms. We were a NTN middle school with a NTN coach but we weren't doing PBL the "right" way. After two years we all decided that the school and NTN needed a break from each other. And I felt like a completely incompetent instructional coach. Why didn't PBL succeed in this school?

Later that year I started the training to become a National Faculty member of BIE so that I could reflect on my own PBL knowledge while facilitating training for teachers in school districts who were looking for a way to bring this PBL-thing into their schools. While immersing myself in all things PBL I came across a group of teachers who were talking about using a design thinking approach (DT) in their classrooms. In discussions with some of the folks I considered to be PBL guru's I was told that these DT teachers weren't going deep enough with the content and that PBL was what really got students going deeper. "Wait," I thought, "wasn't the big push back to PBL the notion that in projects students didn't go deep enough - it was just bells and whistles?"

DT was undergoing the same scrutiny that PBL had when I first was exposed to it years earlier. And, I should add, I was still hearing that push back from teachers in PBL trainings - "How do we know that the students will understand the content to do well on standardized tests?" -and- "This will never fly with our parents/school board/students."  In 2015/2016 BIE and the National Faculty members took a hard look at what PBL should look like for all students and in all classrooms. Because every classroom is different we wanted to create a "standard" that all teachers should be striving for in their schools. We came up with what we now are calling Gold Standard PBL.

In introducing this new Gold Standard to teachers one aspect jumped out to me: we now want teachers getting their students to ask questions through the use of the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) from the Right Question Institute. I had first learned about the QFT when I read Make Just One Change. BIE was now specifically stating what I had thought about way back in 2012.

Now let's overlay the flow of design thinking. Here are two representations (with notations) of this:

Empathy is the obvious thing not mentioned in the Gold Standard. So, in my mind, a good PBL teacher must get their students looking at why we are doing this project. Who are we doing it for and why should the student care about doing it? Along with empathy at the start is building what I call empathic inquiry throughout the project. Are students getting feedback from those whom they are creating for throughout the project? 

And so, again from my perspective, doing gold standard PBL while following a DT path is the best of both worlds. These are not (and should not be considered) separate entities. What are we looking for in all of this? We want students who are aware of their surroundings; are aware of the needs of others; are inquisitive about how and why things are the way they are; and, who are given the chance to experience the creative process of imagining a result, attempting to create the result, reacting to feedback for improvement on this initial result, and persevering to complete their final result. 

I am now back in the classroom in an International Baccalaureate (IB) charter school in Texas. I am creating projects in coordination with my fellow teachers. I organize my project ideas using Project Based Teaching Practices from BIE and I use the DT flow shown above. I have found that it doesn't matter whether you think DT is better/different than PBL or that PBL is better/different than DT. What matters is that you are creating a classroom where students feel safe to take chances, make mistakes, and build resiliency. 

Thanking a Teacher In My Life

This past weekend I heard about a project being run by People Admin. They offered money to hear stories about people who inspired you to become a teacher.

So I sat down and whipped up this thank you to a teacher who inspired me to become a teacher. Enjoy -----

In 1990, at the age of 32, I was at a crossroads. My wife and I were both active duty Naval Officers serving aboard ships. Her ship was out of Norfolk, VA and my ship was out of Long Beach, CA. One of us needed to leave active duty. Over dinner we discussed the pros and cons of each of our futures in the Naval Service. My wife turned to me and said the magic words, “ At least you know what you want to do if you get out.” 

At that point she told me that I had always spoken of being a high school math teacher and a baseball coach. I never realized how often I had said that,  but I knew she was right. By the end of 1990 I was out of the active duty Navy and I was enrolled in graduate school. By the end of the Summer of 1992, I had my MSEd and my certification to teach math and science.

Where did this desire come from? Partly from the fact that I had two Great Aunts who were both teachers and my mother was a secretary in an elementary school. It seems that I had always been around educators and their “school talk.” But the main reason I ended up taking this route was because of my high school junior varsity (JV) baseball coach and math teacher - Mr. Pete Austin. 

Mr. Austin was a very demanding coach. You played his way or you didn’t play at all. Our JV baseball teams were a force to be reckoned with in our state. We played hard and we played the game with passion - just like our coach. He showed us that you would be rewarded for hard work.

In the classroom he was equally as demanding and he rewarded students who worked hard. He expected us to stand up and be bold with answers to questions. Wild guesses and “maybes” in a student’s answers were discouraged. And he wasn’t afraid to throw a chalkboard eraser in your direction to keep you on your toes - (always followed by a smile, I should add). 


One of his ways of helping us with low grades was to give a minimum grade of 50 on any assignment. The downside of this was that he would announce the members of the “50/50 Club.” I was a proud member of that club. But at the same time, my math skills were at such a high level that I went on to be a math major. At reunions we still talk about being in that infamous club.

My take away from this interaction was that teachers can be tough and demanding on their students while being compassionate and loving at the same time. There was never any doubt that Mr. Austin cared about us and he wanted us to be the best. That held true whether we were on the baseball diamond or in the classroom. 

I never made it back to thank this person who so inspired me in life. I only hope that one day his family will be able to see this and will take pride in knowing that he made a difference in our lives. What he showed me then is making a difference in my students lives today.

As I work with new teachers I make sure to encourage them to be firm and consistent in their classroom management. I make sure that they understand that they also need to show love and compassion. That’s the way I was treated in my high school pre-calculus class, that’s the way I treat my students, and that’s the way I want my own children to be treated in their classes. 

Thank you Mr. Austin for inspiring me to pursue this incredible journey.

---->   For those of you who remember Mr. Austin, feel free to leave your own memories in the comments below. I know that there are those who were afraid of that chalkboard eraser and Mr. Austin's style in the classroom and on the baseball field. I obviously loved how he worked and I know it helped make me a better person. So, if you do have any unpleasant memories, please remember to numb the sting before hitting submit.  Thank you.

Thoughts About This Coding Craze

In 1976 I set off to the University of South Carolina on a Navy ROTC scholarship to major in Math and Computer Science. In 1986 I was taking courses in computer architecture and the language ADA as I worked on my master's degree in Engineering. In 1992 I helped teach a computer class to teachers while being a graduate assistant and getting my master's degree in Education. I hope you believe that I get the importance of using computers as a tool.

Now, everywhere it seems, I keep reading how important it is for students to learn coding. I know the value of understanding the set up of code and algorithms. I can still remember my first assignment in the Fall of 1976 using PL1/PLC. It was to write a program to determine how many cars went through an intersection. The cars approached from each of the four cardinal points at different rates. The length of time the red, yellow, and green lights stayed on also varied. I may have loved math but this was a new animal and it hurt my brain.

But do we need to have every student take a coding course? And where, please tell me, do we get people qualified to teach these courses? I fear that the "Teacher as student" idea will trickle down here and will waste a lot of student time. Without proper guidance I see students going to places like Code.org and playing games. Oh they are being exposed to coding but are they learning the code or just the shape of the icon representing the code? And how many of the English, Math, Science, Social Studies teachers are going to really figure out how to work coding into their curricula?

Will administrators jump on board this coding train, having no understanding of coding themselves, requiring their teachers  to embrace this "coding stuff?" You bet they will. If there is funding and parent demand there will be administrators turning this demand on its head and requiring teachers to figure coding out.

I saw (and am still seeing) this with the topics of PBL, Inquiry, and (lately) Design. These are ideas that, when done well, are incredibly valuable and help students go deeper in their understanding of content. Because of publicity superintendents and principals get excited about things that will make their students be the best students. Suddenly they say things like, "This PBL stuff is good for our kids so lets get some training in it!" Grants get written and training begins. But soon the funding for the training dries up. And then we hear them say, "Now that we've trained some teachers, we need PBL to be done in EVERY classroom!"

But the schools/districts rarely get to the level where instructional coaches, assistant principals, and principals understand what they are seeing in the classroom.  It follows that these same academic leaders can't help their teachers grow in this new "PBL world" that they have created.

Will this happen in the world of Coding? Sadly, I'm leaning towards, "yes." Why? I'm willing to use myself as an example.

At my school parents and students demanded a computer science course. I was hired to teach Design Thinking, but I had a computer science background. So I was asked if I would teach a section of computer science. With very little time to come up with a plan, the school year started.  I decided that I would see what these students wanted in their computer science course. When I asked them I got the following: App Design, Web Page Design, Game Design, Coding, and Movie Creation. I let the students self-select into each of these areas and we spent the first semester exploring these topics with me as "facilitator of learning" and "calendar enforcer."

There was some good news from the semester.  Many of the students went way further than I thought they would go and learned more than I could ever have helped them learn. And, most of the students learned about what I expected they would learn in a self paced course. And, of course, there were some students who "also participated" in class. It was a pretty normal breakdown for students for any class and in any content. Nothing surprising there.

Still, I can't help but wonder what these same students could have done with a teacher who was at the school to teach students all about computers and coding. We're a small, academically oriented school with great parents and staff.  Hopefully, we will have a certified computer science teacher - or, at least, a person who loves to immerse themselves in all things computers. I'm not that guy. And, because I HAD to teach computers, I haven't put forth the effort required to make the course be truly awesome.

I find myself wondering: "how many teachers are going to be required to 'put coding into their course?'" If you aren't into computers, you aren't into computers. I love working with them and I want the latest app to use on my mobile device. But I'm not a person who spends hours coding. And I'm not a "maker." It isn't fair to my students to have me be their computer science teacher. They deserve better.

Schools and school districts are jumping on the coding band wagon. But do we suggest that all students learn coding when there aren't teachers in place to make it happen? It's hard enough to get a quality math teacher; or science teacher; or English teacher; or social studies teacher.  We need teachers who are passionate about their subject. Let's build capacity with computer science teachers before we suggest our students all take a class in coding.

Using An Old Challenge to Teach Project Management

http://goo.gl/AK0vs

When I talk with teachers about getting started with PBL I often tell them to think of something they have seen done before and take the idea and make it their own. But I also caution them to think of their content first - what are the verbs and nouns in their standards? Unless they are incredibly comfortable with their standards it really doesn't make much sense to start with an idea and try to fit the standards.

Now that I'm teaching Design this frees me up to be more creative and experimental with where I ask my students to go with their learning. Unfortunately I have 7th graders who have been living, for at least a few years, in the world of "Learn the Content -then-Do a Project." In addition to teaching them about the Design process I have to teach them the the PBL process.

I'm attempting to create a classroom of asking questions, taking chances, making guesses, trying new things, and thinking about the client. Through the first semester my students have worked on projects that were centered on content standards for their science and Texas history classes. In science they needed to understand forces for the Rube Goldberg Machines they built. In Texas history they needed to understand French and Spanish settlers/settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries in what is now Texas to build models.

The content might have been for other classes but the creation and building were accomplished in my classroom. Now, with this next project, my students will be working for me (and for themselves). We are embarking on my version of the Cardboard Chair Challenge.

You might have guessed from the title of the project, that the main idea is to build a chair out of recycled cardboard and glue. But there is SO much more I want them to learn about managing a project. This, in reality, is a project management project.

To keep them focused on creating the chair and to make things interesting I have created an opportunity to have the students present to parents. There's nothing like an authentic audience to up the ante. To be honest, I don't really care whether they successfully build a chair in the short time period I have given them (but don't tell them that, shhhh.)

Things I am focusing on:
(1) Roles. In this project everyone has an individual role and everyone is responsible for making sure the final products are completed. There are 6 students in just about every group and I have 6 roles in each group. The roles are Group Leader, Work Leader, Group Liaison, Web Site Designer, Artistic Leader, and Promotions Leader.  For the first two weeks I'll be meeting with each of these role players every day to ensure they are on top of what needs to be done to be successful.
 (2) Leadership. Related to their roles, everyone in the group is responsible for something that they will need help with. Will they step up and be a leader to make sure the group is successful. One role I will be working very closely with is the Work Leader. I expect the Work Leader to create a Team Accountability Form and use it every day. The Work Leader needs to be on top of what every member of the group is doing and where they are on their individual time line.
(3) Working on both individual and group work. Can they work together on their product (the chair) while also working on their individual assignments based upon their roles?

I want my students to understand that their is a lot more involved in successfully completing a project besides the final product. My students are competing to create the "best" chair possible using just cardboard and glue. But they are also learning how to work together as a team.  And with that, I can truthfully say: I want them all to be winners.

I Go From Project Idea to Project Launch (PBL with a DT Feel)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto/

I've just completed a pretty darn nice 2 weeks off for the holidays. Tomorrow I head back to 2 days of PD before the students come back to me on Wednesday. I've been spending the last couple of hours fine tuning my first design project of the year.

This is my first year of teaching MYP Design at Meridian World School. And so I've been creating as I go, as far as what I cover next with my students. Things that work this year will be tweaked and recycled for next year. Things that didn't go so well will be revamped or scrapped for next year. It's all part of the DT mindset and, either way, I learn a ton along the way.

Back in August (2015) I decided that I wanted to do a Cardboard Chair project this year. There are several versions out there but I chose to follow this one. I modified it, as necessary, to meet the level of my 7th graders and the time I wanted to spend on this project. The beauty of this is that I am working with something that has worked in the past.

I took the major parts of the project as written ( Research, Design Sketches, Drawings, and Model) and I added a beginning (Admin) and an end (Build and Presentations). Then I went through each of these and wrote out some sub-parts. For example I listed time for building and presenting the prototypes for feedback prior to their final build.

Next steps were to figure out how many days and weeks it would take and to look at the school calendar and see what things might impact these times. In doing this I noticed that our Diploma Program (DP) students will be doing their Group 4 Projects at about the same time I wanted to finish my project. I had my Authentic Audience - DP Parents can help pick the design champions.

As I worked backwards on the calendar I started filling in the key steps and, before I knew it,  I was back to early January and I could start finalizing my plans for these first two weeks of the semester.

Let me go through my checklist:  I have a project launch day where we will assign groups, write group contracts, and do the Question Formulation Technique (QFT);  I have a presentation day and an authentic audience;  I have days for research on key components for my subject area (Form, Function, Resources);  Students will explore empathy through their design plans; and, Students will do research, create sketches, and will build prototypes to get feedback prior to their final build.

I have been able to marry most of the Gold Standard PBL elements with most of the Design Thinking elements.  This will be a five week project from launch to final presentations. It will encompass the majority of the first six weeks of the grading period. I'll need to add assessments and plan for materials but, in the end, I am all set for the first 6-weeks of the semester. In a couple of weeks I'll be ready to start finalizing my next project. I've already approached a gym teacher to design some exercise mats. I'll write about that one soon.