- I would love to teach alongside every single person that was in class with me. There are some amazing teachers out there that would be very willing to try things out with me. I know there are these people in my school as well, but this group is something special.
- The C's. No matter if you want to go with 4, or 6, or whatever... go with them! There is some power in that language that I am excited to harness.
- The Maker Mindset. I need to have this mindset and encourage it in my classroom. I need others around me to have this mindset. I need my students to approach learning with this mindset.
- That I am 10% done my PBDE, and I am excited to see what other course I will dive into along my journey, and how I can bring a Maker Mindset to those!
As I leave this class, there are a couple things that come to mind:
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A soliloquy is an act done by a person who is talking to him or herself or is unaware that others are around and listening. There person's innermost thoughts are often reveled through a soliloquy. Arguably the most famous soliloquy in literature would be from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', where Hamlet is on stage questioning life and whether life is worth living. As my creative reflection, I have rewritten Hamlet's soliloquy:
Why Making? There is this idea out there that schools should not be providing making time, or 'play time' as some people call it, because that is what should be going on at home. As a country kid, I will admit that this is often what went on at home, during the summer in particular. I would walk into the corn field and pick a cob of corn and use screw and such from the shop to make a face on the cob. My sisters and I would spend hours in sandbox creating intricate cities and roadways. We would spend hours in the back by the creek, creating stories and making pretend houses. Technology was not nearly as prevalent, which could be one reason for our expeditions.
So... what to do about this? Are kids these days really not playing as much anymore? Is it that parents are too busy and kids are placed in front of digital babysitters? Is it our job as teachers to provide time for 'play'? I think this is often time where my head gets stuck! What is our job as educators? I still don't know if I am at a place where I can answer that fully. I do know that my job is to engage students in learning and give them opportunities and experience that expand their knowledge and skills. Does this mean this has to be done in a cookie cutter way? Or does this give the freedom and allowance to 'play' and explore and make? When I think back to the scene of Apollo 13 that we watched in class, I question who the teacher is in the scenario. Are we the astronauts up in the air or are we the engineers and technicians back on Earth? Or does that matter? Are both parties working towards the same goal? Is the role of the teacher becoming one that is allowed to look like a learner in the situation as well? Is the communication between teacher and student... the communication between ground control and flight deck... more of a mutual relationship where there is give and take? Where they make decisions in tandem? Where both parties have valuable information to give, though often from very different perspectives? Hmm.. The largest makerspace in Canada. Why couldn't we have a field trip there? Having Vernon Kee present to our class had me thinking about a couple different things in each of the topics he spoke about.
1. TinkerCAD. I am really interested in getting my Grade 6 students working on this. With the little bits that I have played with, it seems like a pretty logical program. Even without a 3D printer, I can see students making on TinkerCAD. I also LOVE how this program does not to be downloaded or installed. That makes things a lot easier in a school setting! 2. Teacher Buy-In. This is probably the one that was the most relevant to me, and made me really reflect on my teaching practice. As my practice begins to shift and I start to really embrace making in my classroom, how do I get other teachers to work with me on this? How do I get teachers to see the value in letting go of the tight grip on curriculum? I like the idea of finding one person (or a group of people) that would be willing to work with me. I certainly already have this in the school I am presently in. My entire Grade 6 team is quite willing to jump on board come pretty crazy ideas and take some time to really dig into some making and activities that force the students to really think (I am quite willing to do this as well!) There are others that are a little more resistant. I can understand their fears. And I can also challenge myself to reach out to those teachers and ask them if they want to collaborate on something, or come check out something that is going on in my class, or even engage in conversations with them about some of the neat things that are going on. In fact, Destination Imagination, the organization introduced to us by Shauna Cornwell, has been a great jumping point for conversation for they are short activities that can get teachers thinking about making. 3. JPCI's New Makerspace. I would LOVE to visit this space once it is complete, just to see and explore the world of making that Vernon has created! I love that he is a trained engineer. I feel this brings a real practical aspect to his teaching, and a whole different level knowledge and ideas that can be brought to student learning. I also loved how open he was to suggestions and ideas from us, other teachers! Though we were able to meet in person, I think the same kind of conversation could have gone on online. Makes me think... if I need suggestions... there is a world of makers out there who are likely connected. Also makes me think... I should use twitter more often! 4. Assessment. How to protect creativity from assessment. In my opinion... keep letting them make, and reflect, and make some more. Have students observe other students creations. Have students self-assess. Truthfully... if I could toss out report cards in my classroom and stop worrying about those... I would! I feel it would help students to stop worrying about that report card mark as well. I am lucky in the sense that I teach younger students, and I don't allow my class to be fixated on marks. My students are still willing to do things for the joy of doing them (assuming there is joy in doing them... there is not always joy in doing a worksheet for most students). If I can keep that joy alive, I will consider that a success! And maybe that's the only true assessment I need. What an experience! Acadia Junior High was... an experience! Upon walking into the classroom, I could not help but smile and laugh, mostly because I was not sure what else to do! My brain was on overload! There was so. much. stuff. Great stuff! Exciting stuff! Making stuff! Stuff that scared me! Stuff that probably wouldn't pass safety codes everywhere! Stuff that I wanted to pick up and play with, and stuff that I wanted to run away from.
It has taken me a while to write this reflection because it has taken me some time to process everything! Now that the initial shock has worn off, I would actually be interested in visiting again! I feel that Jared really embraces the idea of Making! He is a Maker at heart and it is shown in his space! Looking around the space, I can see something for everyone! He embraces Making in every aspect of the curriculum he teaches. He gives students the opportunity to learn skills and take ownership. Student voice and choice is evident! I found it interesting hearing that his room was 10 years in the making (pun totally intended). It's also interesting to me that his games were the starting point or the trigger to making all kinds of other things! Little by little he added more and more to the space, which has become a 'Maker Mansion' of sorts. Comparing this space and his approach to making, compared to some of the other spaces we visited, it is quite a different environment! You could tell just based off the reactions and responses by my classmates! I can see many kids loving this space and thriving in the 'chaos' of sorts, but I know some learned would find the space to be too much to handle. I know myself as a teacher would struggle to learn and teach in this space. However, Jared's passion and pride in his space was totally evident! He thrives in what is around him! Teaching is an art... and your passions need to come out through your practice. Jared exemplifies this statement! There is one questions that keeps running through my head though... how does he have time for it all? Even though he has students doing lots of things... he still has so much going on! I don't think I would want to manage all that! Though there are some things that I think were pretty neat (his classroom management system), I can't imagine doing something like that with my 25 grade 6 students! The MET school was such an interesting and insightful experience! I'm going to start with some of the things that instantly blew me away:
I teach grade 6. In each of the visits, I have asked myself, 'How is this practical to me, and what from this experience can I take and use in my classroom and in my practice, within the boundaries of what I have to work with?' Though there are many thing that would not work in a Grade 6 class (internships?), there are some amazing take-aways that I have or want to bring back to my classroom.
I continue to work in my head on the 'how'. Not only in the 'how' as a teacher actually organizing some of this, but also in the 'how will parents respond' or 'how can I re-shift some of my thinking' to make myself default to authentic learning experience. It's a process... but one step at a time... My car is my second home. I'm sure I am one of many that live many hours of their life in their car, often driving somewhere by myself with no one to talk to. I am a music lover, but also an avid reader. As the time I spend in my car has increased over the last year, the time I am able to spend reading has decreased. Podcasts have become my new way of 'reading'.
This past weekend I was driving and my boyfriend picked a podcast for us to listen to. I later realized that it was also a TedTalk. This TedTalk, by Astro Teller, is titled, 'The Unexpected Benefit of Celebrating Failure'. It resonated with me given everything that we have talked about in the course thus far. In the talk, Teller speaks about 'moonshot factories', which are places where people with a variety of backgrounds, skills, strengths, and passions, all dream up and create technologies that will better our world. He talks about many of the amazing innovative ideas that they have created, and how they are all centered around empathy. They continually keep the well-being of mankind around the world at the forefront of their creations. But the part that really resonated with me was their design process. Their primary goal when creating something is to find every possible way that they can break it. People at this factory get promotions for finding ways that they can kill their projects. This was such a novel idea to me, and something that really intrigues me. What happens when something fails? What happens with the learning and the thinking when something fails to work as the creator would expect it to work? Well, one of two things... 1. The creator gets angry and walks away (lack of growth mindset and resilience) or 2. The creator takes the failure as an opportunity to improve. The people that work in this moonshot factory have skills that are beyond technically. They have more than just design skills or engineering skills, they have the skill of having the maker mentality! They create, and redesign, and experiment, and find faults in their product, and redesign, and also acknowledge when a project needs to be trashed because the idea doesn't work. They celebrate their failures and use those as experiences to learn. They empathy at the forefront of their project development. Their workspace is a living, breathing makerspace. I think of my students and the skills and attributes that they will need to thrive in the ever-changing world around them. Having the maker mentality is a wonderful place to start... Bloom's Taxonomy. It's a staple topic discussed in many Education Classes. It is something I have seen and discussed with my colleagues, and something that I have never thought about quite like I do now. At school visit #2, the presenter there talked about flipping Bloom's Taxonomy upside down. HOW DID I NOT THINK OF THAT? It makes so much sense! If I think of the activities that my students remember at the end of the year, never mind the ones that they remember many years down the road, it is not the textbook questions. I continue to learn and think about how knowledge and skills are gained, and about how I learn new things. Yes, acquiring knowledge through reading or watching videos or listening to an expert, but to really remember, I must create or DO. I am a homeowner. There are many learning experiences that come along with being a homeowner (ie. mowing the lawn, maintaining the lawn mower). I'm a farm girl, so I do have some background in tinkering, but one thing I have never done is change the oil on a small engine. That has been my task (read: makerspace) this spring. If I reflect on the process, I did not read and memorize how to change the oil, and then understand how that small engine works before I changed the oil! I DID! I changed the oil! I checked out some YouTube videos, asked some experts, read a couple things, just something to work with... and then I went for it! Was it a flawless execution? Absolutely not! Did I learn something? Certainly! Will I remember for next time what I did and how I would do things better (read: less messy) next time? Of course! But I will remember because I had my hands in the experience. I will ask questions because I DID something, and that thing that I did was not just consuming information. This makes me think about how I have my students learn. Am I doing things in the wrong order much of the time? We just started our Grade 6 Flight unit. Guess how I started? CREATE SOMETHING THAT FLIES! And guess what? They were engaged and want to know HOW. Works nicely into the PROVOKE. EXPLORE. REFLECT. model that my school division has been working with as well. School visit #1! HGI was an amazing experience for me! So amazing that I sent an email back to my school saying that we need to talk about some changes. One of my hurdles with Makerspace has been the idea of time and space. If it is another thing that teachers CAN do, there are teachers that WON'T do it! I loved how at HGI there were times that were set aside for each grade group to utilize the space. And not only that... but have a staff member there that is comfortable in that setting and knows what some of the equipment there CAN do.
The other thing that I loved was the idea that the STUDENTS were the North Star in the development of the space. Makes me think... can I have my students to the majority of my homework for this class? I'm actually going to do what the Teacher Librarian has done... I'm going to ASK THE KIDS! Ask them what they want! Ask them what they are passionate about! Use my teacher judgment of course given the knowledge that I have... but have THE STUDENTS be my North Star. (Duh... why didn't I think of that!) Some of the key things that I really enjoyed seeing/learning at HGI:
Back to Scratch again! I've brought this one to my class a couple times, but there has been a fair amount of frustration around not being able to save work, since students didn't have accounts. However, a couple months ago I explored again and found out that I could make a teacher account and have students accounts underneath mine! Yay! That solved that problem quite easily. Thanks people at MIT for making that an easy fix!
One of the topics from class that really resonated with me was 'What Makes a Good Project'. In the article by Gary Stager, he explains that "the best way to construct knowledge, or understanding, is through the construction of something shareable, outside the student's head. Those artifacts are commonly though of as projects, even though the project development process is where the learning occurs." Hmm... assessment... What to do about assessment here? If the development process is where the learning occurs, and we are to assess student learning, shouldn't it be the process that should be assessed? (Which I would argue is probably easier to assess than the product anyway!) As much as I try not to think about assessment, I am a teacher... my job does require me to assess student learning. Therefore, I have to think about assessment. However, assessing 25 super cool projects and having checkpoints and conversations with students while they are on their journey of working through these projects (and the struggles and success that they will meet on that journey) sounds a lot more exciting than sitting at my kitchen table at 10:00PM on a Sunday night marking a stack of tests (and I think many of my students would appreciate the process of creating and making more than the process of sitting and writing a test... much more memorable)! |
Ms. Leanne WarkentinSenior Years B.Ed. (2013) Archives
June 2017
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