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Maker Faire - Can they organize themselves?

3/23/2014

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It is a scary thing to let go as teachers. To let go of control and decision making. To step back and let a natural learning process take place. This year our grade 4 teaching team have grappled with the question of when to intervene and when not to. I have discovered that it is one of the hardest things to do as a teacher. We are wired to sort, to organize, to order kids and resources and to ensure that all learning moves forward as it should. Our first foray into handing organizational control to the students was during our unit under the theme of "How We Organize Ourselves". We realized that the more we as teachers organize kids the less hands on experience they have of organizing themselves. 

First, the students decided to organize a flash mob in the school cafeteria. Our 55 grade 4 students are all very opinionated!  The biggest difficulty was that everyone wanted to lead, they all thought their own ideas were best. They easily spent the first two planning sessions talking themselves around in circles, while we, their teachers, bit our lips and sat on our hands. After school meetings as a team centered around questions of parameters. Should we set any? How long were we willing to wait for action? Is there a time in which we will need to step in and at which point might we need to pull the plug? After the first agonizing week, where they went nowhere, we finally delivered an ultimatum. By the end of the next lesson, they had to agree on how they would organize themselves, who would be responsible for what, and they had to deliver a schedule of rehearsal times so that they could being making bookings for facilities and equipment. Suddenly they were off and away. Rehearsals went well and corporate  decisions were made, although not always the ones we teachers would have chosen. The final flash mob was a success - in our small world at least.  

We were ready to step up the ante. We floated the idea of a Maker Faire with the students. A Maker Faire would give them the opportunity to participate in the organization of another whole grade event, but also each student would need to be responsible for the organization of their own exhibit. The scariest part was that none of us teachers had ever even been to a Maker Faire before. The projects were all their own choices and in many cases they needed to source their own materials. We worked closely with our Design teacher who supported the students through the design cycle and the development of various prototypes. Some students chose to work alone while others grouped together. Again, it was excruciating at times to see kids spinning in circles achieving nothing but then at other times there were huge gains in product development taking place. The same questions of intervention and timing arose. I was hesitant to step in too quickly, wanting to give them the chance to find their own way back to the task. One group decided to design a product display box to market the headphones they had made. I watched them muck around with this ugly naked box for about a week, basically achieving nothing. Finally, I stepped in to demonstrate action and to get them moving forward. Within 10 minutes, 1/2 the box was painted and their mylar window had been installed. Suddenly they caught the vision and I stepped back again. Over the next two lessons that box was fully kit out with a persuasive paragraph, instructions for use, a photograph showing it in use and the product logo. In class, we had moved onto our new unit about persuasion and influencing others, so the students were also asked to develop an advertising campaign both for the Maker Faire itself and for their own stall.  

The final Faire was a huge success. There was a range of items on show from stomp rockets, to recycled can cars, a fishing game, a model airboat and even a cool hovercraft. One of my favorite was a very addictive squishy ball. Some products definitely had the WoW factor, while others were frankly weak and didn't reflect a productive engagement over 6 weeks. It was very evident in the final event who had shown good organizational skills. I hope the school repeats the Maker Faire, opening it up to the wider community in future years. I think this is an event where the quality of the exhibits can only get better each year, as they learn from each other and the experience of being a maker. The biggest indication of success for me was the very high level of engagement from our visitors. Many students had sourced sufficient materials to encourage visitors to get involved and make too. As I moved through the throngs calling for pack up time, there was a chorus of disappointment from the visitors and grateful relief from the presenters. They were exhausted, having spent 90 minutes teaching, demonstrating and helping others become makers too. 

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Being My Best Today, Everyday

2/6/2014

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What does it mean to be a good teacher? What defines and separates out the good from the excellent? I keep returning to this question of excellence in my own professional life. I am in my final semester of a very profitable 9 years at my current school. Huge life changes loom ahead as I will be relocating back to my "home" of New Zealand after almost 18 years of absence. Questions of finding a teaching position, of entering what will be for me an new education system and the transferability of my professional skills, dominate my thoughts. 

Yet in the midst of all this, I have a wonderful class of very present students. Daily, I need to seek and find myself as a professional in this present moment. Thoughts of the future will not benefit my current students. They need me today, to hear their queries and respond to their excitement about learning. Dylan Williams in a recent conference at our school summed up a very popular sentiment by saying repeatedly to us that: "teaching is an impossible job." There is always more to be done than can be achieved within the constraints of time, curriculum and access to resources. And yet, beyond all of these, I have always believed that the most powerful of all forces for learning is relationship. Today, tomorrow, each period of class, I commit to being present for my students with all my mind and heart. They deserve nothing less. I am inspired by the students before me, their trust in me to make each day count.
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Blowing the Trumpet

1/15/2014

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I have struggled with a long time about the idea of having a blog. I worry that it smacks of vanity, like I am blowing my own trumpet, when in actuality there is a whole wide world full of extremely professional and talented teachers out there. I know - as I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by such teachers in my current faculty. Then I consider how much I have been a lurker in educational blogs. For years now I have read, explored, gathered, and adapted ideas from fellow teachers around the world. Is it fair to always be a taker and never a giver? I have long admired teachers with the guts to post their lessons and ideas online while secretly shying away from joining them. It isn't that I think my lessons or ideas are too precious to share, but rather the feeling that they wouldn't really be worthy of sharing - surely. 

But I am taking the plunge. There are teachers out there in all stages of their careers. Some of whom I am sure (I encourage myself) will find value in my musings, the pondering that come out of my daily life in the classroom. Somewhere there will be teachers that find ideas from my pages to use or adapt. Writing a blog may feel like blowing my own trumpet, but what is wrong with that anyway. Daily, I am inspired by the evolving stories being lived out in my classroom, so why should I keep those to myself when they may encourage another. Sharing best practice is not about sharing absolutes, as if teaching could ever be perfected and distilled into a perfect best practice. No, it is about sharing what is working in my classroom today. This will constantly evolve and change in response to my experiences, my student group and current research. 

So no more lurking. From now on I will not only read the blogs of other teachers, I will respond to them. I will be brave to share my favorite lessons and resources from across my years of experience, and I will blog about my own journey of learning through teaching. I will proudly blow the trumpet. There are good things going on here and they are worth sharing.   
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Initiating Student Inquiry

3/24/2012

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This week we started a new unit of inquiry. Our central idea is "Ecosystems contribute to life in many ways". It is a big handle for little kids to grasp. The word contribute is tricky and needs some acting to tease it's meaning out, and then there is that word -  ecosystems. Our Kindergarten kids complete an inquiry unit about habitats, so we find that the children usually bring forward the knowledge of what is a habitat. This provides us a great foundation to expand their understanding into ecosystems, which are much more involved and to do with relationships and causal affects between living and non-living parts.  

Once over the initial hurdle of introducing the central idea, we decided to use a strategy called "Think, Puzzle, Explore" from "Making Thinking Visible" by  Ritchhart, Church and Morrison (2011). This is very similar to a KWL chart, but I think it better models the tentative nature of our knowledge through its three questions and it invites student voice into the unit. 
1). What do I THINK I know about this unit? 
2). What PUZZLES me about this unit?  
3). What or how do I want to EXPLORE this unit?

We divided the class into 3 groups and placed an adult helper with each group (helpful for scribing with little ones). The groups then had 10 minutes to respond to the question on a poster. They then rotated so each child had the chance to respond to each question. I had found a picture diagram of an ecosystem. It was a simple line-sketch with no words of a deer in the woods, by a clearing, with bushes, grasses and trees, the sun and a rain cloud. There was even an underground river. The whole picture was marked with directional arrows between the elements. I placed this picture at the centre of each poster. I think the highlight of the lesson was when one lad, pointing at the picture, exclaimed, "But how does it all connect? How does it all go together?"  - Now we were ready to begin. 
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    Renee Stewart

    Forever curious, always learning, deep thinking teacher. I am a Year 5 teacher this year and am enjoying the transition after 3 years with New Entrants.

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