devising a strategy for the "survival" game

Success!

I am happy to report that our Water field trip was a roaring success.  The kids had some terrific ideas. They were so engaged and really worked hard. Their contributions to the large group discussions were insightful and they really retained a lot of the new information. The graphics we brought really helped illustrate the information for the kids and in our first game they got to physically demonstrate what we had been talking about. I think everyone’s favourite part was our survival game. The kids were given limited resources and had to collaborate to make sure that not only everyone on their team survived but also the whole class as a collective. They worked together respectfully and were very conscious of their responsibility to make things work for everyone.

Here’s what they had to say:

“I would like to send a message to the government to send truckloads of drinkable water to areas that need it.” – Charlie Gr. 4

“I appreciate how organized and prepared your team was and that everything was easy to set up and go. Thank you!” – Teacher

“My favourite part was the Survival game. I liked trading the cards and figuring out what I needed next.” – Brianna Gr. 3

“Fantastic, Students were all engaged, moving around, using strategy and doing something completely different.” – Teacher

I saw a few light bulbs when kids “got it” and the teacher had a couple of ah-ha moments on her face! I hope she uses some of the extension activities we left behind.

I know a few of the parents at the school we visited and have had some e-mails celebrating the great conversations they’ve had with their kids since.

Can’t wait to do the next one!

This child works harder than most in her class, has probably done more learning this year than any other, but still feels like a failure because of a letter grade! Now she’ll probably give up for the rest of the year.

Why does learning have to come with a price? Why do we have to compare one to another? Why can’t the process of learning be just that – a process full of useful assessment FOR learning that points out all of the strenghts and ways to build on those strengths.

I was so enjoying not having report cards this year. I was getting good feedback from my child’s teacher. All the work she has done has received authentic assessment on what was good and what needed improvement.  We’ve had e-mails and useful conversations. Now the Ministy has mandated that teachers have to give us two report cards in less than two months. Teachers will be scrambling to stuff in as much content as possible so they can have lots of tests to have lots of marks to put on a report card.

Where can I opt out?

I’m anxious that there will be enough time to do everything; hoping that it will all go smoothly; hoping I don’t forget anything; wanting the kids and their teacher to love it; wanting everyone to start talking about it.

I love the interdisciplinary nature of our field trip and the fact that the kids are going to be so involved in every aspect. No top down, fill their heads kind of stuff. I’m hoping for some a-ha moments for the kids, the teacher, and myself.

I’m excited that people are starting to talk about the way things are taught and I want to be part of it. I want the kids to “get” that things are connected to each other; that when you’re doing science you’re also doing math and social studies. That’s how the world works. I want them to make connections on their own and really feel that what they’re learning is relevant. But mostly, I want them to have fun. I want them to come home from school and tell their family all about what they did at school, and teach them something that they learned.

I want to be part of making school fun.

1. Imagination is more important than knowledge.

2. Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

3. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

4. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

5. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources

We attended sessions entitled “How can we boost buy in and innovation with faculty and staff?”, “What Must Stay and What Must Go in Education?”, “Rigour and High Expectations in the 21st Entury Classroom” and “Integrating and Assessing the 7 Cs of 21st Century Learning” Notes from these and all the other sessions are available here so I won’t comment too much more, but let you read them yourselves.

My strongest takeaways immediately were:

Buy-in is all about creating a safe, friendly space into which you can invite people.
Uptake is faster if people (teachers) feel safe to take risks and make mistakes.
Innovation should come from changes made in response to a learning issue.
Rigour applies to the learning process, not a product.
21st Century skills are what make academic learning useful.
If we want 7Cs (communication, collaboration, etc) to be given time, weight we need to be able to discuss, assess, give feedback, measure them.
Increase dialogue between secondary and post secondary. How can we broaden the scope of info (other than just %) that HS provides for Univ. admissions so that HS teachers, students do not feel their main driver is final Grade 12 letter grade?
Deeper thinking is always multi-disciplinary.
Elementary school is not only highschool prep., HS is not only Univ. prep. learning needs to be about NOW.
Learning is always about relationships.

The great thing is that the conversations will continue on twitter, through blogs and hopefully, most importantly, in our schools’ classrooms and staffrooms. As we integrate these ideas we will continue to reflect on our conversations and practices and insights will continue to develop.
Last thoughts:

• Invite at least one colleague to join twitter
• Show someone how to set up a blog page
• Invite someone else at your school into your classroom to share ideas

The kids were outside making paper boats to float in the big puddles created by the recent rainstorm and the principal came along and told them that they shouldn’t be playing in puddles and to clean up the mess they were making.

WOW! What a completely inappropriate reaction to a truly wonderful opportunity. The kids were actually learning about math, engineering, physics, you name it and having fun while they were doing it.

Think of all the things she could have said to scaffold the learning for those kids. “That looks like a lot of fun. Have you tried different designs?” “What happens if you put a rock in your boat?” “Do you want to try using different kinds of paper?” “How did you learn how to make boats?” “Does it make a difference if you make big boats or small boats?” “Where did you learn to sail like that?” “Would you be interested in teaching your class how to make boats?”

Instead, the kids were reprimanded and the learning opportunity was lost. Even worse, they may never try it again.

For all the talk we hear about personalized learning, engagement, and real life opportunities for developing skills, I wonder if people actually know how to walk the talk.

Water Ripples by mcconnell.franklin

I  participated in my first ed camp last weekend at Garibaldi Secondary School in Maple Ridge, hosted by @MrWejr and was so inspired by the people I met; some for the first time, others like @davidwees and @datruss who I’d been learning from all year. There were so many passionate educators/learners there that I’ve needed a few days to digest all the wonderful ideas I came away with. When trying to describe the experience to someone who wasn’t there I had trouble articulating what was so special about it. It wasn’t quite that I heard ideas I had never heard before, after all we share our ideas all the time online, but there was such a great synergy that came from being together, in person, sharing with and challenging each other, knowing we’re all working toward the same goal – doing whatever we can, wherever we are, to enhance learning. The image above came the closest to describing what I felt – many ripples on a pond, all overlapping to create waves.

Tami Oudendijk and I presented in the first session of the day. It was a little intimidating, as it was a first for us in this type of setting, but the format of edcamp is brilliant and we did okay We looked at “How we are letting structures (some that we may not even be aware of) drive our students’ educational experience.” and put out the question “How willing are you/is your school to bend the structure for the sake of your students’ learning?” In an ironic and very telling aside, the way edcamp works is anyone who has a topic to present writes their topic on a piece of paper and posts in on a board. There were paper and markers on the table, but when we started writing out our planned question we realized it was too long to fit. We started to rework what we could call our session when we started laughing at ourselves and realized that we were letting unnecessary structure limit what we wanted to learn. We got a second piece of paper.

As our session got underway we heard great examples of interdisciplinary teaching (math and art), student-directed learning and the difficulties that teachers and admin face when trying to make schedules and various groupings of students work. One of the biggest challenges educators had faced when structures were removed and learning became more student-led was how to ensure academic rigour was maintained. It’s difficult to create a system to track individual student progress without having the nature of the assessment drive the type of learning.

One of the concrete ideas that intrigued me most came from David Truss, who suggested the possibility of a digital portfolio (student work, marks, teacher evaluation, personal profile, strengths/weaknesses, interests) that would follow a student throughout his or her academic career and be accessible to all the stakeholders (student, parent, teacher, admin) in that child’s education. Imagine having access to all that history when evaluating where to guide a student next on their learning path.

We also participated in sessions on Knowledge vs Skill presented by Tyler Suzuki Nelson and Different Types of Reporting presented by Remi Collins
The best part of Edcamp Fraser Valley is that it’s not over. As I’ve been writing this post I’ve found Google docs, new blog posts and hundreds of tweets giving me an impression of what happened in other sessions. I’ve been trying to check out K12online and what I’m watching is that much richer because of what I learned at EdcampFV. I’m also feeling overwhelmed by all I’m missing because there are not enough hours in the day! But meeting with all of you gives me the energy to feel that it’s worth the effort and that there is so much we can be doing to take our practices just a little bit further towards where we want them to be. Thank you!

My mom turned 65 today. Happy Birthday, Mom! Coincidently, my sister and I had a conversation with our stepmom 2 days ago and were talking about how old we feel compared to our chronological age. My sister and I are 39 and 41 and we both feel around 30, but remembered a time in our late teens/early 20s when we had more responsibilities than many of our friends and had felt older than our real ages. Our stepmom is 68 and feels 50. We asked our mom, she feels 45. Makes you wonder how old many people in their 80s and 90s, who some of us see as past having hopes and dreams, feel. I also remember being 6 and feeling 20. I saw myself as a competent person who understood what was going on around me and felt I had something to contribute. I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that I couldn’t go out and get a job if I wanted to. I could read, count money, answer the phone, set up a filing system, cook a couple of things. I saw myself as at least as capable as several of the adults in my neighbourhood. I really felt like an adult trapped in a kid’s body. I know a lot of girls approaching puberty and they, like most, swing between not being able to wait to be teenagers and being scared to death to leave childhood behind.

Makes me question how often, in our first 25 or so years of life (and our last), when we’re grouped, evaluated and taught, primarily by our chronological age, we actually feel on the inside the way we look on the outside.

At the top of the page is my mother-in-law, who turned 70 last March. Last summer we took her to Whistler, BC where she saw her first bear up close and was the only one of us to try bungee trampolining. She had never been on a trampoline in her life. (Ironically, it had been my 10 year old daughter’s idea to go, but she wasn’t old enough.) My MIL is one of many lifelong learners in my family. On her 70th birthday she bought herself her first laptop. I’ll have to ask her how old she feels!

This video was inspired by our desire to illustrate the common ground between teachers and students. Both groups are looking for the same objectives in education: the setting in which they learn, the way they learn, what they learn, the relevance of the material to their lives, their community and their world.

As you will realise when you see the last frame, each statement could be expressed by either a teacher or a student.

We are hoping to highlight how learning is all around us, in all aspects of our lives for our entire lives…not just at school as children.

Can you identify?

We’re all watching this speech today and each time we see it something else may strike a chord. For me, today, it was:

You’ve got to find what you love..the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe to be great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking and don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

Consider how it applies to your teaching and to your students’ learning.