Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Innovation. Show all posts

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Making is a Thinking Process!

 I continue learning with my students by applying designing thinking strategies and the thinking process of the 6 Cs . We keep on evolving with the process where the students become the specialists as they apply and reflect on their thinking progressions. As we unfold the process through designing and making, the students embrace the development of skills and perseverance along their daily explorations.

Students are experiencing multiple steps during their learning from digital tools to collaboration with each other and the community while exploring design elements and habits of learning.

From a previous post  on integrative thinking using open ended conversations, integrative thinking models for valuing of ideas, combining designs and interpersonal skills for knowledge building on the concepts of electricity.




Following up on the process of thinking skills from the last blog post; the students were able to use technology to capture the thinking process of iterating from visualizing their combined ideas to the prototypes of the cardboard games.  

This video represents the revision history of the students' design and iteration of ideas while producing the prototype. The students used google drawing to update the drawing while constructing the cardboard game. I asked a couple of students to produce an English version of their process since all of their learning is in French. 




Students also explained the materials used during the process.



From the Kevin Brookhouser presentation at Ottawa GAFEsummit we applied the life of a project into our version and students reflected on the life of their project that required iteration and problem solving skills along the way.



This is the bilingual students language version of a life of a project. 




The evidence of a life of a project when designing and reflecting on the prototype.



Throughout the process students also reflected on their progressions of collaborative, character and  creative thinking skills. 






Making is so much more than the space it is:

  • About the engagement phases and capturing the learning journey. 
  • Building students' skills on collaboration, Character, Communication and Creativity. 
  • A journey focusing on problem solving, metacognition by reflecting throughout the process on  skill building.  
  • It is knowledge building of new concepts that are valued among the classroom and school community. 
  • Generating ideas about the experiences, sharing them and synthesizing.
  • It is about the thinking and rethinking during the process at every step. 
  • It is student centered focusing on questioning, iterating when inventing and making. 
  • When students are immersed in risk taking with perseverance and problem solving at every step by improving and changing ideas along the journey. 
  • It is about building a community of seeking feedback and giving feedback.
  • It is a journey of problem solving and creating with a collaborative mindset for innovation.

Making  is about embracing the process where students love their learning and discover the relationship of the thinking concepts of science, technology, engineering, math and the arts. It also is more than STEAM, it is about building partnership of collaborative thinking skills and motivation for learning.

I continue to reflect on:
What skills and concepts are the students acquiring, experiencing and reflecting on during their learning journey?
Are the students leading their learning through problem solving, reflecting on the process and sharing collectively their learning?
Are the students focusing beyond the content on citizenship, creativity and interdependence?
Are students aware of their own criteria through thinking habits?


Sunday, May 24, 2015

We are all educators!

On a Saturday morning with many events in Ottawa from the Race weekend to the arts and family events, our IT department gathered with many colleagues for an edcamp. The day was rich with many questions, applications, the how to, the why's and problem solving with differentiated application to all levels.

With a set up from an amazing team by our department and differentiating the needs for the participants. It was a landscape of exploration focusing on the process and how tools enhance students' thinking.




 The inspiration started from the opening of the edcamp, that learning does not stop in June!  June is an opportunity for teachers to continue exploring and try tools to enhance students' thinking. Give students and teachers a chance to continue learning alongside each other, try new explorations with a purpose to be comfortable and set new learning to further apply in September.  It is also a time to continue taking risks alongside our students who are our coaches for feedback of evidence of learning.

The first session was on coding. An eager group who not only wanted to learn coding, also to be able to apply to students thinking supporting curriculum expectations. I was so excited to be among this group of teachers from middle school and high school who wanted to roll these ideas today with the students. We finished our discussion about the importance of tapping into the students and take their expertise with the coding process. To reach thinking and learning, teachers need to scaffold the reflections throughout the designing of coding and to have students share, reflect and build on each others learning.  A document was created and shared with links from online sources and connecting to communities in Ottawa. http://code.org/learn  http://code.org/learn
 http://www.smokelabs.net/  https://www.raspberrypi.org/

The second session so motivating with a large number of educators who had an interest in the Makerspace from a classroom to school wide. It is exciting to connect and share a vision of ideas and innovations. Many communities in Ottawa could be reached for support as well online from around the world. Thanks to Lisa Brennen for taking notes.







At the last session a full room of educators interested in exploring documentation for learning. The group was separated in order to differentiate the exploration. The room was buzzing with so many questions, so much sharing and so many happy celebrations at solving ideas from all levels.

I shared an example on how I observe and document in Junior by using a Google form while students are at task and how I use the add on Save as a Doc to view responses from Google spreadsheet to a Google document. https://goo.gl/FrDcuu

Bill shared Hapara and accessibility for assessment, sharing GAPPS, viewing students' learning tasks and organizing folders.

Primary teachers explored how to upload videos and photos onto drive from the iPad. During the session with a small group  of primary teachers we explored using blogger for documentation.

All teachers had many ideas to share and reflect on with others. Even when the session was over teachers continued sharing in groups. With a team of teachers, I shared  Kaizena for feedback and documentation of learning https://kaizena.com/  for students' accountability.  Snagit from TechSmith https://goo.gl/RkWR40  and Screencastify https://goo.gl/su66JK for students' ownership of learning documenting and explaining their thinking.

A great learning opportunity took place yesterday with conversations of learning and for learning. It was hands on for learning and sharing. As educators for us to continue exploring and learning, it  will take a team of collaboration from colleagues and from our students.

 What will be your next learning adventure?



Thursday, April 9, 2015

Taking Risks Without Hesitation!


This post is a combination of unpublished posts regarding teacher and student relationship of unplanned learning. This post combines a learning journey for me as a teacher and as a learner with my students discovering so much more than just learning skills, it is building real life skills experiences for us together as creators and learners.

The first reflection is about the social entrepreneurship that we embarked on this year with the Grade 5 and 6 students.  This entrepreneurship program through The Learning Partnership Adventure has  been and still is a learning journey for me and my teaching partner Carolyn Brambles and our business  BMO partner Gordon Mills.

Since the last post Student Lead Innovations  students' experiences persevere from failing to moving forward, from  progressing to regressing with acceptance and pride. The engagement among teams goes beyond tears, laughter, disappointments, reorganisation, commitments, readjustments, ideas, creativity, making, recruitments, marketing and accounting experiences.

Once a week the Grade 5 and Grade 5/6 students gather as a large group to reflect on the progression of the enterprise and determining next steps. Sometimes students choose  to meet at recess to work on their products. The students' experiences have been very rewarding  in discovering unplanned rich experiences bubbling with problem solving, conversations, thinking, decision making, reflections and planning next steps. What an experience! It lead students to bond their creative ideas and to come up with innovations from the designing to the production, ordering, purchasing, the marketing and best of all the fundraising. This real entrepreneur experience embarked the students with the best lifetime learning that could never be taught if planned.

The final teams are: Lip balm Golden Glow makers from natural products,  Activities Book designers and publishers, Cards designers and makers, Paper Makers created from natural products, the tea makers, researchers and producers of dry herbs for Cups of Hope and the Pencil Case Devil designers. These experiences lead students to sewing, designing, creating, making products through a rich process. The students took full ownership of persevering and continuing to prove by reflecting and learning new steps to apply and build on experiences. The hands on experiences are definitely learning skills from imagining, designing, exploring, creating, trying, analyzing reexamining, reflecting to sharing with the community for fundraising.

As an educator this journey confirms that learning is chaos with rich experiences that embeds more than just concepts. Learning is an eruption of skills that builds new experiences in an environment of perseverance, communication, questioning, listening, conversations of  re-examining the how and the possibilities of reaching for success with a purpose.  It is an experience so realistically rich in effective partnership of a learning enterprise with a passion. of an engaging community. The students have developed characteristics that enhance the ability to analyze based on team based implementations with character developments of ownership and visioning. It continues to be a true adventure!




The students have reached more than curriculum concepts, real skills that they learn to nurture and gain for life. As a teacher it is very important to provide students with skills by having them experience,  reflect in order for them to become aware of these fundamental skills.

I am sharing some students' reflections,  if you take the time to read them you will hear students voices!




The students enjoy programming and coding. The school day is too short, we decided on an after school club for innovations to give opportunities for further experiences and implementations with coding. In January we decided to explore together this venture, by building robots using Makey Makey with Scratch. Our school Improvement Plan focuses on mental health, therefore the robots were to interact with the students and gain feedback about their emotions.  Alison Evans Adnani from http://makerjunior.com/  and her sons were able to join us few times for this expereince.

These unplanned experiences of self-building skills and self directedness of motivation and innovation has also flourished in a life long learning experience for the students. This platform of innovation started from building up conductive materials with the Makey Makey to robots that interact when buttons are pressed by the students for checking about their feelings.

The students for the first time presented the robots publicly at the Director Forum on Tuesday April 7th. They will be presenting to the school as well and they will be getting feedback from the students.

The following videos explain the process of building the robots and I the video of the robots at the Director Forum.









The students are always inspired with opportunities to learn. The Entrepreneurship and the robotic experiences have given students opportunities to be more than just creative, an opportunity for life beyond the classroom. We value creativity on a daily basis, this opportunity has been full of unexpected creative challenges for all by building on our ideas. It is a creativity on the teacher part as well as the student and the ability for us to communicate respectfully and grow. It is the ability of learning how to learn with a growth mind set to continue learning together,


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Coding For Success!

Anyone can do it and anybody can be successful at it!

Coding is creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and communication, it is valuable with interpersonal skills. I introduced coding on the first week of December to my students. I provoked the students' thinking by having each team link to an animation and play while seeing the inside. Students immediately figured out the how of coding. We began co-constructing a criteria and identifying the variety of coding for the script. On the classroom site I shared many coding articles informing parents about the importance of computing language. Once students knew about http://code.org/learn that same evening students were completing the Hour of Code certificate and exploring game designing and sharing them online on the classroom Padlet for coding.

In class immediate collaboration began, guiding each other through the how of coding and sharing new discoveries. Once the coding skills were established, it took students two days to become familiar with the computing language. Students began a project showing their learning about  Social Studies curriculum describing the causes and effects of interactions between European and First Nation for Grade 5 and for Grade 6 Canadian identity by various groups historical and contemporary communities.

Why was coding very successful?
  • Peer programming, thinking together 
  • Perseverance, resilience and persistence 
  • Self- Confidence
  • Problem solving
  • Sharing thinking 
  • Application of new knowledge
  • Peer collaborating to improve results
  • Explaining their reasoning
  • Analyzing 
  • Application of feedback
  • Reflecting and improving their learning process
  • Identifying and assessing ideas for creative application
  • Deep discussions and decisions ensuring team strengths
  • Collective responsibility for individual expertise 
  • Expression of point of view allowing teams to move forward
  • Encouraging each others' innovation
Essential skills were highlighted and practiced. Students were getting further ahead by restarting and rediscovering learning by overcoming any setbacks. They were problem solving and caring for each other.

I was activating and giving students the chance to build their self-confidence at learning and I was observing and asking students as they code about the how and what if of coding language. The engagement blossomed and shined and students became tech leaders at improving their thinking, It was a mindset of  learners and creators by unpacking a canvas of many skills.






Through Our Learning Connections Fair my colleagues Patricia Fiorino who teaches Kindergarten and Natalie MacDonald who teaches Grade one also spoke about Kodable, Daisy Dinosaur and Scratch Junior. I am sharing the Scratch presentation that has links to the padlets for both classes and also students' reflections and explaining the coding. A group of students also created a site and an Incorporation  for others to try their games and leave feedback.  During the Hour Of Code week my students guided the Grade ones through an online coding Scratch animations.




Please share your learning from your students when they start coding and unpacking skills.  How successful will your students be at coding?



Sunday, July 27, 2014

Propelling Curiosity!

 It is important to provoke students' learning for curriculum inquiries in many exciting and innovative ways. It could be artifacts, videos, current event news, objects, interviews, wordles, pictures and even from a story book.  As teachers we always have to bring reality into the the inquiry process to connect real life experiences into everyday learning.

There are multiple ways of  propelling curriculum curiosity in class and inviting students to spark and ignite in questions that they never seem wanting to stop learning, sharing and collaborating that conversations become an ongoing vehicle of exploring and developing ownership of learning.  It is so exciting to see students push each others thinking and learning by questioning, seeking, pursuing, confirming, convincing, comparing their ongoing development of thinking and reflecting in depth on their learning.

Of course along the way students co-construct criteria not only for the purpose of reading, writing and speaking, also for the learning skills. These foci of strategies that overlap and extend thinking as well as learning skills (responsibility, self-regulation, collaboration, independence, organization and initiative) that loop and promote metacognition and reflection on learning. Reflecting (at the end and the beginning of the day) on learning, is what drives our thinking throughout the process and determines next steps and learning goals. It is explained in this post on Metacognitive Discussions.

The focus of this post, is to share some examples that created opportunities for thinking and provoking curiosity leading students in ownership of learning.  During this process, I become a mentor, a listener, an observer and an activator while students developed their curiosities. Students' questions always lead the inquiry process. Provoking focuses on students' questions, which is a very important step in letting them engage and take leadership and ownership of the process. The process is carried on with categorizing of the the questions then comparing them to the overall expectations of the curriculum.

These questions are a routine in activating conversations:

1- What do think is going on? Background knowledge
2- What makes you think this? Students support background knowledge and share the how and the why of their knowledge before searching to confirm and proceed to new learning. It is very import to give students this opportunity of building on each other's background knowledge and engage in conversations to pursue thinking and inquiries.  I love this stage as it solidifies their dependence of learning from each other then it provokes more thinking and further questioning actions and new inquiries through discussions. This is a very important step to takeby encourage listening, speaking and respecting other opinions and knowledge for further clarification of concepts.
 3- What would you wonder about? (After their discussions). What new learning are you wondering about? Throughout the year students develop searching skills, annotation for reading and choose ways to share new learning.

It takes time to immerse students in skills by providing exciting learning opportunities.We spend time building skills at the beginning of the year which become the core for our success and reflecting on these actions during the process to improve accountability.

There is so Much to share I will post some and every year I keep focusing on getting better at capturing the process through blogging. Some of the process captured on the Classroom Blog by the students  We focus on French daily that typing the process in English lags a little.

I seek the subject related examples off the news and social media.  Some examples of Science and Social Studies for provoking curriculum inquiries:


Science







Gr 6 


Ottawa's Great Forest  Before our walk to Beaver Pond

newfoundland-labrador/seal-product-ban-upheld-on-ethical-grounds-

canada/north/northerners-slam-wto-seal-products-decision-

Social Studies:
Gr 6
infographics-on-nelson-mandela  classroom Blog post about Mandela

snowden-docs-show-u-s-spied-during-G20-in-toronto-

it-wouldn-t-be-b-c-without-em-harper-jokes-about-vancouver-protesters

http://www.statsilk.com/maps/world-stats-open-data

If the-world-of-100 villages

-ottawa-canadiens-sotchi-mise-en-garde.

Nestle 'to act over child labour in cocoa industry' For Gr 5 on refugee and citizenship

Indian's exploited child cotton workers For Gr 5 on refugee and citizenship

etats-unis-malala-yousafzai-inspire- Gr 6 & 5



Gr 5
-confederation-line Ottawa’s world-class light rail

Justin-trudeau-removes-senators-from-liberal-caucus-

Comment organiser une cérémonie de citoyenneté








An example of students contribution after deconstructing the curriculum expectations:





Provoking learning does matter for curriculum inquiries. Students become so engaged with daily issues that themselves will continue searching and sharing realistic examples in everyday life experiences. What will you do to provoke your students curiosity this coming year? 

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Why should students experience the real creation process?


Lat year my students enjoyed curiosity blocks and  I was to continue exploring this year and learn more about how students apply their skills to tasks of their own choice.  

This year with my English partner Carolyn Brambles and I decided to dedicate a block of 100 minutes a week not tied into the curriculum or teacher lead, only students lead curiosity of their choice on Fridays.

Students were in situations where they had to make decisions, problem solve and judge on what and how to create in any format, based on their own curiosity. The students and us struggled at the beginning into making sense of the process and how could this accountability becomes a reflective learning situation for all of us. 



Students ideas form the first curiosity camp. 

We used the same method as Educamp where students would write what they would like to learn, explore and what they could offer. We also provoked students' interest by watching Caine's arcade and Be more dog video- open to take risks. 

Through regular reflections the students and us improved.



First reflection form that lead to more understanding of the process. 

Who would think having students to decide to create was a large task!  We thought that students would tackle it easily. At the first camp, students could not make up their mind as to what they wanted to pursue as they were busy constantly checking what others were doing and changing their mind as they walked around the room.Once they decided what they would like to pursue and started formulating a plan monitoring the next steps and putting the plan into action, they started generating possibilities. They were formulating plans and the ideas were connecting and students were being strategic by conversing,reflecting and problem solving with each other.

The first attempts were not a failure rather a learning experience. By our third camp  the skills and strategies fell into place with their planning. Students pursued in accomplishing their desired task with a partner or individually. Students were experiencing many skills like; self regulation, creating, planning, conversing, reflecting, problem solving, integrating technology for researching as well as explaining or just recording the process online on a Google Doc or in a notebook. .

In the true sense of real learning experiences and full ownership of the learning process that they have explored and that they were immersed in.  Some students were programming games with Scratch , some students were playing and designing with Minecrat. Others were knitting, some designing origami and rainbow loom bracelets or key chains, headbands and animals. Some students were exploring Vietnamese style of painting as well. The amazing part of the whole block was the thinking and the reflective conversations during the tasks. 

Students among themselves were defining the importance of creation by proceeding with the skills and the strategies while completing the tasks of their creations.  



The second reflective form that students' completed focused on skills and strategies.


We need to give students a chance to experience and apply the skills and the strategies that they explore in class and be able to connect them to their choice of curiosity. Through this exploration students could create their own curriculum of their choice. You could call it genius hour or the 20% project like Google employee, giving students the freedom to pursue and be responsible for their curiosity with their own purpose of learning. How can we continue to spark students' passion?


Some  pictures and vine videos of their experiences.











Updated reflections after March Break: Students voices about the importance of skills to accomplish plans: So much learning from Students' reflections about giving them ownership of independent curiosity. 

Planning from the previous camps was important because then you will manage everything better.

J'ai appris que avant Curiosity Camp avoir un activite pour les autres peuvent apprendre. Ne pense pas que quelques va apporter un chose que tu veux d'apprendre, apporte ton activite.


I have learned that planning before Curiosity Camp helps with getting organized on the day of the camp, and it moves things along.

I think if you manage your time wisely, you can get ALOT more work done, so you wouldn't have to worry about it last minute.

I learned that if you manage time well then you will know when your game is great and you don't have to rush.

Organizing is important because you have things in right order and you know what'll happen next and what to DO next.

If your not organized you can't find your stuff that you need and everything is messy you need to be prepared. So then you know what to do.


I learned that taking/demonstrating initiative is important because that shows leadership.

By demonstrating initiative you can come up with great ideas and keep others on task. Also by taking initiative you and your team with feel like you got alot of work done.


i have learned that you should not change your goal even if it is hard try to do it.


That if you set goals you will achieve them and a good goal should be measurable. Goals need to have associated behaviors. There is a word for a goal without an associated behavior. It’s called a wish. For example I want to hold a handstand for 60 seconds. That is what I learned about goal setting.


I've learned that if you set a goal, you can achieve it by working hard and never giving up so you can reach the goal, you'll be happy at the end :)


Goal setting is so important during curiosity camp, and everywhere else because you won't know what you've accomplished unless you set a goal, and be proud when you accomplish it.


You have to be specific on what your goal is and you have to improve yourself to accomplish your goal.



I learned that if you have a plan it is easy to take initiative because you already know your goal and you don't need to be told what to do. Also if you take initiative then you can achieve your task.


Some vines of the Play4change Day














Monday, March 10, 2014

From Today's Learning to Tomorrow's Learning Goals!

As mentioned in every post my learning is based on the pedagogic reflections  from my students. If I am expecting the students to reflect and determine their next steps: then I should be too!

We have used Google calendars for the past three years as our reflective learning journal. These journals determine today's learning to tomorrow's learning goal.

I will be sharing an example of the process that I find effective in bridging students' reflections for setting our daily learning goals. This alignment provides insights of where we are and where we would need to go next; students are also aware of the end of the journey and the expectations. I find this process crucial in giving students responsibility and ownership in having them determine what needs to be accomplished and any adjustments that we would need to establish along the way. It aligns content, purpose, goals and skills required to get to the end of the task. This process also provides ideas on students' insight and confirming what needs to be accomplished and how.  It is also a way for checking on students' achievements and capabilities of rethinking about what they have learned and how.

 By sharing these reflections students also clarify any content misconceptions during group discussions; as students speak to evidence from the web or real world issues to clarify their reflective learning. The reflections turn into team discussions by reviewing their individual goals that trickles into more thinking when reflecting together about tasks and confirming or revisiting the process before pursuing the tasks. This process also highlights the learner's thinking  and pursues to develop required skills during tasks .

I will be sharing a recent project that students completed about Bangladesh and problems of employment  in the textiles industries. The task was based on Social Studies and the focus was to explain causes and effects in the industries and  employment in developing countries, analyzing and applying the learning through imrpov. Many skills and concepts were to be developed by the students to complete the task.

Google Calendars are a journal of reflections on students' eportfolios about their learning.

 Task #1 Kevin's reflection after a high school presentation from All Saints about imrpov. In his reflections he describes what is improv on what he observed.


 #1 "Bridging students' reflections for setting our daily learning goals."


Through Kevin's details and other students' reflections, students began co-constructing the criteria of an improv:
An example of the first attempt on the criteria of improv:



Students build their background knowledge through listening to a report on CBC Banglades -affrontements-travailleurs-textile.  and  reading an article relating to Social Studies about the impact of global social, economic and political issues (Social studies B2 overall expectations). Students apply annotations during reading for determining main ideas of causes and effects to the problem. Expectation are clear and application of French oral language as well as passé composé  .


         


This is a sample of our consolidation about the process and purpose of the improv. 

"Where we are and where we would need to go next; students are also aware of the end of the journey and the expectations."




Haley's reflection speak to what has been completed after reading and first attempt of the improv. 


Another example of :

#2 "Bridging students' reflections for setting our daily learning goals."

Bridging the reflection of the reading and past tense into actions for the task. 

Through Cedric's reflections about the past tense he is also explaining the application of his learning with his classmates. Full ownership of learning!




Emma's reflections explain the imrpov and the French oral application.


#3  "Bridging students' reflections for setting our daily learning goals."

The process continued as students video taped the first improv and reflected on next steps and added the next steps to the criteria. 






    Task #4 "Bridging students' reflections for setting our daily learning goals."

This learning reflection is about the first attempt on improv and team sharing their next steps on a shared Google doc 

This next reflection speaks to: "I find this process crucial in giving students responsibility and ownership in having them determine what needs to be accomplished, any adjustments that we would need to establish along the way. It aligns content, purpose, goals and skills required to get to the end of the task. "




This reflection is from Isabelle, in which she shares links from CBC about the textile economy and reports about the fire and collapsing of factories.

Evidence of the process on a students' eporfolio: 



If we need to focus on a process of ownership of learning and responsibility then we would have to embrace a process that is student centered based students' learning experiences to inform instructions and plans for next steps. The learning process is a system of interdependence embracing many learning opportunities in a learning environment that embraces reflective daily implementations that centers on students' growth.