Reflections of a Techie

PBL makes for a hectic but wonderful day

Another hectic, busy workday in Room66.  While our shake jar settle, students are putting to work all that they've researched about this 9000 year old timeperiod from books, the internet and other sources of information.

Here's the place where they're stepping away from my required lesson plan and my checklist of "Have To Do's" (you know those curriculum pieces that I was hired to teach).  Here's where they are asking and answering the questions about this mastodon or time period that interests them.  Here's where we hook 'em with things that interest them.

I'm loving it.

They're loving it.

It's working.

They decided that they wanted to show their research...much like a museum might.  They decided to build exhibits.

Here one of the groups is busy trying to build the layers of a mastodon.  They've gotten bits of wire that are bending into the shape of the skeleton, then (as you can see the girl in the green shirt doing) they are layering on the tissue of the mastodon.  To be followed, after the tissue layer dries, with the hairy coat.  It was this hairy coat that got the whole thing rolling.  They wanted to know how this coat helped them survive the cold times without being too hot in the warm times.  So they've read and read....and looked at tons of pictures/videos on the subject.  Now they're trying to build a model that is half a mastodon so you can see inside the creature to understand.

These might look like egg cartons to you...but they're in the process of being transformed into mastodon teeth.

This group studied what mastodons and mammoths ate.  They are using the egg cartons as the base for the mastodon teeth which they will contrast with a different kind of model to the mammoth teeth.  Again...this is their idea and their creation.  It's very nifty...even though they forgot to bring a paint brush and they had to make shift one out of an old sponge I found under my sink!!!!

This is my high energy group and they were busy with plaster of paris.  Boy was I nervous.  Nervous they'd forget and dump it down the sink and it would plug up.

They didn't and I eventually relaxed.

What they were doing is making casts of what they thought footprints would look like.  Someone had gone to Colorado over the summer.  In a cave where they were vacationing, they saw dinosaur footprints from the underside.  The rock had eroded and weathered away from below....leaving just the indentations of the footprint.  So they were trying to re-create this kind of thing only with mastodon footprints.  We won't know for a couple of days if it worked and if the mold they built worked. But they tried and it was all their idea.

This is another kind of project. 

Maybe one that doesn't look so spectacular, but one that is full of amazing info.

These are my quieter kids...the ones that really dug deep into their topic.  They wanted to know what other kinds of animals lived as contemporaries of the mastodon we're studying.  So they've done an amazing amount of research to find out.  They chose to create this map and will have small articles that describe each animal they think is significant.  It's a thorough piece of research that took the 4 boys about 4-5 hours to put the map and all the animals together.  The amazing thing about this was that they got together over the weekend....they were so excited they couldn't wait to get back to school.  So they met and worked on drawing out the map at home.

Social lessons of PBL...what I didn't expect but am learning now

Lots of creativity. Lots of energy.  Lots of fast moving, free flowing learning.  It's been a fantastically positive experience for all of us, most of the time.  It's loud but if you were there, you see that they pretty much all talking about their projects and the things they're building.

Using passion research to make product from Marsha Ratzel on Vimeo.

 

A few tears along the way.  Groups couldn't come to an agreement and harsh things were said to each other.  No one would compromise, so I had to broker a treaty.  Honestly one group had a couple fo members that wouldn't budge...both parties felt like their position was the "right" one.  It was a different kind of teaching victory...because I didn't let them go on until it was resolved.  The next day people had better attitudes...still not happy and certainly not forgotten. 

They're learning to listening to each other...trying to listen more than they talk.  It's hard.  Boy I can understand that.

 
I think this will be a journey not only for students but for me.  I need to continue to grow in my ability to lead students thru this kind of conflict resolution.  Asking those questions and being quiet enough...not rushing in to be Bob the Builder/Fixer.....because they won't learn if I do it for them.  Yet I have to make sure that everyone feels like I'm not watching the fireworks take place....it's my presence and proximity that has to lend the mantle of civility on the words and actions that they deploy in trying to solve their problems.

Some students really haven't had to learn to compromise and find that third solution out there...adults have solved it for them or they've been allowed to work by themselves.  I'm not saying that neither of those solutions are possibilities at other times, but this was a group project and that means learning different social skills than you will in other situations.

Other students have had to learn about craftsmanship.  Pride in product.  Doing the best on your project because it's yours. 

Did I forget to mention this....this is an un-graded project!!!!  No grades.  It's all about the learning.  I tried to free myself and them.  That hasn't gone well either.  Parents have emailed to say that their student has worked so hard and isn't getting any credit.  "Well no", I say but " they've learned a lot.  They knew going into it they weren't getting a grade so this isn't a surprise."  That doesn't sit too well with some parents.  Other parents couldn't be happier.  I just have to keep on moving forward believing what I see before my eyes.

 

Students have worked on this way more than I required.  Mostly because they were so interested and wanted to do all these creative, performance based things.  It's a good thing and I'm glad for the bumps in the road.  It's where I learn the most and I think I'm building up my PBL muscles.

Boxing match photo was from Flickr.  Licensed under a Creative Commons attribution license.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrovezini/6156189348/sizes/s/in/photostream/.  Listening ear was licensed under the CC Attribution License http://www.flickr.com/photos/hansvanrijnberk/2598234846/sizes/s/in/photostream/

Amazing young scientist....PBL...many discoveries

Another dusty installment from Room 66....today I've had a moment to catch all of you up on all the findings we've been doing with our soil.  So many wonderful things.  Overall I would have to say that engagement in this process is HUGE...students have been very careful to follow the protocol and to follow each step precisely.

Take a look at the concentration on their faces.....

We've been joking that the gold miners of '49 don't have anything on the matrix examiners of Room 66.  Seriously they've looked thru each little bit....using spoons and toothpicks to uncover bits of shells, very small snail shells and even smaller and more fragile clam shells.

 

I didn't know if they would have enough patience for it...but they definitely do.

This is not normally how precise 6th graders are about anything.  But I think they felt the responsibility to do a good job for the scientists....so they rose to the challenge.

Look at this young scientist....he's using a toothpick to make sure he doesn't miss anything or that he doesn't damage anything.  He found a shell almost completely intact. Then a few minutes later, he found the very small bit of shell that was missing...when I tell you the missing piece was no bigger than a 2mm square, I'm not exaggerating.

 

In addition to being on task, learning so much....well, they're having fun.  Isn't that what learning should be like?

 

 

 

 

 

Today we hooked up the new digital microscope and here's an image they took.  So excited and we've just begun to learn how to use it.  This is an amazing image as the real-life thing is only about 1.5mm across.  This is magnified 40x.

 
This new microscope makes it possible for the whole class to see this kind of magnification from their seats as I project it up onto the wall.  Now what do you think they will be drawing for the quantitative observations tomorrow?  I have to say that when the group projected this image for the rest of the class.....a  collective "oh yeah, I get it now" went through the class.  Originally they had thought this mastodon lived in a frozen tundra....Siberia like. 

Suddenly presented with these kinds of shells, they are having to revise/rethink....and build new conclusions. 

Suddenly they are beginning to think that maybe it was warm and wet...places that snails and clams like to be.

Gotta love the scientific argumentation process when you actually have evidence they discovered that can be used to put forth an argument that real middle schoolers can make.  I know the HS and life science people have been doing and doing and doing this.  But it doesn't happen all that often for us earth science-middle school types.  So I'm counting this as a huge victory for my kiddos.

Again...it's a journey for me.  Getting out of their way...using my expertise to find and design experiences like this.  Letting them become all that they can be.   Don't you think when they write up their conclusions they will be powerful ones...full of amazing evidence and lots of hard thinking.  They will have spent the time working with the materials so they will know everything this soil has to reveal about life 9000 years ago.

Fuzz.....what's inside....inquiring student minds want to know

Digging thru the soil...students found amazing things.  Like this bit of fuzz...as they call it.  I'll put it under our new digital microscope tomorrow so we can get an up-close view of what it really is!!!

This has totally entranced students as they wonder what it is.

 

Bits of plant fibers or hair? 

 

We're not sure and then there's the dusty substance, too.

 

 

 

 

It breaks apart pretty easily so we're not sure what's going on.

 

Here they decided to try out looking at it under the natural light from the window.

 

Our eyes just weren't powerful enough to be able to see inside it with our eyes.  We'll be examining this more closely as soon as the digital microscope is up and working. 

Stay tuned for what they discovered.

Next two steps for PBL lessons--grabbing attention & turning over ownership

Creating mystery around something always is a good thing.  Even if students don't totally believe you 100%, they'll play along just because it's different...it's intriguing.

Teaching the scientific method is never going to be on the top of any 11 year old's list of things to learn.  That's why I wrapped it inside the Mastodon Matrix project.  The school secretary played along with me and came in holding bags of dirt.....sputtering about where did they go and she didn't know because there were just a bunch of numbers on the bag. 

Oh she deserves an Oscar for how well she played her part.  Students didn't really believe her, but they just were uncertain enough that it captured them. 

Now that we had the bags of soil in our possession spread out all over the floor, writing their ideas down, drawing elaborate diagrams of how their questions could connect.

To put all these ideas together for the class, students decided to use their post-its. Being the the Type A personality I wanted this to be something that would be time efficient.

Wrong.

It took us an entire class period to get ideas onto the post-its and to find categories for big ideas.  Once I was into the class by about 5 minutes, I totally knew it was the right decision.  In each class, I had at least one student who just drifted towards the board and starting re-arranging the post-its as each person read their idea aloud and added it to the pile.

I asked them to share what they were doing...heck, if they saw a need, it probably would make sense to all the other kids.  It did.  And they would debate each category.  I finally decided I needed to get over myself and just enjoy the process.

That was probably my best decision of the day.  So as I watched the conversation unfold, I could see them taking ownership of the whole project right before my very eyes.

It's what I always hoped for but never got everyone to buy into.  I get it now.  I was in the way and they needed me to clear out so they could work with the ideas until it made sense to them in whatever context they brought to class.

Natural leaders emerged.  Kids that I wouldn't  have picked. It fantastic to see the personality of each class emerge and tackle the exact same task in different ways.

 

 

Scientists @ the Smithsonian & Middle School PBL

All kinds of people become scientists. And scientists do all kinds of things. Watch and read about these scientists at the Smithsonian. What kind of scientist would you like to be?

via www.smithsonianeducation.org

By any chance did you see this Scientists @the Smithsonian online exhibit?  I've been wondering how to get my PBL on the scientific method started and this will be a great hook.  I know they'll be intrigued by all the different disciplines represented in this Hall of Fame.  The introductory videos are captivating and I'd imagine that students will be completely engaged listening to these people describe their areas of passion.  Things I've never heard of, and yet, vital to the healthy functioning of our world.   This will tweek their emotional connection to the topic of the scientific method.

My introduction for the unit is

for the bookkeeper to arrive in my room, very exasperated that she has all these kilos of dirt being delievered to her for processing by the UPS man.  She has no idea what to do with them because they've come without an invoice and no addressee.  Since she knows we are young scientists in the making, they will be asked to investigate the dirt, develop any conclusions about what it is and then report back to her.  She's promised to be quite aggrevated and plead for our help.  Luckily we'll have enough kilos delivered that she can repeated this scence every hour...hopefully getting more dramatic with each hour as ANOTHER package is delievered.

My thought is that we'll talk about how to develop an investigation method....and tie it to their knowledge of the scientific method.  We'll have to come to her aid and help her figure out who might have ordered "dirt".  In the act of doing this, they will discover that it's more than dirt.  There's something in it...and I will help them come to understand how to process it.

We're going to participate in the Mastodon Matrix Project . There are very clear directions on how it's to be processed and I will help students discover this kind of scientific inquiry based on the Museum's protocols.  They've really done quite a bit to help a classroom teacher know how to do "real" science.  Right now I'm just waiting for our kilos of matrix to arrive from the Museum of the Earth.    As part of the Science for Citizens Network,  @Sci4Cits    I'm very excited to use this as the entry into 6th grade science, PBL and the start of school.  Love Science for Citizens motto

"Science you can do."

Just today I was brainstorming with a new f2f colleague who is going to be the art teacher at my school next year.  She was sharing "The Creative Process" with me...steps outlined on her bulletin board that students should follow in working on their projects.  It looked remarkably akin to the scientific method and the historical inquiry procedure. 

We decided that it would be great fun to teach this at 100,000 feet so students could see that inquiry projects---be they from science, art or social studies---all start with a question.  And then someone goes about this general methodology for answering and testing out their conclusions about the answer.  We're going to weave into the lesson parts of her curriculum on relief, scultpure and maybe even try to help them build a plaster mold of the mastadon's footprint.

I've been learning in my Unleashing Student Passion class to release control to students and this will be one of the first lessons where I'm focusing.  I've learned so much from the course instructors (Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Shelley Wright) as well as other teachers who are taking the course.  I love this kind of learning....relevant, hard hitting, making you feel uncomfortable because you know you can be better, and satisfying.  It's been hard to make time to do this but it's going to be a huge forward step in my professional practice.   I've had all the pieces but not such a good framework on which to hang them...so the organization of this has been the biggest help to me in thinking about the work.

I have brainstormed a conceptual map of all the learning I know is required by my district for the scientific method, communciating about scientists, the history of science and process skills.  I will repeat this with my students...and then merge those two maps into a mindmeld concept map where I will teach the parts where I'm required to cover and leave huge gaps for students to fill in with areas surrounding this topic about which they are passionate.

I can't tell you much about what they'll pick but with the whole subject of scientific inquiry and mastodon's available to them...well, I'm imagining they'll find something about which they can be passionate.

One thing is very disappointing about the Smithsonian's website, though....while there is a good split between men and women...there's a lack of diversity in the people. Even the NYTimes had trouble only finding 2 non-Caucasian looking faces in their test-yourself..."Name that Scientst".

Maybe my students will remedy that.  Maybe that will be their area of passion....and a way to connect to the world!

 

Choice and student ownership: Takeaways from gaming & passion-based learning

Why are students so busy learning things at home?  They are huge into video games, basketball, clothing and so many other things.  They are what Sheryl Nuessbam-Beach calls passion based learning.  I've always wondered how a student can remember the millionth level of ___________ name the most recent video game.  They can map every twist and turn of how to get to the "nth" level and they will know everything they need to have in order to magically open the door.

So why can't students remember their math facts?

There's a huge gap between what I want them to learn and what they want to learn.  Duh. 

One of my biggest ah-ha's of thinking about gaming is that it keeps kids constantly challenged with rewards they've picked that are just out of reach.  They need to learn something in order to gain that reward.  I know part of it is choice...they picked the reward not me.

So that's a big question with which I need to wrestle.  How to use this idea of passion-based learning and what I think I sort of know about gaming....and merge them into designing units and lessons which gives students ownership and choice...and pushes them to more rigorous places of learning.  So they'll know the "nth level" of earthquakes and density and convection currents.

Check out how Constance Steinkuher talks about the pedagogy of gaming.  It's amazing.  I loved the way she thinks that "teaching should be more like community organizing".  Right on.

 

 

Online Games and Interest-Driven Learning are Transformative for Today's Young Learners from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.