Week of Creativity

Funny how a week can have a theme through coincidence, or maybe someone is trying to tell me something. In reverse chronological order, in grad class we talked about whether the makeup of school was killing students creativity? Are we educating them in a complete manner? Are we neglecting certain aspects of it? Nearly every educator has seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talks but they are worth watching again. Lots of fundamental assumptions we make about education that maybe we should being to reexamine. Is anyone going to do it? Probably not outside of small pockets of charter schools and private institutions. Second, on Tues at a talk put on by google Chris Craft discussed the importance of teachers being role models for modeling creativity. Often the teachers are the road block to allowing a student to being creative. His example was a student who really wanted to learn more about coding. He didn't know how to code so he taught himself, so he could in turn teach the students. How often do teachers go out and learn a new skill so they can bring it back into the classroom. The skills we grew up learning, are not always the skills this generation of students are interested in. Just as we encourage them to learn new material and be creative, we need to as well. The best way to do that is to simply do it, but then communicate with the students what you are learning. A simple suggestion he gave was replacing/adding to your "What I am reading now..." poster with "What I am learning now..." Mine will be going up shortly.

Diseases

I had no idea how interested my students would be about Ebola. It has made teaching this unit so easy because they are super interested in all things disease right now but frustrating because literally every class I have to answer Ebola related questions. We can be talking about dangers of fungi and the next question be "is that like the symptoms of Ebola?" No, an itchy rash on your foot is not like Ebola. This age/grade level/community historically has not been the most empathetic group. With Ebola starting to hit closer to home, it has made students realize that, to a certain degree we do need to concern ourselves with the well being of other countries. The once popular student opinion of "letting them die" is not only a very harsh stance to take but also not always in our nations best interest. Many are beginning to appreciate just how interconnected our world has become. It is terribly unfortunate that it is taking something as destructive as Ebola to get them to realize it.

Backchannels and movies

A "backchannel" is a method of communication that is happening under the surface of the regular classroom discussion. Students are experts at the backchannel as they are listening to you while snapchatting their friends about how bored they are. You are simply taking a structure they are familiar with and harnessing that power for good. I am a fan of todaysmeet.com . It allows them to post to a window while limiting their characters (like twitter). Others use twitter, padlet, or just a simple google doc. 

We watched episode 2 of Cosmos with students paired up on a chromebook or ipad. We combined with Mr. Cooke's class so there were ~50 students or so all with the capability to communicate. As the movie plays we are all keeping an eye on the todaysmeet page looking for comments and questions. This provides students the chance to ask questions without stopping the movie or talking over each other. Everyone's voice can be heard and some of the quieter students really come to life on it. It is kind of crazy to think how often we encourage questions during a class period but then want them to be silent while watching a 45min. video. At the end you can print a transcript of the conversation (which I am kicking myself for not doing) to go back and highlight certain posts for further discussion or grading if you are into that.

Evolution Game

Pretty fun game. Who can survive the longest. I will keep a running top 3 on the board and will post the top 3 for the day on here for all of the world to see!

http://www.sciencechannel.com/games-and-interactives/charles-darwin-game.htm

Change over time

One of my goals is to update once a week and I missed last week so I am trying to make up some ground. We are looking at how technology, the earth, and living things have changed over time. Discussing  evolution is one of the highlights of the year for me, not because of any personal convictions, but because the students are really engaged. Whether they are very much in favor of, or against the theory, nearly every student falls on one side or the other. Very few fence sitters which leads to some great conversations. One more week and then we will be taking our first major test of the year.