Chapter 3

After reading chapter 3 I see how important it is for teachers and parents to encourage their children and students.  It was disheartening to hear that Jamien really had a hard time figuring out who encouraged him.  I always try to encourage my students because I could be the only nice thing they hear all day.  I remember my own high school experience.  As a high school student I really wanted to be an architect.  I took all the classes that my high school offered and during my junior and senior years my teacher, Mr, Hovis, allowed me to draw the blueprints of a house for a teacher at our school.  I was also able to go out to the job site to see how the builders used the blueprints to create the house. I worked with the architect who actually designed the teachers house. Mr. Hovis definitely encouraged me to pursue my dreams and talents.  When I went on to college all architecture classes were offered in the afternoon and it interfered with softball.  Which was paying for my schooling.  Sometimes when I am reading the book I feel like these are exceptional students.  Do they really exist?  I sometimes feel that students are just going through the motions.  Maybe I need to challenge students more and definitely implement these PBL units.

STEM Innovators

STEM Innovators

When reading chapter 3, STEM innovators I was impressed by the drive that these young people had.  I started thinking about what drives a young person to be able to come up with the persistence to keep going and succeed.  So maybe play comes into “play” here.  When children are young we encourage them to play with hands on materials, as they grow older their play seems to become gaming systems.  Most of the success stories in this book don’t seem to focus on computer enhanced play but on hands on play.  How can a child build if they never touch?  I think about my own children and realize that while they did have the gaming system I kept it in a place where it wasn’t always available and there were times when they had to do “hands on” play.  Board games like Monopoly and Life give opportunities to have conversations about buying houses, paying bills, and managing a family.  Unexpected things happen in life and the conversations that we had about this was invaluable to them.  From a young age, my son said “I want to design video games”, I encouraged him to have a backup plan.  He wanted and I felt he needed to go to college to get his degree but a typical four year university would not have worked for him.  He found an independent college called Neumont University where he could be successful.  This college takes PBL and integrates it into their curriculum, they give opportunities for students to do real world projects for real companies.  This gives companies the opportunity to see what students can do and many get job offers from these companies upon graduation.  I am sure that there are other schools who also do this and I believe we need to encourage our students to think outside the South Carolina box for college opportunities.

As South Carolina and Greenville County schools grow and offer more opportunities for our students to become fluent in PBL and as companies become vested in our students and their projects I hope this isn’t always the case.  I feel that the more companies see what our students can do, the better possibility our students will have to be marketable.  

As my first year in a PBL school continues I realize that I need to do a better job of trying to get my students to be persistent.  This will make them more marketable.  This may be a year long struggle as many just want to know if they have the right answer!  Manu Kapur, from Singapore talks about how struggle triggers deeper understanding.  So my goal has become to give my students opportunities to struggle productively.  By letting them struggle and encouraging them to think outside the box I think they can realize how much they know and how far they can go and what they can do with this knowledge.  I need to give them opportunities to validate that struggle can be productive and persistence will pay off in the long run.  Failure is a part of learning and it needs to be embraced not feared.  Now I wonder how I can give them the opportunity to fail the first time (or many times) and still be “successful” with their grade since that does drive so many.  If failure is a part of learning and not all learn at the same pace or at the same time, we need a grading system that takes this into place and allows a teacher to change past grades to allow students to fail, to be persistent, and to succeed.  To succeed on their timeline and not on a nine week schedule.  In life deadlines are pushed because the first attempt didn’t work and users changed requirements.

Chapter 3 Blog

Chapter 3 was an inspiring chapter to read.  Shanna, Jodie, David and Jamien were all very different students but the common thread of having a supportive home environment was evident.  All students were encouraged to find their play and passion.  Sometimes I think that today's student does not know the true meaning of passion.  Many are so caught up in texting, social media, video games and many have to take on far more serious roles in their family than any "child" ever should have to.  Due to all these distractions, many do not know what true passion and play is.  We don't have recess at my current school, but I always take my kids out for five minutes on the way back from lunch.  I remember the first day I did that, my students looked at me and asked what they were supposed to do during that time.  When I responded "play, be social, talk to eachother" it took them a few times outside to figure it out.  We now have a young man who brings a football and many of the boys have a football toss competition and they love to see who throws it the farthest that day.  It is nice for me to see them actually having fun and relaxing.  I've also noticed that I have fewer disciplinary issues in that  dreaded lunch block and that they continue to stay more focused after lunch instead of going into the comatose state that I've had in class before.  :)

This whole chapter really focused on the "why" of PBL for me.  I didn't necessarily need the why because I drank the kool aid a long time ago.  I truly believe in the value of this model and the benefits that it brings to our students.  However, to hear Shanna say "I'm not just impacting the digital world, I'm impacting the real world: how to design buildings and factories that are sustainable, efficient, with less waste and huge cost savings " really showed the why.  Such an important part of this model is for the students to solve a real life problem and then present it to a larger audience.  It gives them the "why" which is so needed and so often does not happen in education.  In a educational world where standardized tests drive absolutely everything from placement in classes to where and if a student will go to college, it is nice for them to see the bigger picture.

Shanna was extremely fortunate that she had such supportive people around her.  I loved how her parents never told her that she couldn't make a living with her art.  I can't tell you how many times I have a had a parent say to me "My child doesn't need chorus, they aren't going make their living singing."  It breaks my heart!  My own family, who was incredibly supportive of me and being an arts student growing up told me "No, you can't have piano lessons.  You already have five other types of lessons that you are taking and you aren't going to play the piano for a living."  They swear to this day that I subconsciously became a music teacher just because of that comment. :)  The arts can lead to openings that student's never dreamed of.  I was so happy to see the authors focus on a student that had chosen Art as their path and what it then led to.

Jodie's experiences were also quite interesting.  To read that she at first didn't want to go to a Magnet High School, she instead wanted to go to the public high school that her friends were going to was unique.  The other students that we have read about in the book so far have been very self motivated.  It was nice to see that a student didn't always have that dream of going to the best school in the district, she was just as happy to remain at her high school with her friends.  Her father handled it very matter of fact by saying "If you don't like it, you can always go back."  No force, no fight, no drama.  The ball was in Jodie's court and she soon learned she loved designing projects and Science which eventually led her to MIT.  I loved her comment on pg. 162 when discussing the philosophy of D Lab "Too often students don't get meaningful feedback on their work."  I know this is something that I have struggled with as a teacher.  When I see a student has worked really hard on a project or on a musical piece that they have prepared, I know its very personal for them.  I have in the past had a hard time giving meaningful feedback for fear that I would crush them.  It was refreshing to hear that students really crave that feedback from us.

David was also very interesting to read about because he did not seem to be the typical high achievement student that was grade driven.  This was a fact that I think his father is still trying to accept.  It was refreshing to see that he thought "There needs to be more classes that matter to the world-courses that will translate into businesses, into social action" pg. 184. He wanted to take classes that he wanted to take, to learn skills that he wanted to learn instead of silly classes that don't matter.  I think we all can identify with that as I know throughout my educational career, I have definitely wondered how the class I was in at that time was going to help me become a better educator.  So often in education, we become a machine culture and expect students to do the same things they have always done simply because it worked.   I know that during my high school career I would very often get out of my science classes and was able to go to the band room during that period.  The band room was my reality.  I knew that was going to help me succeed, whereas I wasn't sure how chemistry was going to benefit later.  Though I realize that we all need certain classes to get a holistic education, I also greatly feel that education needs to be more of an "ala carte" approach in order to truly benefit students.

Jamien reminded me of so many students that I have taught.  I loved the fact that he fell in love with a pair of shoes and that was what his driving force became about.  Jamien was encouraged by his mother to follow that passion.  Many parents may have said "Stop focusing so much on shoes" but his mother saw that this was truly his passion and encouraged him to follow it so that it became his career.  It made me sad that at the University Level he wasn't encouraged to follow  that passion and that he felt that at times his professors wanted him to fail.  What an awful feeling that must be for a student to have!  That one section has made me think of interactions that I have with students as I don't ever want one to feel that I want them to purposely fail!  That is the polar opposite of what we do as educators.

Google Classroom for PBL Scaffolding

I love the way Google Classroom makes it so easy for me to assign the news articles from Newsela for my students and also for my students to turn in their summaries, research etc. online in the Google Classroom. Grading becomes easier without having to put up with the lot of paper work. Technology is great!! Love it! Today my students are analyzing the UNEP report on solid waste an chemical waste management.
They are getting better at their skills of interpretation the Graphs, scientific research and also with the Vocabulary associated in understanding the Global Solid waste management

patterns, issues and solutions.

Reflection on STEM Innovators

Now this is the chapter I've been waiting to get to read!  I feel like these innovators are much more relatable as they span the socio-economic, cultural, and age ranges a little more.  Especially with Jamien at the end of the chapter and his love of shoes.  I found it a more realistic look at the struggles an innovator must endure at times, especially with the situation of a bankrupt company.  I wonder when, or if, these innovators ever feel they've finally "arrived" at a particular moment of success where they are settled in what they are doing.  It doesn't seem like they're ever really finished with their work, which I find a testament to the whole "process vs. product" argument.  This chapter seems to really showcase a variety of situations and stories that I felt like I could see happening to students I've known through my career.  Connecting again with Jamien's story, we did a shoe project the past two years called "If the Shoe Fits" and we studied the economics of how shoes are made by producers and end up in stores for consumers.  If we ever revive this project, I would definitely make some adjustments, but there were some students who really latched on to the whole design idea of the project.  They created their projects to portray their own likes and interests.  I had students bringing in shoes made out of Legos, seashells, rainbow bracelet bands, you name it.  It was so cool to see their creativity unleashed!  I especially loved Wagner's reflection at the end of this chapter where he talks about how he was struck by their lack of arrogance or pretense.  Even during Jodie Wu's section, others saw her as a quieter force that did not use her giftedness to boast about her accomplishments.  It makes me think about students in my classroom who are grossly underestimated because they don't quite fit the typical A+ success story.

My class last year was pretty wild with many behavior issues, but they were wonderfully creative with very outside-of-the-box thinking.  I did my best to cultivate their thinking as a positive in our classroom.  I'm wishing I had them back in my classroom this year and the following years so I could help channel that energy into more purposeful play.  They loved building things and especially shined during our project time, but now it's been a struggle for some of them in 2nd grade as they are seen as out-of-control.  I've kept up with one in particular as his teacher was worried he needed to be referred to special education.  I continued to be an advocate for his creativity and encouraged her to see him differently.  He may need help with his math and writing, but I didn't want her to dismiss him so quickly.  I think his year is going much better now, but I feel this responsibility to keep vouching for him because I can see so much potential.  I just hope his free thinking doesn't get squashed as he continues on through school!  

This week, we jumpstart our diversity project and I'm a little excited, nervous, and anxious.  I know that there will be room for growth and I just hope my grade level doesn't give up on it once they realize how much extra work is needed.  There is a lot of front loading and preparation that will be going into each lesson, so hopefully everyone will see the value of teaching in this format.  Reading this book is making me feel an urgency to transform everything in my classroom and my school.  How often we forget the simplicity of writing those meaningful lessons that reach students on a deeper and personal (like David's fight against malaria) level.  I feel like the traditional classroom is starting to look so archaic and to be frank, boring.  I have to remind myself, also, to be patient and not expect everything to change overnight.  This class has really helped me pace myself and continue to reflect, reflect, reflect!

A School Where Your Day Is About Feeling Your Presence in the World

Of all the interesting innovations I read about in Chapter 3, the encouraging parents and mentors, and the bright minds, what struck a chord in me most was David Sengeh's desire to create a school that was designed around feeling your presence in the world (p.87). I think more often than we would like to believe our students feel exactly the opposite during their school day -- that what is happening in the classroom is disconnected from their worlds and does not acknowledge their presence as individuals who are capable and creative. I believe this is less about teachers than it is about the state of education. The reforms of the last twenty years have put unnecessary restrictions on teachers and limited student experiences to those justified by the standardized test of the year. But I do feel an end  is in sight, or at least a relaxing of some of these measures. Recent calls by President Obama to limit the amount of testing in classrooms  are one indication that some of the rigid educational framework of recent years may be loosening. The refocusing on project based learning in many districts across the country is yet another ray of hope.
Sengeh's comment leads me to think about how this can be a primary goal in my classroom -- that children in my class feel their presence in the world. What does this mean in a math classroom? How does this guide my lesson planning, my project development, and my collaboration with other subject areas and teachers? How does it shape the daily activity in my room? Certainly student voice and choice is a strong element in their feeling their own presence in the world. How do my lessons provide for voice and choice? for making visible the aspirations and dreams of students? How can I continue to increase these elements in my classroom? All of this points again to the teacher as facilitator, who has the freedom to listen to student interests, to follow unconventional pathways and to build classroom time around collaborative exploration toward student interests and goals. A teacher who is willing to grow, to listen. I do see this idea, of feeling our presence in the world, as an important principle in the process of owning and developing project-based learning as a way of teaching and learning.

Ch 3 Post

Ch 3 Post

I am seeing a pattern among Teachers, Parents, and Mentors. They are all tapping into encouragement of the innovators.They are trying to build confidence and self esteem in these individuals. They are trying to nurture the very thing that makes the child motivated and nurture these talented individuals and develop their gifts. They encourage play and discovery in each of these people. They also seem to tap into the curiosity of each of these individuals.It is interesting to me that they also are becoming entrepreneurs or leaders of companies.