STEM Clusters: Take Three

What do 5 years olds and CEOs have in common? In some cases, both have participated in the Marshmallow challenge!  This week in the STEM cluster How High, How Far, How Fast our 5 and 6 year old students were challenged to build the tallest structure possible using 10 pieces of spaghetti, one foot of masking tape, one foot of string and one marshmallow – the marshmallow, of course, had to remain sturdily on the top!

Students were focused, engaged, curious, frustrated, angry, and hopeful as they worked together to strategize and problem solve. Working together and collaborating was quite a challenge. As to be expected some students quietly gave their suggestions, “That is not possible; it will be too wobbly, let’s try this,” whereas, in another group, I heard a young fellow demand almost in tears, “Hold this; hold this here; do it now, and don’t let go!”

As I noted in an earlier post on STEM Clusters with the older students, what was  most difficult for them was collaborating together, and accepting or acting on the ideas of their classmates. Although frustrated, the older kids were more accepting of each other ideas and were clearly building upon each other’s knowledge in order to yield a unified result. With the little ones, those who were able to work together followed a more step-by-step approach. “I will do this; now you try your idea.” 

In one case, it was clear after the first 10 minutes that a particular youngster was simply unable to work within a group, so the facilitator gave him his materials and asked him to work through the challenge on his own. He was happy to do so; but when he realized help would be necessary, he very politely asked the little girl next to him to assist. Noticing this change I asked him “what was the problem the first time you tried to work together?” He said, “Well, I am the boy, and I told her what to do and she wouldn’t do it.” I responded, “What does being a boy have to do with it?” He said, “Boys are the ones who tell girls what to do, that is the way things always work.” Now, I know the family of this little boy, and I am more than certain that in his household, responsibilities are shared across genders.  So I thought, wow, our society still has a lot of work to do! First through modeling gender-neutral roles, and then by improving how the media, advertising and entertainment present those gender roles.

A lot happened during those 45 minutes, and most groups were satisfied with their hard work and accomplishments. Here are some of their reflections:

“I was thinking like an engineer; trying to imagine a blue print in my head.”

“I liked when we were working together and did not get mad at each other.”

“It was REALLY hard to get that marshmallow to stay on the top!”

Could it be that our students must learn to collaborate before they can fully experience and practice other challenging skills? In other words is collaboration a necessary step onto a ladder of 21^st century skills? Or are the 4 C’s spokes on wheel of integrated skills?  

Learning and Changing through the Eyes of Specialist Teachers

This past Friday, a group of specialist area teachers (representing art, library, music, PE, science, spanish and technology) and I stumbled upon some open time to get together and talk about educational change, learning, and the impact “talk of change” has on our professional lives. To stimulate conversation I sent them 3 groups of bundled Ted Talks: 
1)  21^st Century K-12 learning from Jonathan Martin http://21k12blog.net/2012/08/11/18-videos-suggested-for-back-to-school-faculty-meetings-and-other-educational-audiences2) reimaging your business from Harvard Business ReviewBlog http://t.co/wQdMJ7rPUA
3) learning from failure http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/03/8-wonderful-ted-talks-on-learning-from.html
It was nice to see that from the 12 of us present, we picked from all 3 bundles. The questions I posed were the following:
•   What surprised, worried or excited you about the topic?•   How does it relate to our work as educators?•   How does it relate to our work specifically at our JK-12 school?
I framed the conversation around our “learning” both from one another and from the resources beyond our school walls. It was an open, un-hurried conversation, where everyone was engaged and left with a positive outlook toward making school better. Some highlights:
FROM THE GROUP:·            We need to develop stronger partnerships that help those who we  receive or send our students to (parents and colleges) understand our vision as a school and the importance we are giving to authentic, real world, skills based education.
·            The school vision should be communicated consistently, thoroughly and across constituents.
·            Break the equation: College = good letter grades + excellent test scores + traditional leadership.
·            How does our college counseling office explain our school? Following a traditional mode or by explaining our uniqueness and forward thinking pedagogy. How should our school be represented to colleges? Can our college counseling office share these thoughts with the JK-12^th grade faculty?·            As a group we value the need to learn from our failures; we grow from reflecting on our mistakes; how do we reinforce this with our parent body?
·            The admissions team should be a voice for our teaching and learning; we want them in our spaces!·            Creativity, play and downtime for students is essential. We must do the best we can to build it into our lessons and programs. This requires flexibility from all.·            We respect, recognize and need organization and structure in our school lives and programs; but we also want more spontaneity and opportunities for creative endeavors in our specialist areas. We strive to find this balance although we are unsure of how to achieve it.
·            We value the resources and global connections we use through Web 2.0 tools, but we believe in the importance of human connections and relationships in our learning.

VALUABLE FEEDBACK I RECEIVED ON WHAT SPECIALIST TEACHERS NEED TO ENHANCE THEIR TEACHING:·            Ability to plan and execute without stepping through so many hoops!·            Freedom to diversify, augment and rethink our programs.·            Don’t over plan and over schedule.·            Provide flexibility  of time when needed.·            Trust us as experts in our field.·            Understand that collaboration happens naturally among us when needed yielding effective results (examples came up in the conversation!)

THE SPECIALIST TEACHERS NOTED THE FOLLOW NEEDS AS MOST IMPORTANT TO THEIR PROFESSIONAL LEARNING:·            More open ended, unconferencing opportunities to work together.·            Time for dialog.·            School commitment toward reflection – allowing time for dialog and other reflection strategies.
·            Slow down, don’t rush (us or the kids!)

Thank you for your time and commitment colleagues – I truly appreciate it!

What If?

What If? is something I have been contemplating ever since I started on this journey immersing myself in social media, navigating my thirst for life long learning down a very specific path….. one that enables me, a quiet, humble, introvert, to collaborate, share, express myself and hopefully influence others along the way.
What if?
Specifically, what if my employer had not given me three incredible devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air) to use 24/7, 12 months of the year? What if I did not have a TIS (Technology Integration Specialist) or what I consider to be a personal mentor to ask for help about anything, any day at anytime??!! I truly ask myself this frequently. I am very privileged, and I do not take that for granted. It is my duty, my obligation and my desire to do something with this grand privilege, to educate myself, work to engage others, and hopefully influence change in my school community and beyond.

Why 3 devices? Each I use for a slightly different purpose, and of course uses blend and overlap across devices. As an administrator, my phone has a primary purpose; to use in response to an emergency. I have it with me at all times. Luckily, emergencies are infrequent; its second purpose is for me to maintain efficient communication with my staff as well as with the administrative team. It is also quite handy to record daily events and needs through videos and photographs. If something on the playground or parking lot looks like a safety issue, I can take a picture and send it off to the facilities department. If a student is teaching a jump rope chant in Spanish to a friend at recess I can record it and show the Spanish teacher and make her proud!
I tend to use my iPad as a “movable desk.” I record bus and activity attendance on it; I take it with me on class observations so I can keep up with email as I move through the day, or so I can look something up quickly if a question is posed to me in the hallway. My iPad is also the most comfortable tool to keep up with twitter or read my subscribed blogs on Flipboard. I also play with the various apps all of the students use in the different subjects.

My MacBook Air, on the other hand, is my “moveable office.” My filing system, calendar, notes, organized twitter favorites, to do lists……. everything. Some of these things can be accessed on my iPhone and iPad as well, but I navigate toward the ease of my “MacBook office.”
As I write this I realize what a “novice techie” I really am. I have all of these devices that can do so many things, and I still use them minimally. Meaning I use them ALL OF THE TIME, but not in the capacity that I could or should. I do take baby steps, I always try, and I rarely give up, but I still need to push myself a bit more to get out of my comfort zone and explore new things. It is not only my obligation to use these devices to facilitate my daily responsibilities; I must 1) understand more thoroughly how the teachers and students are using their technology tools inside the classroom and 2) model professional engagement in social media in order to encourage use within my school community.
How did I get hooked on social media for professional advancement? How did I improve? And how will I continue to improve – because I do have a long way to go.

The answer is an easy one. I have a mentor willing, patient, caring and available to lead me down the path I choose to follow. I am not told where to go or what to do, but I am guided depending on my queries. My curiosity, my responsibilities, and my desire to grow professionally lead the way. My mentor has guided me in many different ways, but as the learner I must take the lead, and I always have. My queries vary.

Initially I drafted a list of all the different types of social media I was interested in and explained that my sole objective was to grow professionally and interact with the world beyond my school campus. The list was rather long and included: twitter, blogging, facebook, google+, wikis, google docs……google reader, social bookmarking. My mentor first helped me to prioritize that list, some things came right off, others were put into a specific order….. and one by one I moved forward with her help. In regards to social media my mentor has helped me:
·            Find and subscribe to educational blogs via google reader·            Create my own blog as well as a community blog·            Enter the twitter universe: find tweeps, increase followers, participate in chats,  understand hashtags,   create lists, add picture collages to tweets·            Use Delicious to bookmark sites·            Use Ifft to organize information·            Create a google doc survey and utilize other google docs·            Imbed audio and video into blogs·            Create QR Codes to communicate information·            Become familiar with Evernote  as a record keeping, note taking, recording tool·            Become familiar with Pinterest·            Understand the process of rolling out iPads and Mac Book Airs to faculty and students in an efficient and safe manner.

Through these queries and my own navigation I have participated in a web 2.0 course as well as an 8 week leadership collaborative. Yet, I still realize that I have only scratched the surface, and I expect much more of myself.

I can push myself all the harder, because I know, thanks to my school that I have the tools and support that I need to move forward. I am recognizing my privilege. I know that there are many folks out there that are much further along than I, even though they do not have as many tools or so much hands-on support. I am truly grateful and thus must keep moving down, up, and around this learning path.

 So, what if I had not received the support of my patient, caring, and knowledgeable mentor?
·            My tools would be used some of the time and not all of the time.·            My progress would be as slow as a turtle and not as consistent as a dolphin gliding through the water·            My curiosity could manifest itself in frustration
·            My blogs would be mundane and boring·            My attempts to organize all my discoveries would be a jumbled up mess instead of a categorized list, creative wordle, or labeled Evernote “stack.”
However, most importantly, what if I did not have my mentor at my side? I would not have a friend, colleague, educator, “person,” to share the success, challenges and joys of our lives as educators with or without technology!!