Category Archives: Planning Activities

20 hour Project

There are some definite perks to having a husband like George Couros. He pushes my thinking, asks questions and has high expectations for my teaching and learning. I appreciate all of these qualities immensely and would not be the teacher I am today without his guidance and support. I was talking with him about how I enjoy the idea of Genius Hour and my students really enjoy working on projects like that, but I find that we end up making a bunch of things that eventually get taken home or go in the garbage. I know that the learning is more in the process than in the end product, but I was wanting to try something where the students acquire a skill that they could use for the rest of their life, something they could take with them. My husband, of course, had something for me to watch and told me that he thought I could definitely do this with my kids.

This video is about the 20 hour project. What Josh Kaufman explains is that we can learn a new skill in 20 hours. The way he proposes that we learn this skill is through a few simple steps.

  1. Deconstruct the Skill (Break the skill down into smaller and smaller pieces- practice the most important skills first).
  2. Learn Enough to Self-correct ( Get 3-5 resources about what you want to learn. Too many resources and you procrastinate, learn just enough so that you can start and self-correct as you go. Get better at noticing when you make a mistake, and then doing something a little different).
  3. Remove Practice Barriers (Don’t get caught up in the research phase. Remember that in the end, the point is to actually practice the skill, not just learn how to practice it.)
  4. Practice at Least 20 Hours

I love that this is a simple premise that can yield some pretty amazing results. There are so many skills that students could learn and so many ways to learn them. YouTube is an amazing resources and has hundreds of experts waiting to assist you. I wanted to try the 20 hour project myself before I got into it with the students so that I could show them my example.

My 20 Hour Project

In high school, I ran cross country and really enjoyed it. I didn’t keep up with it in university and when I started my first year of teaching, I tried to get back into it. The first time I ran, I was so itchy I was dragging myself across the concrete (a ridiculous image, I know). The next time I went running, I was luckily with a friend, the reaction was worse. He had to call an ambulance and take me to the hospital ( my blood pressure was dangerously low and I was passing out, and my whole body was covered in hives). Needless to say, after that I avoided running. Fast forward to almost 7 years later and I finally got my doctor to recommend me to see a specialist. What the specialist concluded was that I have something called “exercise induced anaphylaxis”  so basically, I am allergic to running (which no one believes me, so I also asked him for a doctors note). He told me that I would be able to run, if I ran on an empty stomach (hadn’t eaten for 4-5 hours) and took an antihistamine before I went. I was so elated that I could finally run, I rushed to the drugstore and bought some Aerius and started researching. I found 3 resources and an expert who has been running for a long time (my husband) and made a plan. Since I haven’t run in a long time, I started with really short runs and have started working my way up. The first week, I did short 1.5 km runs (because I wanted to stay close to home incase the medication didn’t work). Then, when I realized it was working I started interval training. The first 2 weeks I ran for 2 minutes and walked for 1. Then the third week I ran for 3 and walked for 1. I even started bringing my dogs on the run so that they would push me. The end goal is to be able to run a 10 km in an hour. I am currently only running 4km to get myself used to running and I will continue to increase the distance as I get more comfortable. I am currently running/walking 4km in about 21 minutes, but I know I will get slower as I increase the distance I am running. When I started, it was really tough and I NEEDED that walking time, but as I practice more and more, I feel like I need it less and less. I am really starting to love running. I have also been biking and doing runners yoga to stretch my muscles and help with my performance. So far I am about 5 hours into my project and really liking the idea and the end goal.

As I go through my journey, I have started planning how I can assist my students with their project. I found this resources that has some ideas as to which skills students might choose. Students are definitely not limited to this list, we will also brainstorm ideas and help each other refine our ideas.

One important aspect of this project will be that students do some research. Students will need a mentor to support their journey. They can tweet out asking for help or use YouTube to find an “expert” to support their learning. Students will find 3-5 resources and add them to their 20 hour project google doc. This will allow them to easily find their resources, as well as limit themselves so they don’t procrastinate.

Along with research, we will also need a way to display what we have learned and the process. This way, students can self correct and share with others their progress and ask for support. Students will blog or vlog their progress to illustrate their learning. They must blog each time they work on the project. That might be a few sentences about what they have done that day, their struggles, their success or a video showing progress.

Below is an example of a video of me vlogging my experience. I will continue to document my progress, and ask for support from others as to how to improve my time and how to train smarter. This vlog is only up to day 10, but I will try and update it as I continue to run more and talk about my progress.

 

 

Jobs With Purpose

help wanted

I am sure we have all had job charts in our classroom and they come in many different shapes and forms. As I see it, the point of having classroom jobs is to help students take ownership of the classroom as well as take responsibility for the physical space they are learning in. This past year I set up my classroom so every student had a job. We came up with the jobs as a class and then rotated through the jobs each week. This was awesome because each child had a responsibility and they reminded each other of their jobs. Some jobs were more desirable for some kids than others and some students were better at remembering to do their jobs than others. One problem I saw was that kids would forget which job they had because we rotated through them each week. Another issue was that they were not always very interested in their job.  As I plan for the upcoming year, I was thinking about how to make this system better and allow for students to be more engaged in keeping our classroom running.

I came up with an idea, but I think I need some help building upon the idea. I was thinking that we would have classroom teams, as opposed to one person per job. (The teams could then choose to delegate different aspects of the job, or use a combined effort).
One job that I thought we could have would be PR department. This team’s job would be to post our daily or weekly classroom events on Twitter, Instagram and our blog. They would be in charge of managing our classrooms image.
A second job I considered would be HR department. Students would be trained to support students with small or “kid sized” problems they were dealing with. This team would also be on the look out to make sure all students were enjoying themselves during recess and were getting everything they needed (like extra permission slips). This team would also be in charge of covering the office while our secretary took her lunch break. (this could also be handled by the neat and organized team if they needed to switch)
A third team would be the IT department. This department would be in charge of ensuring that technology was functioning properly and any tech issues we had could be resolved. They would also be in charge of making sure our chromebooks and iPads were fully charged and ready for use.
A fourth team would be the health and wellness team. They would be in charge of giving ideas for healthy snacks, leading the gym stretches and picking the warmup games for gym class. They would also help set up brain breaks during the school day.
A final team would be the Neat and Organized (still working on the name) department. They would help with handing out anything students needed, ensuring that the classroom and hallway was Neat and organized. They would also be in charge of doing any clerical work we needed such as answering the phone or running things down to the office. This team could ensure all students had the supplies they needed and be in charge of keeping track of the extra supplies. It would also be helpful if this team kept track of all the forms students hand in and ensure all students handed it what they needed to.
Each team would have its own cubby to store supplies or so that the team could communicate with each other. It would also be a place for students to have meetings on Monday to talk about who would do which job for that week.
Is there a department I am missing? Does anyone do something similar in their classroom?
I am not sure how kids will “apply” to be in each department or what will happen if they are not being a valued team member. If you have any suggestions or ideas, that would be awesome as this idea is just in its preliminary planning phase 🙂

Teacher for hire: Googleyness a necessity

At the end of a long and wonderful day, I sat down to tackle my ever growing list of emails. In the impossible quest of emptying my inbox, I came across an email from my principal Travis McNaughton about our PD session tomorrow. He asked us to watch a video featuring a talk by Tony Wagner about innovation in the classroom.

During the video, Tony Wagner talks about Google and their hiring practices. Google hires people based on their ability to think outside the box, as opposed to focusing on grades or standardized test scores. When I looked on Googles website, they had a list of things they look for in a potential candidate. Their criteria include: Leadership, Role-related knowledge (someone with a variety of strengths and passions), How you think (problem solving) and Googleyness (what makes you, you as well as how you work in a team). They are not looking for someone with a large content background, because they realize that all people have access to the internet and can easily Google what they need to figure out. They need someone who has skills and the ability to persevere and work through problems. They want employees with passion and creativity.

How do I transfer the ideas from Google to my classroom? What do I need to do to as a teacher to facilitate leadership, passion, problem solving and teamwork?

My question is, how do I get students to think like a Googler? How do I prepare my students for a world that focuses less on content and more on skills? How do I become and innovation facilitator?

Starting the year off on the right foot

Every year I kick off the school year like a sprint! Getting up extra early, staying extra late, making sure the year is off to the best possible start. Eventually I have to slow down… but that September burst is so exciting! Every year I plan to do more team building and bonding activities, but it never seems to go as planned. Each year I get nervous about time (how fresh the rush of June is in all our minds) and jump into curriculum. This year I will not do that. I will allow time for students to get to know each other, get to know me and get acquainted with the flow of the class as a group.

I truly believe that we treat people differently when we know their story. My emotions changed drastically as I watched this video. Attitudes and patience for others change when we know each other’s narratives. As much as possible, I want everyone to get to know each other so that we can be a little more patient and kind.

My plan to facilitate this:

1. I am at a new school this year so I am excited for the kids to get to know me 🙂 (I can’t just rely on reputation as I normally do). I am going to make a video of myself at home and show it to the kids so they know who I am and who is in my family. Depending on technology that is available, I would love the kids to do the same and share about themselves through video.

2. The first 10 minutes are crucial to setting the tone and getting the school year started off right. I am going to try the technique mentioned in this blog post. She suggests getting students to come in right away, leave backpacks on the hook, and start an activity. She leaves a simple activity and a pencil on each desk so that students can start to get to know each other  and be successful at a task. That way she can quickly get around to each student and start a relationship. After the activity is finished, they can unpack their backpacks and talk about procedures and teacher quirks

3. I want to create a classroom quilt (hopefully somehow connected with dot day) that can hang up in the classroom as a reminder we are all a part of a bigger group. Each student will create a square about themselves and then the squares will be fastened together to form a quilt. I love having things in my class that are student created, rather than a really nice bulletin board set from a fancy teacher store. 🙂

4. I want to do several team building activities. For example, students will need to build a cup tower using a rubber band with 4 strings attached to it. They must equally stretch the rubber band to go around the cup, without touching the cup,  in order to build the stack. We may also create towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows in groups, since we will be talking about building things in science.

5. It would be cool if students could create their own digital time capsule to be opened on the last day of school. I still have to figure out what platform I am going to use, this could be on their blog. The time capsule could include their height, shoe size and favourite  things. Then they could open the capsule on the last day of school and see how they have changed.

6. Create an “about me” post or page on their blogs and allow students to comment on each other’s blogs and find someone who has something in common with themselves.

7. I want to start each day with a class meeting. When I worked at a Catholic school, we started every morning giving intentions for others. I would like to start the day off with giving students an opportunity to share ( in a secular way 🙂 ).

Do you have any other ideas? How do you start your school year? How do you start to build relationships in your class?

Please excuse the mess, we’re learning here

Screen shot 2014-07-10 at 6.44.59 PM

This upcoming school year, my goal is to relinquish control and allow learning to be more “messy”. For the past 3 years I have been working at a school that promotes group work, but expects students to be in rows, so learning has looked very neat and tidy.
I can admit that I like control and that I like to think learning is a linear path. As we know, it’s not. Often the best learning happens when we make mistakes and fail the first time we try something. In this upcoming school year, I would like learning to be messy. It’s okay if we don’t get the correct answer right away, or if we work on projects that don’t have a correct answer.

I am very excited to change my space and my teaching to suit this practice. I will be following Nicholas Provenzano for tips on how to change my space. I want the space to flow so that we can change configurations quickly. Horseshoe for  discussion, pods for group work, pairs for small projects and free floor space to work on projects or to read. I am excited to make my classroom flexible, so that the space is best for the learning we are doing.

I also hope to give students more choice and creativity in the projects we do. Choice can come in many different forms. It ranges from “choose the country you would like to research” to “In whatever way best suits your learning, share what you have researched about the country you choose”. This year I hope to move away from “small choices” to “big choices”. This will have to happen in baby steps, allowing smaller choice in the beginning until the students and I (okay this is mostly for me) can get used to what this type of learning looks like. For example in the beginning of the year I was hoping to do some “copy cat ” writing. Where students use a story they have already read and write a story with different characters and setting that follows the same format. This allows a little choice, students choose the story they use to “copy” from. By the end of the year I hope to do a project where students display their learning of “quality of life” using whatever medium they want. Our entire social curriculum this year is based on this overarching theme, so it will be a good way for them to display their learning from the year.

To someone who already practices “messy learning” these ideas may seem small, but I need to retrain my teaching from 3 years where learning looked very neat and tidy. Every student working on a different project is a foreign concept for me, I hope to adjust quickly. I would love suggestions on how other teachers support real learning in their classrooms. How is your classroom set up to support learning? How do you frame units and projects? I would love ideas and help!