The Project School Visit

Recently, a group of educators from the Burlington School District visited The Project School in Bloomington, Indiana. This was part of an ongoing partnership with Daniel Baron, one of the school’s founders.

We had three amazing days of quality time with students in classes and meetings with the school staff.

Some takeaways:

School climate matters. When the staff is happy, it shows. Everyone knows it, especially the students, and it creates a healthy, happy, productive learning environment.

Decision-making based on student needs rather than adult needs feels very different. Adults at The Project School have shared core values that guide their decisions. They are flexible, positive, and student-centered. They shift schedules, resources, groups, and plans throughout the year as needs change.

Multi-age classes have many benefits. Observers noticed all students seeming to rise to the level of the oldest students in the class.  We saw a high level of peer support for learning, greater acceptance of differences, and increased self-sufficiency and student leadership.

Having a really great mission and vision matters. Here is theirs. You can read more on their website.

The mission of The Project School is to uncover, recover and discover the unique gifts and talents that each child brings to school every day. Our school works collaboratively with families, community members and social service agencies to solve real problems, as well as to create art for public spaces. Students graduate from The Project School as stewards of the environment with the will, skill, capacity, and knowledge to contribute to the greater good.

The vision of the Project School is to eliminate the predictive value of race, class, gender and special abilities on student success in our school and in our communities, by working together with families and community to ensure each child’s success.

Student voice and choice is critical. A 1st through 8th grade multi-age daily class called Passions helped us see how school can be more enjoyable for everyone.

Themes and big questions are powerful. This year they are focusing on Struggle and Progress.

Problems, Projects, and Place make up the P3 framework used by The Project School. Students do integrated, relevant, compelling projects throughout the year.

Wow! The trip gave me a lot to think about. Our group will continue to meet relative to this experience and our work in Burlington.

Thanks to Daniel and the rest of The Project School staff for helping us see some different ways of thinking about and doing education.

Wind Map

Wind Map during Hurricane Sandy, October 30, 2012

My friend, Michael Lye, just showed me a live wind map you can access online at http://hint.fm/wind/

The above picture is a saved image of the wind map during Hurricane Sandy.

School is starting soon. This would be something to put up on the screen as students enter the room. Ask them questions like...

What do you notice?
What do you wonder?
What information are you being given?
How do you interact with the map?
How was this map created? What do you think the creators needed to know and be able to do?
When would you most like to look at this map?
If you had created the wind map, how would you have done it differently?
What other data might lend itself to being displayed in a similar way? 

Geodesic Dome Building, Part II

The dome actually worked! All three fourth grade classes rolled, measured, cut, marked, counted, and assembled two geodesic domes at the Integrated Arts Academy. A quality assurance team was established in order to ensure the newspaper rolls were strong and tight. Partner work was important, so students had one person tape while another person held newspaper rolls in place. Math was happening all around. The domes initially worked great, but then started to droop and fall after a few days. Students fixed them up and brainstormed ways to make them stronger.

This project was shared during an all-school assembly. Three of the fourth graders presented the work with a slideshow created by their class. More fourth graders sat inside one of the domes (to everyone’s delight!) in order to hold it up if it started to droop during the presentation. It didn’t need any support but it was really fun to have them sitting in there. The presentation touched on the math, art, and engineering in this project. Students also explained Buckminster Fuller's humanitarian vision for the geodesic dome.

I loved collaborating with Ada Leaphart, Judy Klima, and the fourth graders at IAA. I hope to do it again soon. There are so many wonderful opportunities to connect math and art in meaningful ways.

STEM and Equity in the Burlington School District

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

― Albert Einstein

Recently, a budget draft included funding of a STEM position at Flynn Elementary. Here is why adding and/or strengthening STEM education at Flynn and in all Burlington schools is the right thing to do.

STEM is cutting edge education.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. At its best STEM education consists of hands-on, student-centered design challenges and project-based learning that cultivates the imagination.

Einstein’s remarks about the importance of imagination have never been more apt.

The world is changing so rapidly that no one can anticipate what, specifically, students will need to know. We must equip them for success in a in a technology-driven world that demands continual learning. Students should be offered broad and varied opportunities to take charge of their own education, collaborate, communicate, design and synthesize.

STEM is diversity and equity.

Quality STEM education is enemy of the achievement gap. Women and people of color are still underrepresented in STEM classes in high schools, STEM majors in college, and STEM fields in the workforce. Women and people of color are equally capable of excelling in this work and they provide much-needed perspectives. We have to ask why the demographics of these fields continue to be skewed. The fact is that we still live in a world full of biases and systemic discrimination. Education is a critical part of the solution. Stereotypes, biases and barriers don’t go away without concerted effort to counteract them.

The importance of high quality STEM education goes beyond giving students opportunities in STEM fields. It makes school a place where more students are able to be successful, period. Hands-on, student-centered design challenges, a hallmark of STEM, tend to work better for all students than traditional pedagogy. Students who are from low income families, are non-white, are new Americans and/or English language learners are at greater risk for under performance in school. STEM helps these students. Education for equity means providing engaging, challenging work for all students.

As a K-5 Math Coach in the Burlington School District, I have personally witnessed the power of STEM education. Individuals who are less successful in traditional learning situations shine when engaged in high quality STEM learning opportunities. I’ve watched students who typically exhibit challenging behaviors and low academic performance become energized about computer programming, exploring fractals in art and nature, catapult building, geodesic dome construction, and on and on. It is hard not to become an advocate of this type of education after watching marginalized students get opportunities to demonstrate their brilliance.

STEM is for Burlington

It is wise to fund STEM education in Burlington. By investing in STEM, we are focusing on what really works for achievement and equity. This is a forward-thinking opportunity to empower our students to be the leaders, thinkers, and makers of a changing world. Imagine that.

Geodesic Dome Building, Part I

Ada Leaphart, Integrated Arts Academy Art Teacher Extraordinaire, and I have embarked on an adventure. We’ve got all the fourth graders at IAA building geodesic domes out of newspaper.

I really don’t know how this is going to end up, so that is why I have named this Part I. I hope to report back with more news as the project progresses.

Ada and I decided to keep things loose. We didn’t want to figure everything out for the students by creating our own dome first, learning all the lessons, and then presenting a tidy scenario.

Instead, we have never attempted to create a geodesic dome out of newspaper or anything else, for that matter. Sometimes STEM+Art (I, unlike others, am not wanting to call that STEAM) should be messy and students should have the fun of making mistakes and doing all the figuring.

Before the students got started building, Ada showed a photo of a geodesic dome and asked students what they noticed. We got some math+art conversation going from that, as students noticed many geometric shapes, like triangles, pentagons, hexagons, and trapezoids. Then we talked about old Bucky Fuller (every class asked if he was still living) and how he really wanted to make the world a better place for everyone by using an efficient structure like a dome for shelter.

Kids couldn’t wait to get started. Here are the instructions we are using from PBS.

It turns out, you can roll newspaper in a loose, floppy, weak way or you can roll it in a very tight, very strong roll. Students shared successful and unsuccessful techniques. Among the successful techniques invented by students are 1) Asking someone else to help you tape the roll, 2) asking someone else for help, period, 3) twisting the roll when it is finished to make it even tighter, and 4) using a pencil to act as the center of the roll, then shaking it loose once the roll is finished.

We ended up with enough rolls to make one or two domes. 65 usable rolls are needed. Next time we will need to establish a Quality Control group to assess, select, and count the rolls we’ve got. Ada and I aren’t sure how the whole thing is going to go. At the end of it all I would like to set the dome on fire in the playground. I am not sure we will get permission for that. Oh well, we’re going to roll with it.

Vermont Fest 2014 and a Snake

The sign of a good conference is when you come away from it questioning everything about your work.

I like this snake drawing from the New York Public Library more than the three terrible photos I took of people in banquet rooms at the Killington Grand. I would never consider publishing a blog post without a picture.

At Vermont Fest this year, I found myself wanting to make a list of a bunch of things all students should get the chance to do in school.

Skype/hangout/video interact with people in other parts of the world

Type an equal sign into a spreadsheet

Make a personalized, LED-lit badge to explore how light works

Have maker/genius/whatever hour/day/week to explore something interesting to them

Publish their content (writing/photos/videos) on a blog and comment on the work of others

Learn about how computers work by writing some code

Be asked the questions How are you feeling? What do you think? and What do you need?

Use Google Research Tools to find and cite things.

Sit in chairs listening to a teacher talk a lot less.

Some great presenters I encountered include Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann), Bonnie Birdsall (@bonniebird), Dan French (@danfrench), Adam Provost (@batman44), Lucie deLaBruere (@techsavvygirl), Charlie Macfadyen (@csmacf), Tricia Hinkle (@VTScienceFair), Matt Dunne (@@mattdunnevt). Check them out.

Here are a couple of links.

Using Google Sheets in the Classroom

Tricia Hinkle’s site

Bonnie Birdsall’s writing tech site

The Vermont Fest site with all kinds of other links to presenters

Shelburne Farms Mini Maker Faire

I went to the Maker Faire at Shelburne Farms today for the first time.

This is what I did.

I made a magic wand with an LED light that turns on and off by touching a wire to a battery on the wand. I first had to figure out how to connect the LED to some wires, then run them to the battery correctly. After that part was working, I added sparkly silver ribbon to the stem of the wand and encased the LED light in crumply clear plastic tape for light refraction purposes. Voila! I am ready to put spells on people. Joanna Elliott, Flynn Elementary parent and teacher, was the wizard behind this project. See her fabulous art blog.

I made a puzzle book, a square flexagon (a previously unknown-to-me relative of the hexaflexagon) for comic-book type story-telling, and a mini book that could contain anything from math facts to the secrets of the universe. A matchbook size mini book can be made and then kept in an actual matchbox. Book Arts Guild of Vermont people helped me do this. Students might want to make these after reading the Red Clover Book entitled The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman. This is an activity for any budget.

I spoke with Richa, who is going to assist with a course called Intro to Relational Databases at Girl Develop It Burlington. There are classes and meet-ups. I want to go.

Champlain College Emergent Media Center folks explained what they are working on. Their new Maker Lab that had its grand opening party last night.

I saw a robot-building challenge and presentation by Joe Chase and his team of students from Essex High School. Joe is my neighbor and it was great to see him up there advocating for more design and engineering work in schools. My daughter took his robotics class a few years ago and loved it.

I saw and did many other cool things, including experimenting with magnets with Frank White from CreateItLab and speaking with the effervescent Michael Metz of Generator, Lucy deLaBruere, Courtney Asaro, and Graham Clarke, both of Flynn Elementary School in Burlington.

What a great day! Takeaways included an Arduino Robot Kit made by YourDuino.com and the knowledge that so many people are working on creating engaging opportunities for people of all ages in the Burlington area.

Hit the Target

I was fortunate that my boss found out about a STEM (Science + Technology + Engineering + Math) Coaches course taught by Dr. John Tapper and registered me and our district science coach. We spent four whole days at the Hampton Inn, which is a strange venue for a STEM course but it worked fine. I gained about 5 pounds because the hotel served muffins every morning and cookies every afternoon and I ate them.

I already knew John Tapper from afar because of his excellent book on math instruction called Solving for Why. This course wasn’t about math menus and differentiation; instead John got us thinking about teaching STEM and instructional coaching. There was lots of discussion, not lots of lecturing, and plenty of hands-on investigations involving buoyancy, force, and motion. John teaches college level math and education courses, but has experience as an elementary classroom teacher, administrator, instructional coach and researcher. I found his perspective refreshing and some of his ideas about STEM new to me.

I’d been wondering how to best integrate math with other content areas. In the STEM Coaches course, John pushed us to use math in a meaningful way rather than as an add-on. He asked, “What about challenging students to create a mathematical model that they will then use to make a prediction?”

It turns out there are fun, engaging ways to do just that. John gave us Straw Rocket Launchers (go here if you want plans to make your own). Two teams experimented with these, adjusting the launch angle and launch force to see how to get the straw to travel different distances. When each team felt they had enough data, John placed a hotel napkin on the sidewalk. “It must hit this target!” Teams measured the distance to the target, then decided how to set the angle and force of the launcher. No more practice runs - each team had one chance to get it right. See photos below of classmates crunching the numbers, then trying to hit the square.

There were a few different targets. Both teams were able to hit the napkin, but the small soup cup John put out was too tough.

It helped to experience these challenges as a learner. Everyone was engaged in the task and we had to really use the math and rely on it to be successful. A key point: hitting a target at a given (initially unknown) distance is very different than simply sending a rocket as far as it can go. The math ended up being the centerpiece of the activity, and the whole thing was really FUN.

We also tried to determine the minimum surface area for an effective parachute, create our own timer (pendulums, a hole in a water bottle), and decide how to predict if a given object would sink or float.

I have a new sense of how to use all four letters in STEM in a meaningful way, and how to give students greater ownership of their learning.

We should all try to hit the target!

Machines to Materials

I just watched two PBS NOVA shows that I must share. One is called Making Stuff: Smaller. The other is Making Stuff: Stronger. There are other Making Stuff shows I haven’t watched yet.

Check these out! You can watch them for free online (at least right now you can).

As an educator and a parent, these videos get me all fired up. Young people should be learning about cutting edge science and math, not just the stuff of textbooks and standards. I want to show these to students and then I’d expect to hear them talking about wanting to be a chemist, material scientist, or nanotechnologist when they grow up.

My favorite part of Making Stuff: Smaller was the concept of starting by using a machine to complete a task, and then evolving to using a material to accomplish the same task. This is a key feature of miniaturization, which is what allows us to have laptops and cellphones, among other things, today. Computer processing went from giant rooms of vacuum tubes to silicon chips, but the story I liked the most was the journey from behemoth pendulum clocks to quartz watches. If this makes no sense to you, watch the video.

Another awesome story in Making Stuff: Smaller is about driving a tiny robot around inside someone’s eyeball to deliver medicine. Holy cow!

Sand Castle Summer

Look what I just found on Math Munch: Cool, geometric sand castles made by Calvin Seibert. What will you create on the beach this summer?

St. Louis STEM Reader

I attended the NSTA STEM Conference in St. Louis last week with several colleagues. It was a very worthwhile trip.

Top Quotes

“Engineering naturally integrates mathematics, science, social studies and language literacy.” - Tamara Moore

“Tell kids they are doing engineering. Use that word. Students, especially girls, tend to go to medical school or major in science in college if they enjoy STEM. Very few choose engineering because they don't know what that means.” - Liz Parry

“If you are not iterating, it is not engineering.” - Ann McMahon

“Is it really STEM or is it just John Dewey?” - Tara Bell

Top Takeaways

1. High-quality STEM education is more about the how than the what. We can’t teach students everything they will need to know. We can help them learn how to learn.

2. The habits of mind related to engineering can be a thread running through all content areas. Empathy, collaboration, failure, iteration, perseverance, social justice, activism, leadership.

3. STEM has the potential to make a real difference for equity and diversity. It has been shown to be an effective way to engage struggling or at risk students. Currently, success in STEM subjects in school and in careers is very skewed toward certain demographic groups, and something needs to be done to change that.

Favorite Presenters

Tara Bell, STEM coach at Washington STEM Academy in Champaign, IL

Bob Goodman (New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning: Ridgewood, NJ) Demystifying Science with the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI) Equity requires that all high school students learn physics, chemistry, and biology. PSI is a free open-source program that is helping schools achieve that goal.

Liz Parry, Coordinator, STEM Partnership Development, The Engineering Place, College of Engineering, NC State University

Ann P. McMahon Ex-Aerospace engineer. Strategies for integrating STEM with social and emotional learning. Ann recently gave a TEDx talked titled Engineering Empathy (use password tedxgladstone).

Beth Bender, Principal of Gateway STEM High School, St. Louis. A public magnet school, 85% FRL, 55% African american, increasing ELL. There is a lack of awareness about engineering, and it is mostly male. Engineering students give demonstrations for other students during lunch; recruiting for the high school is done with hands-on tasks, live puppies.

Tamara Moore, University of Minnesota. STEM Education Center. Said she would soon be running a pilot program of K-6 STEM integrated units that include a heavy children’s literature component.

Resources

Family Engineering (book and website recommended by Liz Parry)

TeachEngineering

Ideo and the Design Thinking for Educators toolkit

New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning

eGFI

Gateway STEM High School

The Deep Dive

EnLIST Entrepreneurial Leadership in STEM Teaching and Learning

University of Minnesota STEM Education Center

TryEngineering

National Center for Universal Design on Learning