Designing a new classroom

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CLMOOC Unmake: Unintroducing inquiry learning

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Introducing myself | CLMOOC 2015 Summer Unschool

Symphony of Ideas has moved! Follow the link to read the post Introducing myself | CLMOOC 2015 Summer Unschool at its new home on WordPress.

Exhibition rubrics & Global Issues Expo

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Elements of the PYP Exhibition

This week, my class of fifth and sixth graders began the culmination of their IB Primary Years journey, the Exhibition. A self-directed and collaborative project, it is my favorite part of the year and a deeply enjoyable challenge to facilitate.

Before setting out, I organized a meeting with all Exhibition stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, and administrators. We discussed everyone's ideas, questions, and concerns in order to draft our Essential Agreements.

Components

The Exhibition Guidelines provide clear expectations, which I have synthesized for the students to provide support for their projects. One helpful practice I have chosen is to clarify five required components of the project. Specifically, every student must choose a global issue, deliver a persuasive speech, write an expository essay, create a work of art, and engage in community action. Among our first activities was introducing the organizer below.

In this way, each student has a clear map of expectations, yet is empowered to pursue their project along their own path.

Inquiry math: Estimation

One of my challenges as an IB PYP teacher is how to design authentic opportunities for inquiry using mathematics. I think it's due partly to the fact that the outcomes tend to be predetermined but also because upper elementary mathematical skills aren't often prominent in the students' own inquiries.

'There is a place for predetermined outcomes, but these should be treated with a degree of suspicion,…' Peter Moss #ibpyp #reggioplc
— Bart Miller (@BarMill) January 29, 2015

My solution has generally been to provide an inquiry provocation to introduce a concept with related skills to be practiced in subsequent lessons.

Estimation

Recently, we completed a unit on estimation. The initial challenge was simply to estimate the number of various objects in various containers.

Warming up an estimation #inquiry. Soon will be using very large numbers. #inquirylearning pic.twitter.com/SdOahN8bX7
— Bart Miller (@BarMill) November 17, 2014

Equity in Gamification

I spent a short amount of time today substituting for an absent primary grade teacher. The lesson plan called for a sight word practice game. The teacher left instructions, but years of experience as a substitute teacher taught me that the students would give me the clearest idea of how the game is played.

The game

1 Each student has four word cards arrayed on their desks.

2 The teacher calls one of the words and students race to see who can select the correct word and hold it over their head.

3 The slowest student is 'out' and becomes the judge for the next round.

4 After being a judge, the slow students wait at the front of the classroom until only the two fastest students remain for a final duel.

The problem

The glaring problem with this game is that it is competitive. Especially in classrooms with 8 year olds or younger, games should be cooperative so that each individual's success benefits the group, and the group supports the learning of members who are challenged. 

The card game we played today accomplishes the opposite: Students who are 'slow' were, in a sense, shamed by standing for the rest of the game at the front of the room.

What's worse, the 'slow' students who need the most practice play the game for the shortest amount of time. In fact, the slowest student is 'out' after the first round!

Making action visible in the PYP

Of the facets of the IB Primary Years Program, my Grade 5/6 class emphasizes Action by focusing on three elements from our school's Mission Statement & Philosophy: 'inspired', 'independent', and 'contribute to world peace'.

With this in mind, in the first week of school we discussed and agreed to a class identity: Uniters.

Rather than addressing my class as 'Grade 5/6' or 'children' or 'hey you', I say 'Uniters'. Aesthetically, it's a bit like being a team of superheroes. Compared to being called a number or being identified by one's category, who wouldn't prefer being called 'Uniter', 'Peacemaker', or 'Humanitarian'?

The theme of 'unity' provides a rich context for inspiring, evoking, sharing, discussing, and reflecting on action. An emphasis on action will be particularly important in the spring when this class prepares their PYP Exhibition, a self-directed inquiry project with the ambitious goals of authentic action, community service, and engagement with globally significant issue.

Organizing

Along the LX Design line of inquiry, I realized that we need an interactive tool to document and share our 'action' in its various forms. At first I considered digital tools, but none seemed to provide the immediacy and high visibility required. Thinking of my wife, Yuka's 'inspiration board' at home, I wondered if a bulletin board would be best.

The following tweet from Craig Dwyer and the informative Action in the PYP document to which it links helped to stimulate my thinking further.

What does ACTION, Look Like, Sound Like, Feel Like? https://t.co/y753w9ilPh #pypchat #ibpyp #inquirymaths
— Craig (@DwyerTeacher) September 8, 2014

Student Empowerment | COETAIL final project

A keen observer will notice that I haven't exactly followed the assignment here. Rather than revising a unit of instruction to attempt to redefine learning, my goal is to utilize educational technology to empower students to redefine their own learning. In a sense, I am reimagining every unit I teach. I started by trying to revise a single unit, but every change I made toward increasing student choice, voice, and agency, resulted in thinking less about deciding what I wanted students to do, and more about how I was going to document and curate what they would decide to do.

LX Design

Two intersecting areas of study which have captivated my interest this year, Design Thinking and Project Management, have significant promise as I consider how to apply new principles to planning a year of learning in my Grade 5/6 classroom.

The two disciplines are strongly intertwined and have profound implications when applied to designing learning experiences. This post seeks to define LX Design as an approach to classroom planning and as a framework for ongoing iteration and reflection.

Design Thinking

Completing the Macromedia University Design Thinking MOOC introduced me to the discipline of User Experience Design, or UX Design. When thinking in terms of user experience, a designer considers all human elements and possibilities related to a product or service, not only the material and economic.

For example, when designing a machine to make coffee, one must consider not only the cost and suitability of the materials used, but also the likely moods of users, often early in the morning, while using the coffee machine.

A common theme in Design Thinking is to understand people's emotional, social, psychological, and spiritual needs when designing products, services, and experiences. In the case of education, we design learning experiences, hence the term 'LX Design'.

Meanings of use

Klaus Krippendorff's lecture, The Key Concepts of The Semantic Turn, and in particular his explanations of 'meanings of use', challenged and transformed my thinking about learning. I recreated the graphic below to represent what I consider an essential model for educators. It is the foundation for my approach to LX Design.