Reflection on practice: Provoking inquiry into energy

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Integrating public speaking, peer assessment, and data handling

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Making the arts make a difference

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Negotiating rubrics

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Designing a new classroom

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CLMOOC Unmake: Unintroducing inquiry learning

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Wonderful example of action: Band promotion

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Introducing myself | CLMOOC 2015 Summer Unschool

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Creativity = Motivation + Discipline

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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.

Composite skills in the PYP

Preparing students for the Primary Years Program Exhibition, a self directed and collaborative culminating project, has been a rewarding challenge this year. In a sense, I've been thinking of the entire school as a long term project with the Exhibition being the 'deliverable' product.

The process of developing capacities and competencies in my students has led to analysis and evaluation of Transdisciplinary Skills in the PYP.

I like the list of skills and the categories into which they are organized (thinking, social, research, self management, communication), and I have been developing a model for composite skills. These are skills that require fluency in other fundamental skills and attitudes.

[This post was initially titled Hybrid skills in the PYP. After further consideration, I realized that 'composite' was a better description than 'hybrid'. Hybrid connotes that only parts of the fundamental skills are utilized, while 'composite' connotes that each skill is integrated in its entirety. I took the liberty of substituting the terms throughout the post.]

The first composite skill I conceived at the end of the last school year was Conversation. My reasoning was that conversation requires a combination of the Listening and Speaking communication skills together with the attitude of Empathy.

During the year, I have introduced a few other composite skills to our classroom toolbox, and am now in the process of organizing and codifying them in the MindMup below. If you would like to collaborate, the Composite skills mind map is shared via Google Drive. Use MindMup to open it and get started.

Twitter: Promoters, connectors, and why I unfollowed you

I have something to confess: I finally did it: Something I've been meaning to do for a long time, but haven't mustered the courage until now:

I committed twittercide.

CISC 2015 - the most inspiring symposium I didn't attend

(This post contains embedded 'tweets' that may not render properly depending upon your device and browser.)

It all started, as so many connected learning experiences do, with a tweet.

Ummmm... let's do this. #Tomorrow #Edcamp #CISC2015 #Couldntbemoreexcited #EdcampPalooza pic.twitter.com/r3K6AlFZ8I
— Kristen Swanson (@kristenswanson) February 11, 2015

If Kristen Swanson #couldntbemoreexcited about #EdcampPalooza, then lurking on the #CISC2015 hashtag on Twitter with @Haydeewan seemed like an inviting activity. 

What is technology?

On Monday morning, I embarked upon a unit of inquiry with my grade 5/6 class by using our usual 'warm up' routine to reflect on and discuss the slide below.

 

As students arrive in the morning, when possible, I project some sort of provocation, sometimes directly connected to our inquiries, sometimes specifically not, and sometimes just for fun (link to 'warm up' slides).

Many students sit down and begin writing or sketching immediately, while some prefer to converse before working independently. After a few minutes, we share and discuss our ideas.

This 'technology' provocation was effective and I was pleasantly surprised by students' insights. Their responses included definitions with words like 'tools'. 'useful', and 'solve problems'. Some also alluded to negative as well as positive effects of technology. At the conclusion of our brief discussion, I introduced our central idea for the unit: Scientific understanding constantly evolves to build and destroy. (link to unit planner)

Before setting the students loose, we will conduct a modeled inquiry into 3D printing. The purpose will be to model a standard inquiry process as well as generate interest in various aspects of technology including scientific, social, artistic, and cultural. It was extremely effective last year and, especially based on my current class' formative understandings, I'm confident that the next few weeks will be fun and enlightening.