Getting Back To Writing Is Messy!

June 24, 2020, that is the last time I posted here. Well over a year ago! That was not the plan. That date happens to coincide with the fact that after 32 years as a classroom teacher (mostly upper elementary and middle school grades) and 8 years as the “STEM Learning Facilitator” for 6 school districts in my state, I retired.

The plan was to write more here and work on a second book (which might still happen), but a number of things conspired to make that hard. Certainly the pandemic, but also we’ve moved from Reno to Las Vegas (over 400 miles) renovated our new abode, and, well, just other busy things.

That said, I have tried to get back into writing, and I have the outlines of a number of post ideas to prove it, but when push has come to shove I just haven’t been able to follow through. Not really writer’s block as much as starting and then getting sidetracked by the amount of thinking and work this takes and admittedly, a lack of the motivation I used to feel that kept me going. 

I figured I just needed to get something written and that would “prime the pump” and I’d be back at it …. but as noted above that didn’t happen. Until now. Just writing this feels good and hoping it leads to more.

We will see!

Learning (and writing) is/are messy!

How can we connect more students during this time and/or how should we move forward?

Last week James Kapptie, a middle and high school tech trainer in Wyoming, contacted me about having a conversation on his blog about connecting students during this time. He posted the conversation we collaborated on through a Google Doc on his blog Our Children Are Calling and suggested I post it here as well. So I did! See below.

How can we connect more students during this time and/or how should we move forward?

  1. What does connecting students mean now that we have been dealing with the COVID 19 issue?

BC: We should have been connecting students globally for the last 10 years. Connected learning is a very powerful learning environment that leverages all that is good about project / problem based learning. But powerful connected learning that utilizes social networking requires all the safety considerations that students should learn from a very young age. We wouldn’t wait until students are in middle or high school before we teach them fire, bus, stranger, first aid, using scissors, playground and other safety issues. But to a certain extent that is what we have done with technology. If students, under the guidance and modeling of a classroom teacher, starting in at least kindergarten had been learning safe, ethical use we would be in a much better place. If this was the case students could be doing so much more learning that they make choices about. All the communication skills and collaborative connections they could be utilizing under the moderation of their teachers would be a good thing right now.

This is why I like blogging as a choice now. Student blogs at any age can be set up so the teacher moderates and OK’s everything before it goes live, whether it is an outgoing post or an incoming comment. That way if students (or teachers / parents) currently lack experience, knowledge or time during a work day in keeping children safe, the teacher is there to guide students appropriately. Also blogs can be writing, photos, videos, podcasts … almost every kind of sharing and collaborating is doable on a blog.

JK: Totally agree that we are a little behind the curve with technology.  I liked blogging but feel we need to give it an image refresh.  It’s like Facebook to our kids.  We must show how the other pieces can connect, video,podcast, photos etc., and then highlight how blogs can be shared across the different channels ( Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc) to balance the ability of monitoring safe use and allowing it to be cutting edge.  

As with all things for teachers, what type of PD would help them feel more comfortable and not see it as one more thing is important to consider.

BC: Teachers have a lot, too much really on their plates these days, having said that we have an issue with educators not being willing to use these collaborative tools mostly because they don’t feel they have “permission” and that there are safety issues they might get blamed for. The PD, with total support from administration, should move teachers to new learning platforms and pedagogy and away from “the old ways.” I always say that society wants schools to change fundamentally how they do things as long as when they’re done changing they’re pretty much just like school was when I was a kid so I understand them. But PD on new ways and resources typically fall flat because we don’t take any current curriculum resources or requirements off teachers plates, it just seems to be layered on. Teachers in general don’t trust that they can innovate after all the years of test and punish mentality. So education in general has to build trust and a sense of capacity and time to make real change.

  1. How can we increase quality connections with students in a hybrid or virtual environment?

JK:  I think this is a question that is very similar to the “old normal” classroom.  Quality happens when students feel connected to the teacher in some way.  To build those connections we have been given opportunities to connect with kids in private and personal ways.  I know that there will be student safety conversations to follow about this, with good reason, but the advantage is that schools and teachers have very direct ways to connect and hear from students and families.  Quality will happen when teachers find the way that works for each student/family and talk to them.  Education, under the “old normal”, has often allowed one size to fit the needs of the masses. We have parent teacher conferences, we have mass robo call/email systems, we have put information out on social media, but in general we have provided information in a one way fashion.  How do we improve the quality, we ask and we listen!  

As an example of how we evolve.  Some districts dove into Google classroom and the result ended up with students and parents getting hundreds of emails a day and overwhelming them immediately.  Parents wanted less  before we even got started. Schools had to come up with ways to share assignments without just posting them. One simple way was to create a “day assignment” that included all teachers the student had.  This highlights the challenges schools face; what’s too much & what’s not enough?  

Quality comes from two directions: staff has to work as a team and be willing to listen to students.  We no longer have a CAPTIVE audience locked in a classroom so we have no choice.  Are there potential software tools we can use, sure but we must protect the human side of communication.  Students get feedback and communication from digital tools everyday but its not personal and quality can be debated.

BC: Despite what we are experiencing right now we have a great opportunity here to make some real, robust changes in schooling as well. We have to be careful not to end up using places like Google Classroom to do what school has looked like for too many years but just do it online instead. Let’s get students learning what they want to learn about more often. We know that when anyone is learning about something they are passionate about they will focus more, spend more time, and have more incentive to do quality work. Now they have motivation to improve reading, writing and math skills so they can share their learning AND if they collaborate with others they build a support system of collaborators that learn from each other as they go.

JK: What a great way of saying that. Do what school has been…just now in Google Classroom.  You are right.  This is our chance to not just throw a new coat of paint on the house but to remodel it.  And in remodeling we are not totally destroying what is there but reimaging what we can do.

  1. What does quality interaction look like when using tools like youtube, blogs, social media, etc.

BC: Besides the ability of posting work to the world, these applications open up the possibility of collaborating with and learning with the world of learners out there. Instead of just having access to immediate classmates as collaborators, now collaborators are available globally. Teachers, again have to be there as guides and moderators (and parents and other community members have a role here too) and be ready to note when a student needs skill  support or connection support or idea support and more, but teachers have always had those roles, now they’ll just happen in other venues and timeframes. And note, now a student’s address is less important because when collaborators are global the effects of where you live and socio-economic levels get blurred. I’ve lived this in my own classroom, where my at-risk, second language learner students often were pushed by their collaborators from around the world to deeper understandings and vocabulary and language skills. And when you engage globally lots of unintended learning takes place … time zones, and seasons, and weather patterns, and customs, and flora and fauna, and a whole plethora of other knowledge creeps in.

JK:  Opening students work up to the world and more collaborators is so important.  If we look at what the COVID19 issue has shown usat a professional level; we have the tools to connect remotely but overall there are alot of us that aren’t very good at it.  Working connected, while apart is the skill that our children are going to need for their future.  

The fear of something bad being commented must not keep us from exploring and using the moments to learn.  Using safety features to help moderate comments and chats will help and the possibility o f messy learning is why we should explore.  Students come across inappropriate communication in lots of social media but are often at a loss on how to appropriately deal with it.  This is where real learning can happen to create a more skilled generation.

BC: Part of not being very good at it is the intimidation many feel about using applications, but also what could go wrong and then who is responsible. The time issue for many, that sense that they don’t have time for this, that it will take them away from “covering” all the curriculum they’re supposed to cover (for THE TEST) – like this kind of learning is only an extra piece instead of learning that is really important, so we don’t have time for this added on piece. In addition, many, many educators don’t feel they REALLY have “permission” to go there despite what the administration says. Some feel their students know more about these technology pieces and they’ll look bad or students will take advantage. We have to get past all of this. Imagine doctors feeling their patients knew more about medicine than they do. You have to stay up to date on all the new tools in your field and educators have not been put in a good position to do that based on “accountability,” time and access to technology (and more). So this situation as bad as it is may have the silver lining of educators getting more acquainted with the tech and in some cases more access to tech that makes connected learning doable and powerful.

  1. What positive impacts could be realized and carried over from this experience for teachers and students after students are back in the classroom?

JK.  We never know what we are capable of until we are pushed out of our comfort zones.  COVID19 took teachers, schools and education instantly from the question of: What can technology tools do for schools to how do we use all these tools to reach students?  Lots of pieces of the education process had been reluctant to try or use or implement tools that had amazing potential as it might upset the apple cart of traditional education.  So what now, what can be carried over?  I think the vast amount of experience has shown a taste of possibilities to not only students but educators.  As a result we know we need training to effectively use some of these tools past just screen time.  We also have all the new questions about equity and access to work to answer as well.  One thing to me that is very clear is that it should be clear that just going back to what we did isn’t enough.  We have lots of new exciting ways to explore how we evolve education for sure.

BC: When first stepping into collaborative technology use I often suggest to educators to make some fairly simple connections to attain some experience and competence in utilizing it as a learning platform. Too often though, I see teachers using video-conferencing to do 10 to 50 “Mystery Conference Calls” a year around the country and not much else. Those kinds of calls are fine, especially to gain experience, that’s basically what I did (same with blogging and other social media), but if that’s more or less all you do with video-conferencing or blogging, YouTube, etc. you’re missing the point. 

Educators have not embraced technology as a powerful learning tool for a number of reasons, fear, access, school policies, and more. But one of the biggest factors that drives those impediments has been lack of experience with the tools. One thing this Covid-19 experience has given us is more experience with the tools of collaboration along with more access to them and “permission to use them” because we were forced into it. Many of those experiences were not quality learning experiences, but mostly to “fill-in” during an unprecedented time. So when we get back into the classroom we should leverage the experience we’ve attained and now focus on how we can connect outside our own classrooms and schools and realize the powerful learning that makes accessible.

Studying a topic in history, science, literature, really anything? Connect with an expert anywhere and have them teach your students and answer questions or mentor a project or share data. Connect with students in a part of the world you’re studying and have them tell what it is like to live there. We used to use Google Earth to visit the locations of books we were reading, or the pyramids, or a volcano and so much more. We were reading a book that takes place in Saskatchewan, Canada, so we found a school there and video-conferenced with them about the locations in the book as we zoomed in on them with Google Earth. We also then learned about climate and culture and history of the area even though that wasn’t the main reason we were connecting. We sometimes did the same science experiment (sometimes live) in each other’s classrooms to see if location makes a difference in the result. Just collaborating in your classroom doesn’t require the tech, use the tech to get out into the world and find a plethora of collaborators.

This would be a major take-away that could be realized from this experience.

JK.  There is no turning back now.  You are so right, when we step back into the classroom, set goals as to how we will continue to find ways to share and work together.  Model, model, model and model some more.  Take your experience and build.  We can work together to be ready for all that education is becoming.

JK. Thank you Brian, your perspective is thoughtful and important.  I appreciate you joining me on this adventure.

BC. Thank you James for the opportunity. Will be interesting to see how things unfold from here.

Brian Crosby http://www.learningismessy.com/

James Kapptie https://ourchildrenarecalling.blogspot.com/

BIOS: 

Brian has been an educator for 38 years. 30+ years as a classroom teacher and more recently as the K-12 STEM Learning Facilitator for northwest Nevada. He has co-written a book on blogging, Making Connections With Blogging and maintains the blog Learning Is Messy: learningismessy.com Twitter: @bcrosby

James is a 20 year classroom veteran.  His experience includes Middle and High School, Administration, Technology Director, Education speaker and consultant, and Computer Science and “Purposeful Technology” Evangelist.  Creator of #wyoedchat.

What Happened to the Potential of Social Media in Education?

A post that happens when Twitter isn't enough

Dean Shareski posted this to Twitter (SM = Social Media):

Read the thread of comments (it’s worth a minute or 2) by following the link.

I’ve written a bit about this before, and ironically that post from 8 years ago also involved Dean (Who’da Thunk?).

Dean is right, when this social media thing was new and all, some of us saw a powerful potential for it’s use in the classroom and beyond as a thoughtful, motivating and powerful way to connect our students with each other, and experts, and locations, and learning that hadn’t been very accessible before. Now they were available, and they were available on a global scale. Time zones were pretty much the major obstacle (and fear for some, really many I guess). I co-wrote a book about what we had learned along the way because we found it was pretty much as awesome as we thought it would be.

Many of us sang the praises of blogging and Twitter and Flickr and Skype and Facebook (except it was usually blocked even more often than the others). We’d encourage and almost demand that those attending presentations we were giving sign up for Twitter … RIGHT NOW! …. and provide the screenshots to follow and time to sign up. This was such an powerful tool we had to evangelize to the world about it.

So what happened? Plenty of good things happened. Many teachers made those connections and shared learning experiences that were leveraged by the use of online tools. Blogging was my favorite because a blog can be writing, but also photos, video clips, podcasts, and more … and the photos could be of student artwork field trips, math …. any subject. My class connected with Dean a few times when he was working with teachers in Canada … but we danced with students in New Zealand, performed experiments with classrooms around the world, shared guest speakers and much, much more.

So what didn’t happen? Plenty. Among the things that didn’t happen was what usually happens in education – a lack of professional development, especially for those that needed more support and experience to see the value. Just doing “technology” isn’t where the value is, but that is where schools/education in general tended to go … the message too many get is that just by doing school on a computer will bring the change we are looking for … so not true.

Fear was and is big – will the boogey-man get me or my students and will I get in trouble? Access – to the internet, to technology (well the lack of access really) is and was a roadblock. Time, in reality, but also the perception of lack of time for all this stuff stops many from gaining the experience necessary. A very demanding, narrowed and scripted curriculum that does not lend itself to integration, going deep and being thoughtful … that happened big time.

I think the potential is still there. It just needs a re-birth of sorts. At least more of us know the nuts and bolts of getting online and setting up accounts and some safety concerns. Perhaps now the focus needs to shift to the powerful collaboration, connecting, editing, sharing between our students about important things (not mostly bopping around via video-conferencing to figure out where someone’s school is) that these tools provide us. Share science data, stories, poetry, how to do things, art projects, robot designs and so much more … and take the time to do them well and even the time to re-edit and re-present. Then have conversations about them in the comments … and teach students how to have the positive, supportive discourse that makes it powerful and the world a better place.

There’s lots more to say about this, its a very important discussion that should be ongoing … maybe we can have some of that discussion in the comments here (or on Twitter or elsewhere). I’m out of time for now. I hope this continued Dean’s Tweet conversation in a meaningful way.

Learning is messy!

NASA’s SOFIA Flight 9-25-17

My Excellent Adventure!

My flight on SOFIA went off last Monday, but not without a few hiccups. During our mission briefing before the flight, it was explained that our flight path, originally scheduled to head up into Canada, was now headed out near Hawaii. SOFIAPath I’m not clear on all the reasons it changed. We had 5 or 6 targets during the mission … the flight path is designed to get the 2.5 meter wide telescope that is embedded in the side of the 747 pointed in the right direction for each target.

Not long after we boarded I was told I’d been chosen to sit in the cockpit with the pilots during takeoff. It was a wondrous experience! Our takeoff was delayed however because the telescope operators were having problems getting some of the instrumentation to turn on … no use taking-off if the telescope wasn’t working. I was up in the cockpit, but my comrades down below told me later that I missed this incredible problem solving effort by the entire team.

IMG_0936

One of the highlights of the 10 hour flight was talking with Chao-Wei Tsai, a scientist from UCLA who was on the flight to study a super massive black hole. IMG_0970

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later in the flight I was able to sit with Samuel Richards IMG_0996 who was one of the telescope operators that night.  During our conversation they lost a connection to the telescope and I watched as he and his assistant (and the rest of the team) problem solved the issue. Window after window of computer code was opened and checked … occasionally a line of code was edited until they found the problem lines of code and they were back online … what was awesome was how everyone communicated and stayed calm under the pressure of getting the telescope back online. Getting your chance to use the telescope is beyond highly competitive, and if things go wrong getting another chance to fly is somewhat problematic.

Here are more photos and videos taken before and during the flight by me and other members of our group.

SOFIA took off today to position itself to chase the shadow of Neptune’s moon Triton on Thursday. More about that soon. Much more to tell here about my experience than I have time to write about. Hope to share more later.

Learning is messy!

Chasing Triton’s Shadow – Neptune’s Moon Will Cast Shadow on Earth

SOFIA can travel where the action is

A few weeks back I travelled with a NASA sponsored team to Idaho to launch high altitude balloons during the recent total eclipse. We sent up various cameras, data recorders and more (even an Idaho potato) to record data and media at high altitude during totality (being up above any possible weather or smoke is an added bonus). We travelled to Idaho from Reno and Las Vegas because that was where totality would occur. We only would have experienced a partial eclipse if we’d stayed home and would have missed out on important data you can only record during totality. Since then we have shared almost all the data and media we recorded and will continue to do so.

Partly because of that experience (and other NASA projects I’ve been allowed to be part of), my experience with the RECON project and because my job requires me to have a social media presence and share resources and experiences via those connections, NASA recruited me to take a flight on SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy). My flight is scheduled for September 25th – here’s the observation plan for that night. Needless to say I’m thrilled and honored to have this opportunity!

SOFIA over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

I’ve been told we will takeoff about 7:00 PM and not land until 5:00 AM the next morning, so 10 hours in air.

SOFIA’s infrared telescope weighs in at 19 tons (38,000 pounds) and was built in Germany.

SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP. Note the large door in it’s side that when open exposes a 2.5 meter (100 inch) wide reflecting infrared telescope to the sky.

So why put a telescope in a 747 and fly all night recording data? Seems expensive for something you can do on the ground from much larger telescopes.

SOFIA generally flies between 12,000 and 13,000 meters (39,000 and 43,000 feet), and that is important. It’s important because at those altitudes you are above most of the Earth’s atmosphere and humidity. The “Twinkling” of the stars in the sky experienced from the ground is caused by the starlight traveling through the atmosphere’s humidity and variations in temperature. You are also above clouds, most air pollution and other factors (like bad weather) that limit grounded telescopes from obtaining a clear view (also why the Hubble space telescope gets such awesome observations even though it is much smaller that many ground based telescopes on Earth).

A huge advantage SOFIA has over ground based telescopes is that it can go where the action is  – like when it travelled to New Zealand to capture Pluto’s occultation of a star

 

 

 

ANNNND it will travel to the US east coast on October 5th to Chase Triton’s Shadow over the Atlantic Ocean.

From SOFIA’s media outlet: “As Neptune’s moon Triton passes in front of a distant star, it will cast a faint shadow on Earth’s surface. The team of researchers will carefully map the path of that shadow and then fly into it to study Triton’s atmosphere, directly, for the first time in 15 years. SOFIA will takeoff from Florida to catch the shadow that will fall over the Atlantic Ocean. The shadow is moving; the plane is moving; and the predicted path may change in flight, making catching the shadow very challenging. Researchers are trying to determine if Triton’s atmosphere is expanding or collapsing and if haze last seen by the Voyager mission is still present.” triton-final[1][1][1] (link to flyer)

I won’t be on the flight chasing Triton’s shadow (it happens over a week later than mine), but that gives me the opportunity to pass on what I learn about SOFIA in preparation for the October 5th flight. I will be presenting about Chasing Triton’s Shadow and SOFIA locally in Reno and I’m available to visit local schools and even video-conference in pretty much anywhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ll be adding more posts about SOFIA soon and you can follow me on Twitter @bcrosby. I’ll be uploading photos to FLICKR as well, I’ll post the link when I post photos.

Learning is messy!

 

 

 

 

 

2017 Math & Science Institute – for teachers

In New Orleans ... and it's FREE!

Earlier this year I agreed to lead two grant funded STEM professional development courses for teachers sponsored by Metairie Park Country Day School, June 7th, 8th and 9th, 2017. The courses will be held at Tulane University in New Orleans as part of the 2017 Math & Science Institute. AND NOTE THIS – You just have to get there – tuition is FREE! (note the flyer to the right for more information). Note: private school teachers have to pay $149 per course.

Each course is about 6 hours long spread over the 3 days (2 hours per day, per course). Here’s a page with all the course descriptions.

I’ll be teaching 2 courses: “Powerful, Connected, Collaborative and Global STEM Learning” and “STEM: Hands-on, Minds-on, Creativity-on”

From the online course description:

STEM: Hands-On, Minds-On, Creativity-On is a six-hour course designed to help teachers integrate powerful STEM learning with a focus on engaging, hands-on engineering lessons. Participants will not only experience the lessons firsthand, but also how to collect and analyze the rich data the lessons produce. Strong connections to science, language arts, technology, art, the Next Generation Science Standards and three dimensional learning will be included. Most lesson activities utilize easily obtained materials.

Powerful, Connected, Collaborative, Global, STEM Learning is a six-hour course designed to allow you to see how the power of STEM inquiry projects are leveraged when students are connected and collaborate globally.

There are several Common Core State Standards that require students to utilize technology to collaborate starting in elementary school. This course will provide hands-on engineering lessons and phenomena – coupled with free or cheap collaborative online tools that promote sharing and analyzing data, explanations, global awareness and much more. Participants and their students will learn to collaborate and share through powerful writing, oral language, photography, math, art and other media. Online safety and ethics will be featured.

Check out the 2017 Math & Science Institute home page to see all the courses being offered.

Hope to see you there!

Learning is messy!

WyTECC Keynote

STEM Is A Culture, Not a Time of Day or Day of the Week

So much going on right now so my plans to blog more often have taken another hit. One of the things going on that I’m really looking forward to is my participation in the Wyoming Technology Engagement Curriculum Connection (WyTECC) in Rock Springs, Wyoming in early May. May 6th to be exact.

 

I’ll be providing the keynote and 2 to 3 breakout sessions. They asked for a “STEM-ish” theme so I’m redesigning my “STEM Is A Culture, Not a Time of Day or Day of the Week” presentation and plan to build in more STEM experiences. My sessions will focus on STEM inquiry and the important parts that get left out too often because the activity is engaging, the students get excited, time runs short and we skip the parts that really make STEM learning powerful.

Hope to see you there!

Learning is messy!

Underwater and Aerial Vehicles – Pyramid Lake Edition

It was a crisp and glorious day at Pyramid Lake...

Above: Panorama of Pyramid Lake including the Tufa formations “Stone Mother” and the Pyramid that gives the lake it’s name. Note the people on the beach between the formations for a scale of size.

Between a busy work and holiday schedule, and a bout of aggressive bronchitis, I’m late with some posts – this is one of them … and it’s an experience worth sharing! First I want to thank the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe for giving us special permission to visit this special and sacred part of the Pyramid Lake shore to “test drive” our OpenROV 2.8’s and fly Phantom 3 Professional aerial robots as well.

Back in October we were supposed to put the underwater robots the teachers had painstakingly assembled into the crystal clear water of Lake Tahoe to further test them and learn piloting skills. However, that day got “weathered out” by rain and high winds. The next time we could schedule a meet-up was December 3rd. It was a crisp and glorious day at Pyramid Lake. We met at the turn-off from the highway to the dirt road that leads out to the spot in the photo above. Besides the teachers having this opportunity, Trevor Galvin a math teacher at Pyramid Lake Middle and High School is part of our class and he brought along some current and past students and a few others’ students showed up as well.

Here’s how a local TV report explained the day:

The OpenROV’s have a built-in camera and the water was much clearer than we expected: 

 

 

 

Algae covered tufa formations and lake bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the bright sunlight the computer screens were hard to see, so when one of the students reported that he could see something floating in the water straight ahead we told him to take pictures  so we could see it later. Turns out it was a large sacred Cui-ui fish:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And next another student piloted 2.8 caught a Lahontan Cutthroat Trout:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the meantime Kirk Ellern was flying the Phantom 3 Professional drones the teachers had been trained in (and so were teachers and students) with the goal of photo/video archiving the experience and the area in aerial video. Kirk produced this video of the day, but more to come:


I’ll be posting more about classroom visits I’m making with the teachers in the grant from their classrooms.

Here’s a link to a Flickr album from the day.

Learning is messy!

EduCon 2.9 – 2017 – Innovate or Die vs. Innovate and Die

Kevin Jarrett and I are teaming up for a robust conversation

Innovate or Die vs. Innovate and Die: How to Cultivate a Classroom Culture of Innovation Despite the Odds and Risks to your Career

Above is the title to the session conversation, and I do mean conversation, NOT presentation, Kevin Jarrett and I will facilitate during EduCon 2.9 in Philadelphia. I’ve only been to one EduCon (2.2) because of my schedule it always seems to elude me. I led a conversation then entitled “Elementary School In The 21st Century, How Does The Pedagogy Change? What Does That School Look Like?”. Doug Taylor, an oft time co-conspirator of mine co-facilitated that day.

Kevin and I both (like so many others) seethe at the slow pace of innovation and change in education. Below is the text from the EduCon 2.9 web site about the session. Come be a participant in the conversation:

Saturday, January 28, 2017 – SESSION 2 – 1:00 – 2:30 – Room 208

Brian Crosby, Kevin Jarrett — Brian Crosby – Pre-K – 12 STEM Learning Facilitator, Nevada’s Northwest Regional Professional Development Program; Kevin Jarrett – STEAM teacher at Northfield Community Middle School

A discussion of the productive tensions facing innovators at all levels of leadership, formal to informal, classroom to central office, as they dare to advance new ideas and transform professional practices, often despite seemingly insurmountable organizational inertia and even hostile political environments. Kevin and Brian will use their personal experiences as the starting point for the group’s exploration of “typical” (and not-so-typical) challenges facing those who willingly disregard the status quo in pursuit of what’s best for kids.

The basic gist is this: great teachers want to innovate; how do they do so, and how far do they go, without potentially angering colleagues, administrators and clients and destroying their careers?

What does / could / should innovation look like?

How and can we make innovation happen?

Who needs permission?

How do we get this message to, “The leaders that will lead us to this?”

What examples do we have that this works?

How do we effectively promote innovative classrooms / schools / districts doing this already?

How do you grow seeds of innovation into more than isolated pockets of innovation, in a world where ‘accountability’ and data are more of a focus than ever before?

Since much of what this looks like defies easy measurement, what measures CAN we use?

Conversational Practice

This will be a conversation that embraces the adage that, “The smartest person in the room is the room itself.” Kevin and Brian will take on the role of facilitators, and while they will add to the conversation, their goal will be to incite the participants in the room to explore the productive tensions in the room. A private wiki will be used to gather thoughts and compile summary observations. In addition, we plan to use the ‘Sucks vs. Rocks’ methodology, described by Darren Kuropatwa here: http://adifference.blogspot.com/2014/10/assessment-rocks-and-sucks.html

Conversation Links

http://www.learningismessy.com

http://about.me/kjarrett

 Learning is messy!

New STEM Lessons / Activities Wiki

STEMLessonsActivities

 

Per request I recently set up a new wiki page as a kind of “clearinghouse” of the different STEM lessons and activities I write about on this blog and elsewhere to make them easier to find. I’ll update it regularly and perhaps add support links for the different lessons as well. There is also a link to the wiki on this blog under the link at the top of this page “STEM Lessons/Activities.”

Learning is messy!