Although Don says that there's no plan for an innovation class, he shares a great description of how a typical week in his classroom runs and the expectations he has for his students. After reading this chapter, do you have ideas of how you could implement an innovation project or genius hour into your classroom? Or maybe you have ideas of some baby steps to adding innovation to your classroom. Please share those.
For next week, please read "Six Building Blocks of Innovative Learning."
Just finished watching the TED talk....very interesting. One thing that I keep wondering after reading chapter 3, reading others comments, and now after watching the TED talk - Is this as simple as teaching our kids to think, or is part of the struggle students have when faced with freedom more about who each student truly is? As a parent, I would love to see all three of our kids experience an "Innovation Class". However, I am certain that given the exact same opportunity, there would be three completely different outcomes.
ReplyDeleteOur oldest daughter, Jordyn, would thrive. She is all about changing the world. The only barrier she would encounter with the way Don sets up his class is the way to earn an A. She would be one of those examples in the TED talk of an external motivator being an idea killer.
Our son, Luke, would love the idea of the class and is probably the most creative of our kids, but would struggle to come up with something he is truly passionate about AND that is possible. He comes up with lots of crazy ideas that cause us to laugh or shake our heads before we categorize the idea as one more thing that can only happen in "Lukey's World". He would probably require a teacher willing to give him the first or second project idea before he could transition to creating his own. And, he would likely drive his teacher crazy throughout the entire semester with his willingness to share all of his crazy ideas but his limited ability to focus and structure his time well enough to make those ideas happen.
Our youngest? I am not sure how Cambryn would handle an Innovation Class. I am confident she would meet the criteria to earn an A, but I am not sure how much passion would be involved. She would likely be that student Don and some of you have discussed - she would prefer that you give her a defined task, and she will get it done for you. Requiring her to come up with her own idea would likely cause a lot of frustration initially. She would thrive more with researching and learning more about a topic rather than identifying a problem to solve.
So, I still love the idea of all students having the experience, and I think our middle school already has the perfect set up to make this happen through our enrichment classes. However, I think we would have to be prepared for a variety of student responses and maybe even consider different Innovation Class options to address the various learning styles/personalities of our students - "Intro to Innovation" for students who need someone else to generate ideas for them and give them a higher level of guidance, "Advanced Innovation" for those students who already have an idea and the beginnings of a plan, and "Innovation Research" for those students not ready to tackle a problem, but enjoy researching topics and educating others about those topics. If we could pull this off at the middle school level, perhaps it could be a pass/fail system rather than a traditional letter grade to allow students to "fail" without feeling like they failed by earning just a B or C rather than an A.
I like your idea of having the different types of innovation courses. I would be that student that would struggle coming up with an idea. Once I got going, it would be great, but I would need a little "coaching" and assurance along the way. The MS could offer these different innovation courses during enrichment period and students could move through the courses throughout the year.
DeleteKendra. I think the different options is a great idea. I can definitely see it as an offering in the middle school, but would also be interested in seeing it as an elective in the high school.
DeleteI'm thinking more on the lines of starting with a project where I can give the set-up and some generalize instructions but allow the students to be creative in the approach. I want to give students a chance to experience cooperative learning, research, creative thinking and success/failure..in addition to tackling all the standards and being successful on the end of the year test. I like the idea of a blended approach with the traditional methods and the more innovative methods.
ReplyDeleteWe do have some innovation courses and groups at SW. Greg Schneider's class where the students are working on projects to better the Hanover community came to mind as I was finishing this chapter. I also thought about the new extra curricular group created this year, Rebels With A Cause.
ReplyDeleteFor what I teach, the Probability and Statistics course is a perfect place to try to introduce the 20% time. I usually have the students do some sort of research project at the end of the course to summarize and use all the different math concepts they learned throughout the semester. However, I usually give them project ideas or the students have done simple surveys. The surveys are usually topics they are not passionate about and we don't do any follow up with the data and analysis.
The course is only one semester and we still have many new math concepts to learn. My goal is to still have one cumulative project at the end, but the students will work on it and develop it throughout the course as we move through the chapters. We can start the course by brainstorming so students can get some ideas on what they want to research. As we move through the chapters, students can redefine their projects and add and subtract ideas as they learn the different techniques of collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. I can't dedicate a class period per week to the project, but I could easily dedicate one day per chapter. When we finish learning all the material at the end of the course, students would then have dedicated time to carrying out and finishing their projects.
Also, I have talked with Greg Schneider about our students working together on some of the projects he has started such as the Community Calf Project. Some of my students and his students may want to pair together to work on a project.
As I continue to read Pure Genius this summer, I hope to gain more ideas to help make this an exiting math course that students want to take.
Greg will be joining us in this group once he gets back from vacation. I look forward to how he addresses this question.
DeleteI loved how chapter three took us through one example of how of "set up". Also love the idea that failure is a necessary part of success. We often talk about student "ownership" of education, and wonder if this is one positive way of approaching it. I'm somehow envisioning using this in Spanish III where students pick a topic that they are passionate about, and then focus on learning the vocabulary, grammar, and culture necessary to communicate well on this topic. It might be problem based, but might be "simply" communication based. I can see us brainstorming for a bit the first few Mondays, and then dedicating our Fridays to making the program work. I'd love to see his rubrics or checklists for grading.
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ReplyDeleteI'm very please to see how everyone is thinking of ways to make this work in your classrooms...looking at ways that it won't add extra work, but will enhance something that you are already doing. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteIf you are haven't posted iyet/in a while, please try to catch up. The discussions work better when everyone is on the same chapter at the same time.
One of the aspects of teaching the Service Learning class that was most challenging for me as the teacher was remembering what it was like to be a teenager. I naturally looked at the students’ projects from the perspective of a middle aged adult with all associated life experiences - good, bad and ugly. Many of my students found themselves thrust into this role of greatness without any preparation or prior life lessons. They have always been told what to do and what to think. All that was ever really expected was simply that they show up. Someone else always did the heavy lifting. Where the roadmap was clear to me, in the beginning, the students usually saw only confusion and frustration.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of having small, low stakes projects in the beginning to teach how to achieve success and, even more importantly, shrug off failure. I pointed out to my students that Ty Cobbs still holds the highest batting average in major league baseball. His batting average is .344. This means that 65% of the time, he struck out. The key to his success, besides the obvious skill and talent, was his willingness to shrug off the failure and continue swinging the bat.
It was actually my “middle of the road” students that embraced the class most quickly. High achieving students were frightened by the prospect of failure. Low achieving students did not care that they failed. I had plenty of “optional experiences” where students could earn extra credit. These were usually Saturday trips to tour examples of projects in other schools/communities, working with the My Community, My Vision project or staying after school to assist their peers with their projects. These experiences helped bolster confidence by giving them insights into how other people were finding solutions. Often times it is easier to learn while you are just an anonymous support staff person as opposed to the main show.
“How many people have ever gotten a Polar Pop at Circle K and when you went to leave, you pushed on the door and it would not open?” All students raise their hands. “How many of you had to wait for someone to show you that you needed to pull the door open?” No one raises their hands. “See? You’re here with us today, so I know you have all the right problem solving skills” Simple, but true. Sometimes you have to build on the small successes!
The more I read the book the more excited I get for next year. I compare no plan chapter to my life as a kid. Without technology I always had to improvise when playing outside especially as an only child. Even with that example I struggle with the notion of no plan. I love being prepared as a teacher and coach. I would just like some of the above comments have some kind of guidelines so I could least feel comfortable and guide them to great projects.
ReplyDeleteRobert..I'm glad that this book has stemmed some excitement. Maybe you can be our middle school innovation leader. I would be happy to help!
DeleteAs I read Ch. 3, I appreciated the suggestions that Don provided based on his trial and error experiences. To me, it was clear that he has attempted to improve the process from year to year. I appreciated his willingness to share the mistakes he's made as well as the reasons that specific guidelines didn't work for his class. His guidance will help us brainstorm potential guidelines and save us from making similar mistakes.
ReplyDeleteIn our current schedule/system, I think we would have to start by offering an innovation club as an extra-curricular option. We tried a similar idea this past year by offering the Maverick Challenge as a club. An innovation club could be comparable; there just wouldn't be a business plan as part of the project.
Great idea Keri...some school libraries are developing "maker spaces". Have you heard of this? Maybe your librarian might be interested in incorporating an innovation club/maker space.
DeleteI have heard of maker spaces. I'm sure we have teachers who would be interested in exploring this idea. There's actually a Maker's Faire in Louisville in a couple months. I think there's also one in Bloomington soon. I'd like to check them out just to see the possibilities.
ReplyDeleteKeri..can you share the details about the Maker's Faire? I might try to attend one.
DeleteAll the information I have is from a Facebook page titled "Maker Faire Louisville"...I don't know anything other than what's on the Facebook page.
ReplyDeleteI got a flyer about the Bloomington Faire when I went to an eLearning event last month. It's at the office, but I'll look at it when I go in next week.