Sunday, August 23, 2015
Looking for feedback on staff maker activity
This Thursday Greg Young will be joining our staff to lead K-6 teachers in an approximately two hour maker task. The goal is to have teachers experience tinkering/making and get excited about possibilities for their own classrooms. We will spend the rest of the day looking at the NGSS Engineering standards and having work time to find/develop prompts and activities that align with their curriculum. I am so very aware that teachers have a million things to do (always...) but especially the week before school starts so I want to make this a valuable and practical use of their time. I would like feedback on how useful folks have found it to be to be engaged in a maker prompt, even a random one, for a couple of hours. Has it informed your instruction? Has anyone tried it with staff? Should Greg and I try to choose a task that has a specific elementary curriculum connection as a model for what teachers could do or just focus on the process of making in and of itself? Thanks!!
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I like the idea of having the teachers actually do a maker task as part of the learning process and maybe talking about the process as they work. Makes it more relevant if they are actually doing something they can then take back to their classrooms and have the students do.
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ReplyDeleteEllen - your ideas around this have come to a deeper fruition since our conversations at CML. It is still an issue on my brain too - how to connect the NGSS to the maker activities? I have thought about asking the older students to engage with the KPS1 standard and create push/pull machines for the K to use. Maybe that would be fun to ask the faculty to do- it simply has to engage a push or a pull to propel an object a certain distance, and be measurable with relatively repeatable consistency. Then the K teachers could use it when they cover the standard.
ReplyDeleteNeat idea! I'm going to talk it over with Greg. Thanks!
DeleteEllen,
ReplyDeleteI agree this time of year is a challenge, as classroom teachers are thinking about all the things they need to do to get ready for kids. I have had a more challenging time over the last two years getting buy in on arts integration and I find that coming in with connections they can see an immediate benefit from is at least a way to get them in the door. I keep thinking and am starting to say when I hear classroom teachers say there isn't enough time for science and social studies because of the amount of time they need for literacy and math that now more than ever we need to look for ways to integrate multiple disciplines at one time. Kids are more engaged and it can be done in a way that nothing comes up short changed. I integrated with a 5th grade teacher on Eco-Columns a new NGSS unit. She was feeling a little overwhelmed with yet another new initiative/unit, but we (together) created a very engaging unit. I would say any connections you create that they can see helping them with any new or perhaps tired projects/units they must teach would be very helpful and a good use of their time:-)
Agreed! Even though we have different "positions" at school I feel we are on a similar journey. Ever since toy hacking....
DeleteLisa and Ellen
ReplyDeleteLet's debrief this after the event. I've been having many discussions about this with educators and there are many approaches and outcome possibilities.