LAUNCH: Global Day of Design

My favorite days of teaching are hands-down the days that students are creating.  Maybe it's the STEM teacher in me or perhaps I'm obsessed with helping my students find their Ikigai.  It just so happened, our last day of AIR Testing landed on Global Day of Design.  I took this opportunity to pitch an idea to my team: LETS LAUNCH A PROJECT ON A LARGE SCALE... FOR 2 DAYS!!  They all said yes!!

If you are not familiar with Global Day of Design, here are two videos by the creators of the day (and authors of Empower), John Spencer and A.J. Juliani:

• Global Design Day
• Launch Cycle Video

In the days leading up to Global Day of Design, I surveyed my students asking them one simple questions: If you could build ANYTHING in school, what would it be?

Their responses fell into nine categories.  Once I had the idea groupings, I explained the plan to my students and had them take another survey specifically what project they wanted to work on.  Here is the Global Day of Design Options/Planning doc I shared with the students.  To say the kiddos were excited was an understatement.  They were ecstatic!  It was infectious, I couldn't wait to see what they would create.  At a team meeting, I asked the 6th grade teachers to choose a category and shared the students responses.  What shocked me was that the teachers were beginning to get excited about the event as well.

Once the groups were made, I shared the responses with my team and the teachers began gathering supplies or enlisting the help of the students to gather supplies for the day.  It was awesome!  Everyone made something and everyone enjoyed themselves.  The students were so empowered by the event.  So many students commented on how great it was to work on something of their choosing. 

Before they could begin creating, the students needed to create a design/plan and share it with the teacher in the room.  From there, they were let loose.  At the end of each day, the groups spent the last 15-20 minutes sharing their work, successes, and challenges they were having.  The feedback given by other classmates was phenomenal!  The students really listened to their peers and gave fantastic suggestions for improvements or possible solutions to each project's roadblocks. 

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the days:

Building Jewelry boxes for Mothers' Day

Building a Foosball Table

"Launching" an Airplane

Cardboard Creators in the Makerspace

New Lounge Chair

Young Authors

Tie-Dye School Spirit!

Melted Crayon Art

Building a Dog House

Mr. Weaver might have had more fun than the kids.

Creating Video Games

Making Boxes

Plans for a Pulley-System/Elevator

Our LAUNCH Projects made a FANTASTIC display at the Barnes and Noble Book Fair the next day.

LAUNCH: Robotics Project

For the last four years, I have been working with my 6th grade students on a robotics project.  When we started the project, I had very limited understanding of how to use EV3 robots.  Each year I learn a little more, but I have never reached the level of expertise my students display on a daily during this project.  In the past, my partner, Melanie Carr, and I have built and designed projects for the students to work on.  While the project evolved over time, we still felt something was missing.  The students always loved the project and they were always very engaged, but it never felt like they connected with the challenge.

This year, we decided to turn our robotics project into a LAUNCH project.  Instead of giving the students a challenge to solve, we had them choose the project and determine how to use a robot to solve the problem. 

Here is a brief summary of our LAUNCH:

L (Look, Listen, Learn) - We began this unit as we always do with a Creative Thinking Task that requires students examine a list of household items and determine if they are robots or not.  After they have made their decisions, we give the students a rubric to judge what makes certain appliances robots and allow the students to change their answers.  We follow this activity with a discussion of what makes a robot and the thinking strategies used to complete this activity.  Next, we provide the students with two tasks to learn and practice basic EV3 programming tasks.  Now it's time to launch.  After learning what a robot is and how to operate an EV3 robot, we ask the students to brainstorm problems they see in their daily lives and how they might solve them.  

A (Ask Tons of Questions) - Once the students completed their brainstorming session, we had them look at their lists and reflect on which solutions might require use of a robot. In teams, the students selected one problem and brainstormed a list of ways to solve the problem.  They researched work others were doing to solve the problem they selected.  

U (Understand the Problem or Process) - The students attacked their problems and documented their work in their Engineering Design Notebooks using the Engineering Design Process to guide their reflections.

N (Navigate Ideas) - The students examined their solutions and selected the one they thought was most effective.  They scrutinized the "cost", time, and feasibility of their solutions to determine which solution method they would build and solve through the use of robotics.

C (Create a Prototype) - Nest, the students build simulations for their robots to perform in order demonstrate their solution.  Once their simulations were built, the students built and programmed an EV3 robot to complete the task.

H(Highlight and Fix) - At the end of each session, the students spend 10-15 minutes reflecting on their progress.  They described their work for the day, what successes their teams had, what hiccups they encountered, and wrote a plan for their next robotics session.  When the teams had completed their challenge, they shared them with the class and gave constructive feedback to other teams.

We had never gotten this level of excitement or successful outcomes in past projects.  The students truly cared about their challenges in ways they have not before.  The students chose problems ranging from opening a combination lock (a huge problem for 6th graders) to watering plants while on vacation to putting out building fires.  As a result, we have begun to look at all of our challenges and are working to find ways to add more student choice in the "What's the Problem" phase of our STEM Challenges.

The next time we do this project with our students, we will spend more time in the brainstorming and design steps of the process.  We will have students spend more time examining problems they see in their daily lives and arrange groups based on similar passions vs. comfort level with the programming software.  

An Engaging Environment for Problem Finders

During the summer of 2015, I participated in the RET program at the University of Cincinnati.  I conducted my research with an electrical engineer researching innovative ways to introduce cryptography to middle and high school students.  One day, during a research session, he made a comment that stuck with me.  He said, the problem with the students we are getting is not that they can't solve problems, they don't know how to find the problem first.  He claimed that while employers appreciate a person who can solve a problem, they are looking for a more autonomous employee, one that can find the problem then solve it without direction.

Over the past few years, I have helped my students determine problems and design solutions through a reflective process.  However, I have not given them full rein of their learning.  I feel good about the differentiation I provide students through a self-paced four quadrant approach (for more information, check out the presentation our awesome Intervention Specialist, Amy Smart, and I used at the 2017 High AIMS Summer Institute), but still something is missing. After reading George Couros' 8 characteristics of an innovator's mindset (see graphic below), I find that my students will be far more engaged in the work they are doing if they are the problem finders, not just problem solvers.

Carol Ann Tomlinson's five key aspects of differentiated instruction  (see below) provides quite a bit of food for thought. As I think about differentiation in my classroom, I would like to focus on responding to students' instructional needs through a problem-finder's approach.  I am currently reading Empower and Launch by A.J. Juliani and John Spencer to help facilitate my learning on this topic.  Since I teach most of my gifted students in STEM, my fabulous co-teacher, Melanie Carr, and I are planning to conduct passion projects with these students for their 4th quarter project.  I will keep you updated on our progress.  Wish us luck!!

5 Key Aspects of Differentiated Instruction:

1. Engaging Learning Environment
2. High Quality Curriculum and Clearly Defined Learning Goals
3. Ongoing Assessments
4. Response to Student's Instructional Needs
5. Effective Classroom Management