They had me from the opening gambit. The metaphor: learning is like finding the light. We had to use the QR codes on our laser engraved wooden name tags to find our lights. Circulating the room and meeting new people, writing clues on the white board, I was hooked by the promise of the puzzle. Solving puzzles is what drew me towards a ten-year career of engineering. It is what makes computer science interesting for me now. This morning at the Evergreen School, we solved the puzzle and eventually ended up with an LED through our name tags, a silver battery taped to the back.
After a tour of the BIG Lab, we were given time to explore, and even better, create. The five holes at the bottom of our name tags were for the addition of "merit badges". My first badge, laser cutter. Adobe Illustrator was frustrating at the beginning, because there are so many buttons to choose from. I could not make it do what I wanted it to do. Do our students feel like that when we ask them to use the inquiry process? With a little help, though, I was able to create an EC3 Design Center sign etched into cardboard. I finished the day designing chess pieces in Tinkercad. Tomorrow I will use the 3d printer to make those chess pieces a reality. The day went by fast. I was heads down, focused, on the making process, designing, creating. True inquiry.
Some take-aways from the day, in no particular order.
A selection of my favorites from 10 core elements of innovative learning:
1. My students have choice in the learning process and deliverable.
5. My students problem-solve and design towards their learning goals.
6. Learning experiences have no single "right" answer, and solutions require significant sustained effort by my students.
7. Learning experiences include appropriate scaffolding for my students to be successful with appropriate challenge and perseverance.
10. My students reflect, revise, iterate, and can identify and describe their own learning pathways.
Those are my goals for the students of OES as they do work in the EC3 Design Center. One definition of inquiry is, an act of asking for information. Scaffolding is needed at the beginning so that the students know enough to figure out what questions to ask.
Evergreen designed and built a lot of their own furniture, as we are planning on doing as well.
There is not much decoration on the walls of the space because of research that showed that rooms are more inviting if the walls are bare. A lot of the informational signs were made with the laser cutter (left photo) or the vinyl cutter (right photo).
During the first year, every classroom was invited into the space in the first two months of school. The director, Lindsey, had an activity prepared for each grade level so that it was easy for teachers. Then, Lindsey began conversations with teachers about curriculum: tell me what you want to do and I will design something for you or work with you to design something.
After a tour of the BIG Lab, we were given time to explore, and even better, create. The five holes at the bottom of our name tags were for the addition of "merit badges". My first badge, laser cutter. Adobe Illustrator was frustrating at the beginning, because there are so many buttons to choose from. I could not make it do what I wanted it to do. Do our students feel like that when we ask them to use the inquiry process? With a little help, though, I was able to create an EC3 Design Center sign etched into cardboard. I finished the day designing chess pieces in Tinkercad. Tomorrow I will use the 3d printer to make those chess pieces a reality. The day went by fast. I was heads down, focused, on the making process, designing, creating. True inquiry.
Some take-aways from the day, in no particular order.
A selection of my favorites from 10 core elements of innovative learning:
1. My students have choice in the learning process and deliverable.
5. My students problem-solve and design towards their learning goals.
6. Learning experiences have no single "right" answer, and solutions require significant sustained effort by my students.
7. Learning experiences include appropriate scaffolding for my students to be successful with appropriate challenge and perseverance.
10. My students reflect, revise, iterate, and can identify and describe their own learning pathways.
Those are my goals for the students of OES as they do work in the EC3 Design Center. One definition of inquiry is, an act of asking for information. Scaffolding is needed at the beginning so that the students know enough to figure out what questions to ask.
Evergreen designed and built a lot of their own furniture, as we are planning on doing as well.
There is not much decoration on the walls of the space because of research that showed that rooms are more inviting if the walls are bare. A lot of the informational signs were made with the laser cutter (left photo) or the vinyl cutter (right photo).
During the first year, every classroom was invited into the space in the first two months of school. The director, Lindsey, had an activity prepared for each grade level so that it was easy for teachers. Then, Lindsey began conversations with teachers about curriculum: tell me what you want to do and I will design something for you or work with you to design something.
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