Makey Makey Sprinkler Simulation

One of our school sites has had sprinkler issues in their campus garden.  I had recently introduced Makey Makeys to four of the classes ranging in grades 1 - 4 (here's the blog post click here).  The awesome principal who has her contractors license and knows a thing or two about sprinkler solenoids decided to come up with a great Makey Makey simulation for some of her students.

Aurora noticed that the Makey Makey alligator clips matched the colors of the wires to the solenoids (she substituted grey for blue).  She also noticed that the Earth clip on the Makey Makey simulates the grounding wire for the solenoids.  So she realized that if she had the students set up the Makey Makey so that it would play the piano using the color coded alligator clips (grey for blue), the students would be able to go to the sprinkler system and wire up the solenoids for the different watering stations and get their garden watering system functional for the spring and summer months.

Students Simulating the Sprinkler Solenoids

The best part of this lesson was how she grouped the students.  The first group had 4 fourth graders, two of which are special education and emotionally disturbed.  The second group had 4 second and third graders and again had two special education students.  All of the students had used the Makey Makeys with me at least one time.  I was able to watch Aurora and her students as they quickly used the Makey Makeys to simulate the system and then take that understanding and go outside to take turns wiring the solenoids.

Students testing the system and watching each station water the garden.

It was an awesome lesson for the principal, Aurora, and her students who now understand more about circuits and wiring in a real life context.

Let Students Struggle

Image by Krissy Venosdale

Last week I visited one of our third grade classes and we used the chromebooks to code using Scratch.  I showed the kiddos a few things as they had used Scratch before to code our LEGO WeDo creations.  When I let the students go, I told them they would have to play and figure things out, and help each other.  I also informed them that their teacher and I would not be able to help them as they worked.  What ensued was interesting and provided a learning experience for all.

It took the students about 15 minutes of working on their own to start getting up and looking at other students' creations.  They were trying to be sneaky like they would get in trouble for moving and working together.  A few students came over to the teacher and I and asked questions.  I had prompted the teacher to say, "I don't know, go figure it out."  It was difficult for her to say and difficult for her students to hear.  I would back up the teacher by telling the student to go ask a friend/classmate.

The room started getting louder as the students shared and helped and worked together, with the exception of one student Greg.  Greg was a gifted student who was used to getting the answer to things quickly and without much effort.  Greg happens to be friends with my son so I knew I could push him.  He came over and asked for help from his teacher a few times and she told him to go figure it out and/or get help from another student.  From across the room I noticed Greg had had enough.  When I walked up, his chromebook was closed and he informed me that he was logged out.  So I started my questions.  Greg, you're done, you give up?  He replied with a long well...  I smiled and said, "okay, put the chromebook away and get other work out.  I'm surprised Greg, I know you and I know you can do this, but it is your choice."  As I walked away, he called out, "I can log back on..."

I walked around looking at what the students were creating and within 10 minutes, Greg ran over with his chromebook and showed me his animation and it was awesome.  I gave Greg a little pep talk reminding him that because he did this on his own, he would now remember.  I wanted to teach him to fish not give him the fish and he figured it out.

There are times that we all need to let students struggle and balancing the fine line of persevering rather than giving up.  If I had not known Greg, I probably would have been more helpful by asking guiding questions.  You also need to know your students and when to jump in to keep them going rather than giving up.

The Gift of Being a Loser - Perspective

I am a loser.  A week ago I set out on a journey to say goodbye to my mother.  As I sat in airports and boarded planes, I looked at and watched my fellow passengers.  Knowing what I was experiencing, I wondered what the others on the plane with me were carrying with them.  The loss I was experiencing provided me with a perspective that I would not normally have had with my fellow travelers.

As a traveler with emotional baggage, I put my head phones on and listened to music and watched movies rather than engage with my fellow passengers.  All the while, I wondered why my fellow travelers were making their trips.  As I traveled with a broken heart, I made sure to smile at everyone that looked at me not knowing their situation but wanting to make sure that I acknowledged their existence.  It is all about perspective and isn't it interesting when major life events significantly shift our perspective and/or remind us of the perspective we used to have.

As usual, my personal experience translates to my life as an educator.  I will ask my fellow educators to consider the following:

• Please don't embarrass tardy students by sending them to the office
• You do not know what his/her morning was like - did they have to get siblings ready, were they exhausted from doing homework late into the night, do his/her parents chronically run late, does he/she have negative feelings about school and walked super slowly, etc...
• By shifting your perspective and welcoming him/her into your classroom with a smile and a sincere greeting, you may change the course of his/her day by starting it off positively.  

Do you want to "teach him/her a lesson" or build a relationship and make a connection?

•  Please don't blame parents for not participating or caring about their child's education
• You need to know that the vast majority of parents love their child/children even if they do not know how to show it
• Some parents are extremely intimidated by schools because of the negative experience they had while in school
• We all struggle with parenting and question what and how we parent.  We feel isolated, ineffective at times. 

Change the lens you use to look at parents to one of empathy and understanding that they are doing the best they can with the tools they have.  Understand that your students love and admire and worry about their parents.

• Please support your students while they are at school, do not punish them for the environment the experience outside of school.
• When homework is not completed respectfully ask the student why it was not completed and show empathy - here is what I really think about homework - CLICK HERE

As I stated earlier, I am a loser.  I received a SARB (Student Attendance Review Boards) letter from the district I am a Curriculum Coordinator in because my son had over 9 tardies in one trimester.  Was it his fault?  Well that is a loaded question because I could blame our morning routine on his power struggles with me (the parenting issues that EVERYONE experiences).  However, if you look at my track record I am a loser parent that makes my son adhere to my schedule and when I do not have a required time frame, he is tardy to school. (By the way, just to let you know, he has not had a tardy since I received the SARB letter in December, I have to be careful because we are on our way to court).

Perspective is such a powerful thing.  My superintendent, assistant superintendent and I (curriculum coordinator) were in our weekly meeting.  All of our kiddos go to one of the elementary schools in our district.  As we sat in the meeting, the supt. started shedding tears while telling a story of how she had felt she failed her second grade daughter as a parent.  If we "educator parents" fail our kiddos daily, weekly, monthly, etc... think for a minute about those parents who are not highly educated and the feelings they have as parents.

In closing, we need to remember that we do not know what others are experiencing at any given time.  I ask that you stop, smile, and consider the person's situation.  

So many people have aching heart, don't you want to be the person who makes their heart smile?

What Would You Do With An Extra Hour...

As I laid in bed on a rainy Saturday morning, I listened to Scott Simon on Weekend Edition (NPR) as he discussed what if the time change occured during the day instead of the middle of the night, how would you use that extra hour?  CLICK HERE to listen to the segment.  As I listened, I agreed and thought about all of the great ideas he mentioned, I was relishing the fact that the weather had allowed me to stay in bed much longer than I would allow myself on a bright sunny day.  But the question also required me to ponder and reflect, what if I had the gift of an extra hour showing up in the middle of a day, what would I do with it?

• The mom and wife in me immediately went to - spend more time with my family.
• The educator in me immediately went to - I can participate in a twitter chat or hang out on tweetdeck, google+, voxer, reading blog posts, etc...
• The housekeeper in me immediately went to - I can get the vacuuming done.
• The property owner in me immediately went to - rake pine needles into piles, repeat, repeat.
• The writer in me immediately went to - I can blog for an hour.
• The daughter in me immediately went to - I can pay Mom's bills for the month.
• The exerciser in me immediately went to - I can workout.
• The guilty part of me immediately went to - watching Project Runway recordings.
• The college student in me went to - take a NAP

There are many more "me's" that could go on and on.  With the craziness and connectedness of our lives today it is important to stop and take inventory of our priorities and wants and needs.

I think I will take an hour today to sit and be away from all of the me's above.  I find in my hectic life, quiet pondering and reflecting allows me to re-connect to the intuitive me.  That is the most important me because it guides everything I do and provides a foundation for growth and learning in every situation.

The gift of an hour, a luxurious hour... What would you do with an extra hour?

What does 58% on a Math Test Mean to a Third Grade Student?

This week my third grade son brought home his first math test and there was a glaring 58% written in red ink with a large circle around it.  So many thoughts ran through my head as I tried to hide any reaction from my son.  There were also many frustrations welling inside me, but I wanted to turn this into a positive learning experience for my son, not a punishment or rag session.

I want to begin by saying that Tater's teacher is wonderful.  The red inked 58% was a result of the influence of her third grade team, and the fact that most teachers have no idea of the implications putting a meaningless grade on a paper has.

My first thought was WTF this is third grade...  My next thought was - who is this grade for?  My son has no idea what 58% means or the fact that he got 14.5 points out of 25.  It is all meaningless to him and for all he knows it is over and done.  That grade was meant for me, his parent.  I was supposed to get upset, take away television and electronics as a punishment for not achieving a higher score/grade.  The learning opportunity was done for both teacher and student.  Luckily for my son, the learning was far from done.

We sat down at the kitchen island and went through every question on the test.  I calmly told Tater that we needed to find the parts that were easy for him and the parts that were difficult.  I made sure to make it a positive interaction because I wanted to understand exactly where his struggles were without making him feel stupid.

As a huge proponent of Standards Based Grading I looked at evaluating his test using different criteria than assigning points to problems.

The test had the following areas of emphasis:
Even and Odd Sums, Commutative Property, Rounding, Addition of 3 digit numbers, Subtracting using Regrouping

This is what Tater and I discovered when going over his test:

• He understands when a sum of 2 numbers will be even or odd
• He understands commutative property
• He can add three digit numbers 
• He can round numbers to tens, hundreds, thousands
• He struggles with subtraction with regrouping
• His struggles with reading contributed to his low score

If I were his teacher, these are the notations I would have made.  Instead his teacher has a 58% in her grade book.  She has not noted that he needs help with subtraction, reading the problems, and explaining his thinking.  

Here in-lies the problem: Once the grade was given both she and Tater were done.  Instead of this assessment becoming a conversation for further learning and growth, it is an end point for both teacher and student and that is a tragedy.

As Tater and I worked through the problems he realized how he mis-read or skipped over important information.  We also established some strategies for him to be more careful when reading and solving problems.  We even developed a strategy to help him explain his answers and problem solving processes.  

I have not asked his teacher for a re-do, but I will be doing that soon.  I will also use this experience to find ways to move the teachers in my district towards standards based grading.