A couple of days ago, someone shared an image of an anchor chart (for lack of better term) for questioning levels. I thought that my kids could really benefit from it, but I wanted an illustrated version. So yesterday, I spent about an hour making my own version of the poster on chart paper. This is what I made:

As I started to write the original “creator’s” name at the bottom, I realized I didn’t know who had shared it. I spent a couple of hours (yes, hours!) looking for it and could not. The best I was able to find was a couple of teachers who had shared the item via Pinterest.

Still… no attribution.

I don’t believe in using other people’s work without giving them credit. My friend, Krissy Venosdale, has had her share of issues with that lately.

So here’s the deal… teachers love to “steal” each other’s work. We joke about using that word, steal. I have no problem with doing that as long as we also share the credit.

If you know whose original work THIS is, please let me know so I can properly credit him/her. Thanks.

At our school, Anastasis Academy, we offer CRAVE classes to our entire school – we meet once a week for an hour for about 7 weeks.

CRAVE is an opportunity for teachers to offer something different – perhaps an experience kids might not have the opportunity to explore during our “regular” class time. We share a list of options with the kids, and they choose what they are interested in exploring. Any student can sign up for any class with any teacher, grades K-8. Our CRAVE classes are always mixed ages.

Some of the options we’ve had in the past are healthy cooking, hockey, clothing design, coding, ball sports, crocheting, nature inspired art, junk sculptures, chess, iPad rock band, DaVinci inspired art, and build your own instruments. (this is actually a small sample of the offerings)

The emphasis is that the kids are able to choose something that interests them, but also something that they might not have realized they could be interested in learning. CRAVE helps kids explore different areas to expose them to something new. Each class is based upon areas of passion or expertise by the teachers who offer them.

As I was trying to decide what I should offer this session, I thought, “Hey! I’ll crowdsource some ideas! Brilliant!” So, I sent out the following tweet:

Some really helpful people responded with wonderful suggestions:

• Coding
• #GeniusHour
• Let them explore their individual passions/ Ask the kids what THEY want to learn (MANY responded this way!)
• How to value their authentic self
• Recording music
• Build a catapult
• Build something
• “Hack the classroom style” learning
• Research and design
• How to research
• How to share what they’re learning
• Problem-based learning

As I read the incoming tweets, I often responded, “We do that already on a daily/weekly basis.”

And then I continued to respond the same way again and again.

When it was time for lunch and tweets continued to roll in, I left the building to grab something to eat and realized something that I have started to take for granted:

What we do as a rule at Anastasis is an exception almost everywhere else. 

• Our kids have choice to follow their passions DAILY.
• What some schools do in their #geniushour or 20% Time (or whatever they rename it) happens every day at our school.
• As a teacher, I am not stuck in a lesson plan or canned curriculum. When my kids make decisions about what they want to learn, it’s my job to ensure they also pick up skills and concepts they’ll need to know along the way.
• Our “regular” class time doesn’t look the same as other schools.
• In my class, we regularly make time to tinker, explore, share, and value each other and ourselves.
• Our classes are maxed at 12 students per class – the time the students and I have together to really get to know each other and personalize our learning options is invaluable!

By no means is this post meant to be a “thanks, but no thanks” to any of the suggestions I received today… and I hope it’s not reading as arrogance, either.

Two and a half years ago, I picked up and moved from Omaha, Nebraska to Denver, Colorado because Kelly Tenkely  and Matthew Anderson decided to start a school. Every day, I think I’m lucky for being able to be a part of this incredible experience, these amazing families and kids who make up our community.

Today, I remembered just how lucky I am. I believe our philosophy at Anastasis is truly best for our kids. All the suggestions reinforced how we operate.

And today, I also wished that every student had the opportunities that our kids have. 

If you sent me a tweet today… thank you. I’m grateful for the work you do for kids and your willingness to share your passion and suggestions with others.

A few notes:

1. If you’re curious about what we do at our school, I’m glad to share our story with you over a cup of coffee, a Skype/GHO call, or whatever you decide. You can also read our class blog at http://architectsofwonder.edublogs.org. 
2. One of the ideas I had been juggling around in my mind for CRAVE – in addition to something music-related (I’m a Music teacher by trade), photography, or crocheting – was centered around “super challenges.” Our school has held an all-school marshmallow/spaghetti tower challenge as well as the Rube Goldberg machine challenge on #dayofplay. I decided after reading all the great responses today that I would go with the Super Challenge Power Hour. Each week will have a new challenge. Stay tuned for updates!

On Friday, October 4, our school participated in the Day of Play, inspired by the Caine’s Arcade and the Cardboard Challenge. This was our second year to participate, and the kids absolutely love it.

Earlier in the week, we had decided that our focus could be a Rube Goldberg Machine theme with cardboard as the main building focus. As I talked with my kids about Rube Goldberg, they grew more and more excited to create their own. We watched a LOT of videos about Rube Goldberg Machines (RGM), including these:

• OK Go – This Too Shall Pass
• 75 Rube Goldberg Ideas & Inventions
• Richie’s 5th Grade Project on Simple Rube Goldberg Machine

From one video in particular – Andrew’s Rube Goldberg Simple Machine – my kids heard some simple machines vocabulary. Some of the students had been exposed to this language before, and some had not. They started asking some really good questions about levers and inclined planes. I asked them if they thought it might be helpful to learn about simple machines before we started planning our own RGM. They agreed and starting researching different types. They broke into small groups, each taking a different component, and even built prototypes to share with the class.

After we shared our discoveries, I asked the kids to start designing a plan for our RGM. As is typical for my class right now, there were a lot of leaders, and not enough “listeners.” When it came time to actually have a plan, there were a lot of great ideas, but no plan. I agreed to act as facilitator, since we were limited by time- being ready for Friday’s Day of Play.

On Friday morning, we jumped into a learning lab room and used a whiteboard to sketch out our major plan. We had decided that 5 components in our machine would be a good limit, since we only had a few hours to build and test the machine. Additionally, we knew that we would connect ours to Miss Nancy’s class machine, and that her class had already planned for a ball to roll down an inclined plane to then initiate OUR machine.

The kids chose to stick mostly to inclined planes and levers for our RGM. This is the design we started with:

After spending most of the day building, we were able to get a few good tests in before we had to share with the whole school. A couple of components failed, but the connection to the other class’s machine did function properly, and the end of our machine worked exactly as we had planned! (The last part was a chain reaction of books – levers – falling onto a Hoops & Yoyo button that made a lot of noise.)

Building our Rube Goldberg Machine

SUCCESS!

Some of my students were upset.

“It didn’t work!” “We failed!”

I asked them if they thought they could fix the components that failed if we would have had more time. They all agreed that they could easily fix those pieces.

“So, then did we really fail, or did we just run out of time?”

What a lesson that was in that short conversation! On Monday, they’ll write some reflections about what they learned last Friday, their favorite part of the activity, and how they feel they could improve the next time. We’ll probably write a class song about the machine we built. My kids think differently about their learning when they put it into verse, especially with a kickin’ beat in the background.

My favorite part of this entire activity? I didn’t plan A THING for those kids to learn. They did this all on their own. Everything I contributed was “just in time” learning.

Is learning about simple machines a standard in most science curricula? Absolutely. Did I plan for my kids to learn that? No. THEY were the ones who sought out that information through their own curiosity.

Now… let’s back up and pretend this entire activity never happened.

Let’s say I plan a lesson on simple machines. I deliver the vocabulary and explain to the kids how the machines work. I assign them an activity where they build prototypes, and MAYBE then I introduce the idea of RGMs and try to hook the kids.

It might still be a successful learning activity, but the difference here is that it is all teacher-driven.

When we depend upon standards to tell us what to teach kids, the kids don’t own the learning. 

When we give kids the ownership of what to learn and let them run with it, we find that they naturally hit standards without us having to plan for it.

In this one activity, my students hit multiple standards, across multiple grade levels in science, math, language arts, and maybe a few I haven’t even noticed yet.

They measured. They drew blueprints. They collaborated with each other. They learned about trial and error. They wrote down what was working and what wasn’t working, then shared hypotheses with their group to plan for the next success.

Most of all, they had so much fun building and playing. Our school provided an opportunity for them to see each class’s RGM. They were so excited about this day!

Shouldn’t ALL kids have an opportunity to learn like this? Or are we content to sit back, deliver content, and ensure we’re hitting all the standards?

Sometime next week, I’ll be able to list all the Common Core standards, as well as those outside the Common Core, that we “hit” during this activity. I won’t do this to prove that the Common Core works, but simply to show how limiting the Common Core can be.

When we allow ourselves to be driven by standards someone else imposes upon us, and then TEST the kids on those very standards, we limit what our kids are able to do. I refuse to be bound by those constraints, and most especially refuse to limit my students’ curiosity.

If you just get kids excited about learning, they will be engaged.

We hear statements such as this so very often in education. I agree with the point that we must help kids find what ignites their passion and assist them to pursue learning.

it is vital to light that proverbial fire in a child’s spirit. 

It’s not about the technology or the tool… it’s about the kid. Yes, technology can be engaging occasionally, but eventually the novelty wears off. If kids are doing the “same old, same old” on a digital device, the novelty of the device will not keep any kid engaged.

Digital worksheets are not more engaging than paper worksheets. Interactive white boards are not more engaging. Trying to find a “hook” for bad pedagogy doesn’t mask bad pedagogy.

To engage a kid, you have to look at the kid.

As an educator creeping up on the 20 year mark, I feel like we’re bombarded with new tips and tools to “trick” kids into being engaged. The problem with those tips and tricks is that they’re usually gimmicks, and kids are not fools.

Want to engage a kid? Get to know him. Ask her what interests her. To engage children in learning, show them that you care about their interests and what makes them tick.

BUT…

Realize that kids are not learning machines every day. Some days, they haven’t had enough sleep. Some days, they haven’t had adequate/proper nutrition. Some days, they’re having problems at home. For many kids, sleep, nutrition, and personal safety are daily issues.

Even if you help them pursue their passions, they will not be engaged all the time. 

They need compassion and grace, not gimmicks. Sometimes, that project isn’t the most important thing.

They need love and understanding. Sometimes, math isn’t more important.

If you want a kid to care about his learning, he needs to know you care about him. We KNOW this. I just don’t think we’re always that good at PRACTICING it.

Don’t fall for the gimmicks. Remember that kids are human. Remember you are, too.

cc photo by cdsessums

Some people like very well-defined lines.

Black and white.

Nice, neat boxed-in rooms with corners.

cc photo by Matt1125

And then there are others who prefer blurry lines.

Grey.

Overlapping circles.

I think that learning is a blurry line. Definitely grey (hey! Brains are grey matter, right?). Things we learn often cross and overlap.

It’s difficult to measure things that are blurry, grey, and overlapping.

Most schools tend to live in that “well-defined lines” area.

Math is done in math class. Science is done in science class. Writing is done in writing class. You get the picture: nice, neat boxed-in rooms with corners.

Learning is measured with black and white numbers.

Personally, I like those grey areas. I like living in the middle. There’s nothing -EST about the middle.

The middle is neither the oldest, nor the youngest.

The middle is neither the highest, nor the lowest.

The middle can be extremely uncomfortable sometimes, because it refuses to be clearly defined.

The middle of the journey isn’t the starting point, and it’s not the ending point.

From the starting point, you can only see forward. From the ending point, you can only see backward. From the middle, you can see all around you.

It’s the beauty of the middle that stimulates learning. So many paths to take. So many beautiful things to experience along the way.

It’s the misfortune of the middle that it doesn’t always lend itself to measurement. To black and white numbers. To nice, neat boxes and well-defined lines.

How do you share the joys of the middle with those who attempt to measure it… and who are subsequently disappointed with the metrics?

A close friend of mine once shared some good advice – share the positive stories. Keep your tweets positive. We need to know the good things that are happening in education.

I agree. There’s so much negative in education these days, that we need to ensure people read and hear all the amazing things that are happening.

I have so much for which to be grateful, and every day, my students do incredible things. It’s easy to share what they’re learning, what they’ve discovered, the funny little things they say. So much good happening!

To be honest, though, I want to be sure to provide a balanced version of what happens in my classroom. If I’m too “Pollyanna,” am I misleading anyone about what happens on a daily basis? If I don’t share the struggles along with the successes, am I giving people the wrong idea about our learning journey?

And if I’m keeping with that honesty… there are some days that are just HARD.

There are days where steps forward that my students have taken all come crashing backward, and it feels like we’re starting all over again. I really believe in the inquiry-based classroom, but there are challenges.

This is the TRUE picture of our classroom:

• Some days, we misuse the freedom we’re given.
• Some days, we are not able to manage the independent learning structure, and we get needy. Even the simplest tasks are outside our realm of abilities for those days.
• Some days, we just want the answers given to us instead of searching and making our own decisions.
• Some days, I expect more from them than they’re able to do in one setting.
• Some days, I get frustrated with things that aren’t really related to my kids.

However, if we look at the learning involved in the difficulties, we find some really major life lessons in those struggles. And as the teacher sharing what we do, I need to be certain to share what ISN’T working just as much as what IS.

I’m really proud of my students. They have come such a long way this year! Have I been as open with what’s troubled them as I have with their successes? Probably not. Maybe that’s my learning curve.

How do you balance those things that you share about your classroom? Two bloggers that I follow regularly, Shelley Wright and Deirdre Bailey, are really good about that balance. You should read them, if you don’t already.

And finally, are you sharing more about what YOU are doing than what your STUDENTS are doing? I admit it’s easy to do sometimes, but I really feel it’s more important to put the focus on the kids. If we’re in this for that “rock star” status, we’re doing it wrong.

Thanks for reading. I value your feedback.

This morning, during our staff professional development time, we all talked about inquiry-based learning. Inquiry is already embedded into our school’s philosophy and practice. Just as we do with students, we spent time this morning reflecting upon our own practice:

• What does Inquiry look like?
• What are we doing already in our learning with our students?
• What is the process?

We also discussed the challenges of an inquiry classroom. Sometimes, the learning is messy and chaotic. Sometimes, the amount of freedom that the kids have overwhelms them, and they don’t always make good decisions. And sometimes, loose deadlines are too much in the “grey area” for those kids who really crave structure and boundaries.

Ultimately, though, those challenges help kids to understand that the process in learning is often more important than the outcome. Mistakes happen. We all make mistakes, and we learn from them. Through inquiry, we reflect on our learning, and we make choices about what we learn, how we learn, and how we demonstrate what we learn.

Our students are thinking critically about decision-making, problem-solving, and sometimes, even behavior choices. They are always asking questions. A LOT of questions! When we have guest speakers or when we go on learning trips, I’m always so pleased to hear our speakers/tour guides remark about the types of questions our kids ask. “Wow, your kids have such great questions!” “Hmm… that’s a really deep question. I’m glad you asked that.” “Boy, you guys sure are curious!” (I’ve heard these three statements in the last two weeks.)

My kids are currently struggling with completing projects. They often have these wonderful ideas, but those ideas don’t always manifest into completed projects. We sometimes have a difficult time, at 8-10 years old, with using our work time to the fullest. Sometimes, we get distracted by each other, by the learning tools we have at our disposal, or by absolutely nothing at all. The latter is what one of my students calls his “spacing out time.” Parents occasionally wonder how we keep our kids accountable if they don’t always finish things during school. Parents like to see neat, high quality, completed projects. I get that, because I do, too. However, as the teacher in the classroom, I have the fortune of also seeing the process – the questions the kids have about different topics, how they decide what they’re going to investigate, and the choices they make in what they do with their learning. Mistakes are made, but again… I get to see how they problem-solve those mistakes. The kids blog about their learning, including what they learned during the process, but they’re not always able to articulate exactly what that process was. My biggest challenge is capturing the process to share with parents and other people. I need to get better at that.

So, my plan today was to come to my classroom, share what we (their teachers) talked about this morning, and then listen to their thoughts about inquiry. Before the kids came to our room, I checked Twitter and noticed my friend, Deirdre Bailey, tweeted about a post she had just written. I clicked on the link and almost fell over. She had just written about the exact same experience in her inquiry-based classroom at Calgary Science School in Calgary, AB. Here’s her post: Savouring the ISH: Outside the Lines: Student Perspectives on Inquiry Learning.

She had just done the exact same exercise with her class that I was planning on doing with my class this morning! I think “serendipitous” might be a new word to share with my class.

I decided not to share Deirdre’s blog post with my kids until after we had done our own reflection.

Questions I asked my students and their responses:

• What exactly IS Inquiry? learning, questions, research, more questions, individual interests.
• What do we use for our research? internet, movies, books, podcasts, speakers, friends, “experts.”
• How do we share our learning? papers, posters, videos, books, drawing, poems, oral presentations, skit/plays, songs, persuasive writing.

After that discussion, I asked them how we learn differently than they did in other schools. They told me that “old school” is very different than “new school.” <– that’s how they decided to categorize them.

Old school is:

• teacher lecturing
• copying work from the teacher (taking notes from the information the teacher gives them)
• worksheets
• lists to memorize for tests
• teacher=the expert
• teacher corrects their work, but the students don’t always understand what they “got wrong.”
• homework that seems like busy work
• less freedom, less choice

They described “new school” as:

• more discussion in large and/or small groups
• sometimes, the teacher models or gives us stories that provide examples (replaces lecture).
• we ask a lot of questions.
• teacher answers questions with questions, and this used to frustrate us. Now we know it helps us think for ourselves.
• teacher asks us, “What do you think about…” which makes us feel like we have an opinion that matters.
• we problem solve more.
• more freedom, more choice
• more responsibility on us to do our work

I then asked them which “school” they prefer, and they all said “new school.” Then we skimmed through Deirdre’s post together, and they were really excited to see that someone else does what we do. When I asked them if they understood the point that Mrs. Bailey was trying to make, a few of my kids realized that it was showing how much responsibility is on them as the learners.

I asked, “if you have freedom, and you don’t use your time to your best ability, what happens?”

One student replied, “We waste time, and then our projects get rushed. We don’t always do our best work.”

Then I wondered aloud, “Hmmm… does it matter if we do our best work?” They all responded that it did, so a short discussion launched about quality of work, learning, accountability, and responsibility. As a teacher, my heart was overflowing… and my mommy heart skipped a few beats, too. THIS is what I wish my own children had been able to do in school.

Today was an inquiry activity about learning through inquiry. They asked questions. They sought out answers for their questions. They talked to each other, and we read about another class’s experience in inquiry. They shared aloud what they learned about their learning.

It’s been a pretty good day in my book.

Every day, you’ll see several (tens? hundreds?) of Tweets and posts recommending “n reasons why x tool is the best/worst idea for education.”

I very much dislike lists.

You can find pros and cons for everything under the sun, but I think we need to stop promoting or discounting tools and focus more on changing pedagogy.

I’d like to write a bit about iPads now. Our school is a 1:1 iPad school, but students are also welcome to bring and use other devices (laptops, iPods, cell phones) to do what best helps them learn.

I’ve read a lot of posts about how iPads are NOT good learning tools, because you can’t learn to type properly on them,  they’re bad for note-taking, you can’t teach programming on them, etc. But in all those posts, we’re looking at an adult’s perspective: adults who learned to type on a keyboard, either in school or on their own. These same adults learned to take notes in school. If they were taught programming at all, it was done on some type of computer with a keyboard.

So, iPads are bad because adults can’t type as quickly on them, and they don’t know how to program on them. Hmm. So, are we saying that students must learn to use specific tools because those are the tools that work best for adults?

What I find interesting about this advice is that no one considered asking a child how they might use an iPad.

What if we asked kids how they would use a device? What if we got out of the way and let them explore? That’s what I have the privilege of doing every day.

One of my students, a 9 year old girl, types more quickly on an iPad than most adults type on a standard laptop. Another one of my students, a 10 year old boy, has his iPad “keyboard” split, and he types like he texts… with his thumbs. Neither of them prefer using a standard keyboard. A couple of my students learned early to type on a keyboard, so they have an iPad case with keyboard. And then there are those students who struggle with typing and writing. Although they practice those skills daily, they also have access to dictation apps that help them as well.

The beauty here is that the students have the option to choose what works best for them, and there is no need for my intervention.

My kids also document their learning in different ways. They have a camera on their iPads that they use to photograph evidence of their learning. They often switch to video mode and record what they’re experiencing while narrating simultaneously. They’ve become documentarians without an adult telling them what they should do.

They create videos to share what they are  learning. During one experiment, while they were making race tracks, the students noticed that the toy race car kept flipping off the track. It was happening so quickly, however, that they couldn’t SEE where their track was failing. One student decided they should record the car racing in slow motion to troubleshoot the problem with their track. Within five minutes, they had the problem solved, because they used their iPads to record using an app called Slow Pro. All of this happened while I watched and said nothing. They had access to a tool that allowed them to quickly grab an app and begin recording immediately.

When we go on learning excursions, they don’t grab their laptops. They grab their iPads so they can take photos and videos easily.  When they take notes, they use an app that not only allows them to type their notes, but also provides options for adding photos and voice recordings.

Some of the kids in our school are learning programming. Did you know there are apps for that too? For my own learning, I’m checking out ScriptKit right now.

iPads work in our school for a number of reasons:

1. Our leadership had a plan in place when making the decision to include iPads as learning devices.
2. In our inquiry-based classrooms, students have a lot of choices in determining what the will learn and how they will demonstrate what they have learned. Every kid is different, and what works for one may not work for another. Their iPads and other devices provide them options.
3. Our teachers were provided iPads to use as well. Everyday, we work together to share what we’re doing and learn from each other.

My purpose in writing this post really isn’t so much about how I love iPads. If your school or district rushes out to purchase large volumes of these devices without any plan, time for learning about the devices, and how those devices will support teaching and learning, then ANY tool will fail.

Additionally, if the tool isn’t used to transform learning, then you’re just wasting money. If you purchase a netbook for every child in your district, but then continue only lecturing while the students take notes, is learning transformed? Or did you just buy a really expensive substitute for paper and pencil?

The tool isn’t the problem. WE are the problem. If we don’t know how to provide options for students and then get out of the way, we aren’t transforming their learning. In my opinion, children need to have access to MULTIPLE devices so that they can make decisions about what best suits them for a specific learning activity.

iPads in the classroom are neither the problem, nor the solution. iPads are tools. However, if you choose to write a list about why iPads are not good for learning, maybe you need to rethink that list. I know a school full of children who can refute your arguments by what they do every single day.