Recently, I led Extended Sessions on “Prioritizing Play” at the Learning2 conference hosted by the American School in Japan. 

This was my third L2 and my second time as an L2 Leader. As I began researching for this event I realized that I was accumulating a mountain of material. How to condense this into 2 and a half hours? 

With my decisions made and my presentation curated, I began. I am not “a natural” when it comes to working with adults in this more formal ‘classroom’ type setting. And despite polling the participants in order to tailor the session to their needs, I had that nagging doubt that I may not be leading them in the direction they needed or wanted to go. 

My first session was high energy from the get-go. Keen participants, eager to share, eager to debate, discuss, and to reflect on their own learning. I was able to connect and relate and share ideas. I finished the session and it felt “successful”. This was reflected in the generous feedback I was given.

Great presenter – this should have been a whole day workshop. Too much good stuff to pack into the short time.

This session was amazing. Great presentation, lots of resources, approachable and knowledgeable presenter. Thank you

I thoroughly enjoyed the session and found it to be very informative.

L2 Participant Feedback

The second session felt different. A little more hesitant. A little more resistant? Pockets of energy and enthusiasm but a lot of critical thinkers. Deep questioners. We never got into the flow of the topic unlike the previous day. And I wasn’t able to turn that around. I left the second session buoyed by some of the personal connections I made but ultimately deflated by my inability to turn the discussion around.  And my feedback reflected my reaction to the session. Numerically, I went from solid 4’s and 5’s (out of 5) to a more solid 3/4 mix with a healthy dose of 2’s and a few 5’s. One ‘other’ comment: “It was a bit draggy” leapt out at me, and I took that to heart. But then I looked at the other comments. When asked, “What is one “takeaway” you are going to act on?” some participants responded: 

L2 Participant Comments

Incorporating more play into my schedule.

Continuting to explore resources

Using play as a means of assessing students skills.

Integrating play into my teaching seamlessly, and understanding that it’s ok for children to walk away from playing.

There are different types of ‘play’, for my group of students I will be more focused on guided play and games.

Useful resources shared the presenter

Have students write their own rubrics, think about ways play can capture standards that aren’t included in a given lesson, give every child a ball!

Prioritizing play is something I want to make time for. Letting go of “norms” I’m used to as a teacher, and embracing the authentic learning that can come out of this is something that inspires me to make more effort to include it in my lessons.

Incorporating play, unstructured and structured play, in and outside the classroom to enhance and optimize learning.

Play is important for learners of all ages! Include play more often

Ask students to define Play in their own words

Use play activities for reinforcement or breaking into a new unit.

And I realized that whether or not I scored a 2 was beside the point to some extent. I just proved what Dylan Wiliam et.al say about grades vs. feedback. I had looked at the numbers and based my success or failure on these alone. Yet the comments suggest that the participants have been thinking, reflecting, and learning, despite what their numerical scores might say.

I still stand by the lower scores and will endeavor to make explicit the learning outcomes the next time I present. Perhaps these were unclear? Perhaps our jilted way of ‘dragging’ through the session meant that we disconnected from our intentions? One strategy I would like to try next time I present is to have the participants reframe the learning objectives for each stage of the session. If my first objective is made clear, how can each participant then make it personal? 

L2 Talks

L2 talks are one of my favorite parts of the conference. The entire playlist is on the Learning2 Youtube page

If you haven’t seen an L2 talk before, here are some of my favorites (although truth be told, they were all pretty great!). This is a nice selection to get you going, constructed around the conference theme “It’s personal”.

Teaching Isn’t Magic – Geoff Derry

Geoff and I only “Twitter-knew” each other until we met in Tokyo. Through our interconnected network of friends and acquaintances, we started to see that our connection ran a little deeper than international schools – we both worked at Camp Pecometh on the Eastern Shore of Maryland back in the 90’s. It was a riot to meet Geoff and to share Pecometh memories and to marvel at how small the world feels sometimes. Geoff’s talk is pure magic.

Weirdness is a lot of things – Mike Bycraft

Mike is interesting, creative, a maker, a dad, a husband, an educator. And he’s weird. He delivers a personal talk about the power we all have to be like his 2nd grade teacher and embrace weirdness:  “It does look a little weird. But that’s o.k.” -Ms. Taylor

Filling the Space – Tricia Friedman

Tricia is a good friend and a great educator. She is someone who is able to reflect deeply, care generously, discuss respectfully, and strive tirelessly to advocate for equality in all realms of life. Her experience as a queer educator and the support she offers ally’s, form the basis of this challenging talk. 

Together We Are Better – Ben Sheridan

Ben’s talk on Professional Capital (Human/Social/Decisonal) and how that intersects with his own quest for a new tattoo, combine in this engaging talk about the power of being vulnerable in order to create something meaningful. 

Culturally Responsive Teaching – Gary Gray

Gary’s talk is powerfully engaging. “You’re too black. You’re not black enough” – a call to teachers to embrace culturally responsive teaching. All educators need to read this and ask themselves if their students are seeing themselves in the books, movies, lessons in your classroom. 
 

Photography Can Change the World – Dave Caleb

Visually stunning and a message that matches, Dave’s talk was inspiring for it’s depth, it’s beauty, and it’s meaning. A long-time fan of Dave’s photography, this was an L2 highlight for me. Every element of this talk could branch off into their own talks on relating to others, revealing truth, bearing witness, proving facts, protect what’s important, and celebrating our amazing world. 

Learning2 2019

Information is already up on the website and the call for L2 Leaders is out. Come and join us at Nanjing International School next year and be a part of the L2 conference experience: a conference by teachers, for teachers. As Chair of the hosting school team, I am very excited to be a part of this conference and I am looking forward to seeing the ideas grow and develop as we prepare for next October. Mark your calendars!  

I would like to offer youwhat I was given:a blank of sheet of paper.What will you do with your intentional empty space,with your fresh start?

-Jason Rosenthal

It is the time of year when many people start summarizing their learning and thinking ahead to what both the holidays hold and the new school year beyond that.

I am no different and with less than two days on the calendar, the countdown is surely on – although the making and creating hasn’t slowed down in the classroom!

My introspection this year takes a different turn as I am once again deeply inspired by a member of the Rosenthal family, Jason Rosenthal. Husband of Amy Krouse Rosenthal – one of “my people”. Jason suffered a deep loss when his wife Amy, 51, passed away from ovarian cancer. Recently he shared this loss and his subsequent journey into uncharted territory of doing life without Amy, in a recent TED talk:

 

Saying goodbye in International Schools can be a grief filled process. There is happiness, sure. Celebrations of friendships made. But there is definitely grief for friendships ending, or in my case, friendships that could have been – the year just goes so quickly to make all the connections you wished you could have!

In saying goodbye and in starting a new experience either in the same school with new colleagues, a different school, or a whole new life experience (hello ‘Adult GAP Year’ – I’m talking about you!) we are all gifted the opportunity of a figurative blank sheet of paper. The chance to create our own new reality. An intentionally empty space into which we get to create our fresh start.

What will you do with this gift?

How will you honor those you are parting ways with?

What will you do over the summer to prepare your heart for new students, colleagues, experiences?

In life, Amy was a great source of happiness and really made me smile. In death, she has taught me to think more deeply about the gift of every day. She clung on to life fiercely. Even before she was dying.

#intentional

This might be my word for the coming year. I’ll keep you posted.

---

further reading…

You Might Want To Marry My Husband = Amy’s love letter to Jason

Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation

We do not learn from experience.

We learn from reflecting on experience.

-John Dewey

 

I read this great post from Jackie Gerstein about reflection in the maker space. I loved her cards and with many students from Grades 1-5 who are just beginning their learning journey in English, I was wondering how I could take this idea of reflection cards and eliminate the need to read in English.

The answer: Visible Thinking Routines. Specifically, Color, Symbol, Image.

My kids love to make. I want them to reflect on their time in Design but I also want to dedicate a very large chunk of our time together to making. So I needed something quick. Simple. Super easy. Something we can do in the two minutes after packing up.

So I have made a set of cards. Some colors, some symbols (thanks Keynote updated shapes!) and some images (thanks, Unsplash!). My plan is to have this deck of cards at the ready and to have kids reflect on their day in design:

What color was your day in design today?

What symbol represents you as a designer?

Which images describes how you are feeling as you leave design today?

What symbol matches your plans for our next design lesson?

What color matches your thinking in design today?

What image represents the way you worked with others?

Which symbol describes you while you were making?

What color represents how you feel about your prototype?

 

We are trying this out tomorrow. I will update this post to report how it went!  Other single subject teachers: how do you have your students reflect on their learning in your class?

If you want to download the color/symbol/image slides: Reflections in Design.

At the end of last year I read “Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passions, Peers, and Play” by Mitchel Resnick. It is a brilliant read and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

A few pages in, the author, a professor at MIT, meets with the President of Tsinghua University in China – known at “the Chinese MIT”. Chen Jinging describes his students as “A” Students – good grades, compliant, smart. But when he visits MIT and sees the playful way in which these students grapple with ideas, seek solutions, and create innovative pathways in their learning. He calls these students “X” students. And he wants to change the way learning happens at Tsinghua to cultivate more of them.

This is what an X student does:

What are we doing to cultivate X students in our schools?

At Nanjing International School, we offer CNU (Creative New Undertakings) and X-Block to our grade 4 and grade 6-8 students. Both of these are derivatives of a “genius hour’ type mindset in which students are guided to learn through contexts of their own choosing. Having read the description of the X student and how this was the creation of a Chinese university president, I wonder if the ‘placeholder’ name of X-Block wasn’t meant to be, for our students, in China? Perhaps this is our way of responding to this need for more creative, innovative, X-learners? We have to do more than just call them X students though. We have to be like Jining and seek to change the way we learn.

Take a look at this video and then think about what it would look like to video your students as they LEARN. What can we do to embed authentic experiences in order to develop the creative innovators the world needs – and our kids deserve to be?

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

 

I have a love/hate affair with projects.

I love them because students get to choose what they do.

I hate them because students get to choose what they do.

 

It boils down to three things for me: judgement, control, and fear.

I find myself checking if I think this project choice is worthy of our class time. I wonder if the project they choose is going to be something I know anything about. I am fearful that even if I overcome both these hurdles, there is still the judgement of teachers or parents who may not see the value in the project choice.

I have a long history with student choice. I won’t call it agency because, for much of the time, I found myself setting the parameters for the choices. Ultimately, I want kids to have a voice, I want them to learn through something they love to do.

My fifth grade Design students have been eager to have more say in what we do. I wanted to respect that so we started looking at what “Design” was and I opened up the floor for them to choose their next design project. But I couldn’t help myself and I started throwing in “rules” to hamper their freedom of choice. Before I knew it, I had created a framework for their projects of my making. It looks like this (and I still am not sure if I like it or not):

I created this, if I am to be honest, out of fear that should my kids stop at step one, “PLAY”, other people may judge the worthiness of them doing so. Who are these “others” that have so much control over my instinct to let my kids play, that I would go and create four more hoops for them to jump through?

This is where I am struggling at the moment in my quest for agency. Where do scaffolds come in? How can we help our students with things like authentic empathy or exposure to the Global Goals as a springboard for design? Who is to say what is purposeful and what is not?

Here is an example from one student:

After doing a “tournament of champions” with all the ideas of things that could be done in Design (similar to this one below) a student chose: Minecraft. 

Students were then re-introduced to the Sustainable Development Goals (something they were already familiar with). This is where they would connect “Play” with “Problem”.

They then needed to “Pitch” an idea: what were they going to make? Do? Create? And then I wanted them to think about why? What was their “Purpose”?

Here’s one example:

“Plan” made it’s way in when I saw that many kids didn’t quite know where to get started. Or, to be fair, they did know (they started to Play!) but I wanted something more concrete.

Even as I write this I am questioning the whole thing. How much interference is too much? How much freedom is too much?

How do you make this work in your school?

Just before I went to our faculty meeting yesterday, I saw this graphic in my Twitter feed:

 

I went off to our meeting to find we were about to engage in a grade level protocol based on an Edutopia post titled “The Power of Being Seen”.  As a team, we were given a page with three photos of our kids down the left side. The rest of the page was blank. We were to start writing and write everything you knew about that child.

Do you know their face?

Do you know their name?

Do you know something personal about them?

Do you know their family story?

Do you know their academic standing?

 

It was really interesting to see who we had lots to write about and who the 8-10 teachers had very little to write about. It also made me think about the data we collect about students. So often we talk about how learning is about connecting with other people and that kids will learn from people they trust and like. I was reminded of this TED Talk by Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs A Champion:

 

I was reminded that developing relationships with our students are key to moving them forward in their learning. And I sat asking myself, “Who am I championing?” But, so what?  So what do we do with the data we have now gathered? Now what? Where to from here?

These questions will be up to each grade level to respond to but I know for me, it was a call to action to get to know the kids I teach a lot better than I do now. I teach all Grade 1 – 5 students or about 45 kids per grade level so that is a lot of information to know. But aren’t they worth it? As grade level teams respond to this data, my hope is that we are supported to move forward in our understanding and connection with students. We are really lucky to have a very permissive and open culture in which “grassroots” uprisings of ideas are encouraged, if not expected. What can we do to truly connect with our kids?

What would your next steps be?

My TA and I are doing a couple of things. Firstly, we have created similar photo pages and I have put these in my iPad to make notes on during or straight after class. We spend a very short time of each design lesson talking to the whole group and the rest of the time working with individuals or small groups. Often there is time to talk about things other than the project we are working on. We know that we don’t get to talk to everyone and that we also tend to gravitate toward those kids who are perhaps louder or more assertive. We want to collect some data to see who we are missing.

As I was thinking over this protocol, I was reminded of a similar protocol suggested by the Responsive Classroom.  This one is a little more simple but equally powerful. In summary, you need a piece of paper folded into three columns. In the first column, write the names of your students – any order. (That in itself may lead to some understandings about your relationships in the classroom.) In the second column write one thing that you think is cool about that child, the child is passionate about, or something they really care about.  And in the third column, make a star if you are sure that the child knows that you know this about them.

What would you do next after one of these protocols?

 

The IB recently sent out this tweet which has sparked renewed interest in the Concept-Question cards that I first put together when working as the Grade 3-5 Coordinator and Grade 3 teacher at Yokohama International School in 2008.

I have used them for teacher workshops, PYP Exhibition, parent workshops, and most planning meetings I go to.

Recently, Sam Sherratt wrote a blog post: Being A PYP Teacher Part 1: Carry the Book. The “book” he referred to is Making the PYP Happen.  All of the concepts, descriptors, questions and now related concepts that are on the cards, are from this book.  I am in agreement with Sam that we need to be so familiar with “the book”.  There is a wealth of information about the PYP in there that I think often gets overlooked in favor of other things from other sources. I am all for diversity in ideas but as PYP educators, we do need to make sure we are not passing over some really great ideas in our own program guide.

In the comments that followed on Twitter, the suggestion to add related concepts came up. These are also in the book and some users said that they have added these to the cards themselves.  I have now made a quick edit and added them too. Please download and use for good!

Happy conceptual thinking and questioning!

Concept-Question Cards with Related Concepts

 

Last night I posted about Single Subject teachers and I asked the question:

How might we all move toward a more open system of schooling in which the boundaries and delineations that divide us, did not exist?

This morning, the single subject teachers at my school got an email from our head of primary:

Everything is a two way street. If single subject or integrating teachers want to be included and more than an “add on” they also have to do their part in making this happen. What I appreciate is that the need for holistic inclusion has been considered and is already part of “what we do”.

What systems do you have in place that show all teachers are a vital part of each child’s day? How do you purposefully plan for collaboration?

My previous post, Start With Kindness…And Then Legos outlined the plan for the first lesson with students in the Design Pit. I have done this lesson nine times now. Six to go. And it has been really interesting.

Here is what I have learned:

• Kids don’t mind working on their own but some will almost always ask if they can work with a partner

• Kids form really strong attachments to things that they make even when that “thing” is from a cup of lego randomly scooped from a box

• If kids don’t want to work together or in a group, they won’t

• Kids are seriously creative

I thought this challenge would be more about the creation of the thing – and to a degree it was when kids would tell animated stories about why they built the thing they built – but it was definitely more about the how kids work rather than the what kids can make. I learned a lot very quickly about the kids in each class and the dynamic of the class as a group. I heard some very clear statements from people both pro and anti working cooperatively, and I saw the power in keeping hands busy with little need for talking when it comes to having a large group of English language learners in the class.

This was a successful starting lesson despite it not heading entirely in the direction I had anticipated. I hope it set the groundwork for a little insight in the wondering, risk-taking, making, working together and having fun that will be Design Class this year.

Would I recommend this: yes. It definitely gets kids active, engaged, talking, and it is self directed enough to allow you the freedom to join in or roam at your leisure. I didn’t push the thinking routine as a “let’s stop and do a thinking routine” but just embedded the ideas into the questions I asked during the lesson.  Overall, a successful intro lesson for the year and would be an equally successful hour in a homeroom class too.

Recently I posted about a Maker Mindset. My friend, Darcy, shared an article with me today about a Producer Mindset – specifically, Raising Producer Kids. Written by Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Philip Guo, this is a great piece with loads of ideas about the concept that we need our kids to be more actively producing ideas/products/songs/plays/art/games than they perhaps are at the moment.

Here are some of the best parts from the post:

Encourage your kids to become producers. To the extent possible, have them strive to consistently produce something new rather than consuming all the time.

Producing isn’t limited to creating tangible artifacts.

…engaging in creative activities can give them a deeper sense of personal satisfaction than the superficial fun that comes with passive consumption.

Fostering a producer mindset isn’t hard.

You can still let them spend the vast majority of their free time consuming media like all of their friends are doing; as long as you encourage them to spend at least some time producing

…kids (at least in America) desire both conformance and uniqueness: Consuming the same media as their peers allows them to conform and fit in with the mainstream crowd, and producing gives them a legitimate sense of uniqueness, which can make them happy regardless of what their friends like.

The key here is intrinsic motivation—doing things for their own sake rather than for the promise of external recognition or reward.

…observe what your kids naturally like doing and then figure out ways to get those activities to involve producing rather than just consuming.

Modifying existing works—taking the constraints of an existing book, game, or activity, and then being creative within those constraints—is often the first step toward developing a producer mindset. It also teaches your kids that the things they buy aren’t sacred—they can feel free to alter or remix them.

Exactly what they’re producing isn’t important; what’s more important is the fact that they’re getting into a habit of producing regularly.

Here comes the part that I just LOVE:

Reading and school learning are also forms of consumption. Yes, they’re healthier than ad-ridden mass media, but they still involve passively absorbing, memorizing, and regurgitating information. I’d go as far to claim that if your kids have hobbies they’re passionate about concentrating on for long periods of time, then that’s better preparation for being a happy and productive adult than studying more and possibly getting better grades.

Whenever people ask me about apps for the iPad, I talk about consumption -vs- production apps. It is no secret that Book Creator, Adobe Spark, Stop Motion Studio, Doceri, Draw and Tell, iMovie, Hopscotch and Garageband are among my favorite apps. Games and apps that are task specific (solve these problems, drag these words, fill in these boxes) are really just a substitution for a worksheet, and while they may be “fun” and “the kids really like them”, they are not building a producer or maker mindset.

So what? What can I do now with this information?

Excellent question! This is why you need Darcy at your school! Cue an email she sent this morning to a small group of us, currently exploring Makerspaces and the Maker Mindset. This email was about a new global event on May 2nd (which happens to be DARCY’S BIRTHDAY – coincidence? I think not!). Check it out:

Global Day of Design

I have signed up and the email confirmation comes with a file of goodies that are absolutely worth your time in downloading and looking through. I also bought the book (all in the name of education as part of my Masters course on creativity, of course!) But don’t JUST look at the resources! Share them, print them, doodle on them, remix them, leave them out for the kids to see, loop the videos on your Smartboard. Part of our job as educators is to “light a spark” – kids are going to be curious about things we pay attention to so make sure the things you are spending your time on are worth it!

How does this link to the PYP Exhibition?

If I were in charge of the world, I would have kids work through as many Launch Cycles as possible leading up to the exhibition. Traditionally, most PYPX groups follow an inquiry cycle. While these are great, many teachers use them in a very sequential manner that is theory heavy and research heavy and takes a lot of cognitive processing time rather than tinkering/doing/making time. In many cases, kids don’t move toward the messy, making, action, doing part of exhibition until well into week three or four of the six to eight week process. I would love to see iteration become one of the buzzwords of Exhibition. Instead of coming up with one way, come up with ten ways, twenty ways. Try eight or nine different ideas out. Be bold!

Embrace the Bias.

Bias exists. Everywhere. We all lean toward one thing or another which inherently means we lean away from something else. We read one more chapter which means ten less math problems. The PYP is HUGE. There are many components, each jockeying for attention in our day. Ideally, we would slice the day up into fractional perfection: Knowledge, ATLs, Concepts, Attitudes, Action. But life isn’t a perfect pie chart. So why not embrace a Bias Toward Action? (Thanks, Patty!)

According to the d.School, here is the What/Why/How on Bias Toward Action:

How amazing does this sound? We promote action-oriented behavior. We see action as a way to get a group unstuck. Action inspires new thinking. Action promotes group agreement. Action helps make decisions.

Why would we NOT want more tinkering, producing, and action in our classrooms?

 

What else can I read about tinkering & producing?

For further reading on the subject of tinkering, have a look at these posts previously published with links to loads more ideas to bring a Producer Mindset to your classroom:

• Creatively Tinkering
• Why Minecraft? 
• Do It Yourself
• Become An Enabler…Of Creativity!
• Build. Make. Hack. Grow.