We liked the idea and outcome so much from last year, that we decided to do it again this year with the English 12 classes. We have had so many things that have hit our staff unexpectedly this year, that we decided to focus on staff as our recipients. We wanted to have a little pick-me-up for our staff when they came back from Thanksgiving break. We had students draw names of staff members (the red and green slips of paper in the black bin above), and then they created Christmas/holiday cards that were personal to that staff member. Some of their awesome work is below!
As part of our monthly Quickfires last year, our English 12 students made Christmas/holiday paper circuit cards for our local Senior Center. The students really enjoyed creating them and it was a great creative outlet. Due to the rigor of their classes as students get older, sometimes the content is deep and there isn't always a chance for the creative outlet, so I love working on creative projects for our older students. We liked the idea and outcome so much from last year, that we decided to do it again this year with the English 12 classes. We have had so many things that have hit our staff unexpectedly this year, that we decided to focus on staff as our recipients. We wanted to have a little pick-me-up for our staff when they came back from Thanksgiving break. We had students draw names of staff members (the red and green slips of paper in the black bin above), and then they created Christmas/holiday cards that were personal to that staff member. Some of their awesome work is below! I made sure to get to work early on the first day back from break (plus a snow day added at the end!) so I could stick the cards in the staff mailboxes. We included a little note explaining how the cards work (so they can test student work), who made them, and a little holiday note. The students were so curious to hear about what teachers thought! It made the whole experience personal for them knowing the card was going to someone they knew.
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Part 1
The English 12 teacher and I started working with her students last year to really help them develop the 6C skills our district is focusing on (collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence), so that the students are prepared to be successful no matter the path they choose after high school. After our last Quickfire, the English 12 teacher (the awesome Jody Snyder!) gave her students a quick survey asking them what they would like to take away from future Quickfire activities. The top two areas the students identified were Public Speaking and Creative Thinking.
In talking about how we could provide them with an opportunity to practice these skills, we decided to do a Passion Project. In a nutshell, we would give students the opportunity to share their passions (from outside of school) with their teachers and other staff members. We figured if it was their passion, they wouldn't need notes to present - they would simply be speaking WITH passion ABOUT their passion. We took one class period to go over the project and help them think about their passion, how they could share it, and a quick hands-on component that would help share their passion. When we told them they would have to present for 3 minutes to staff members, they were pretty concerned.
The anticipated question "How will I able to talk that long without notes?!" came up pretty quickly, which is why we provided them with a quarter-sheet "cheat sheet." Simple prompts they could have to help them through their presentation if they needed it. We talked about how you would greet your audience, the importance of eye contact, and general presenting tips.
Some of the students struggled to dig deep and think about their passions. It was so enlightening to hear about what excites our students outside of school. Their passions were so diverse and unique! The majority of their passions involved physical/hands-on components or simply having a creative/maker outlet.
Part 2
The week after we had them brainstorm their ideas, we had students present to staff members during a "Lunch & Learn." We wanted to not only give the students an authentic audience for their presentations, but also share with teachers what drives and motivates our students. We provided lunch to teachers and students from one of the local Mexican restaurants, and let teachers have lunch while they learned from our students. After presenting, students were able to have lunch as well - a reward/incentive for their hard work!
One particularly fascinating student passion that I learned about was related to art, but so unique! We had a student who loved drawing and likes to do drawings and then transfer them and do henna tattoos. I learned that she draws her pictures on paper with pencil and then draws over them with pen. Then she puts men's deodorant on the skin (she said because the men's deodorant tends to be more waxy than women's), run her pen drawing on the skin, and then go over it with the henna. It was so fascinating to hear her talk about it and the knowledge she had of the process.
After the Lunch & Learn, we asked the participating students and staff to complete a feedback evaluation that relates back to our district's 6C Learner Profile. It gave us so much insight into our student and staff learning!
It was so fascinating to see and hear the buzz around the room! It was a great experience for the students as on their Capstone night, it is definitely not quiet and there is a lot going on around them. Being able to be confident in their knowledge, presentation, and having a strong voice definitely takes practice - so much more than just the one night they are working towards at the end of their senior year.
It is so interesting how each school has it's own dynamic that makes it unique. For some it might be the sense of community/family, special events, clubs/organizations, or sporting events. Our students have several different sporting teams available to participate in, but something that has been noticed by staff is that sporting events often have low student attendance. Which got some of us thinking, how could we increase student attendance and participation at our sporting events? Together with the English 12 teacher, we decided to get some answers with her seniors classes helping us out.
We decided to start with the source - the students. We gave them a little survey asking them some questions:
We asked the students to brainstorm ideas for a student- led "thing" that could be done to encourage students to attend sporting events. We made sure to tell them that this is something that they would be leading, not staff holding them accountable to follow through. We also shared the results with the students for their class hour to see what was preventing students from attending games as well as what would encourage them to attend. We did not place any limitations on what could be done, but rather asked them to dream big about what they would like to see happen. We wanted to know that this is something they need to be invested in, care about, and want to see happen. It may take time, resources, or help, but that is why we as staff are here - to help guide them in the right direction. For some groups, it took them a little bit to get going, but the conversations they were having in their small groups were fascinating - they had so many great ideas!
As this activity was bigger than simply coming up with ways to increase student attendance at sporting events, we asked groups to stand up and present their idea (with a microphone!) to their class. The activity was the vehicle to focus on communication, collaboration, creativity, and building confidence. What I love about these Quickfire activities is that they cannot be completed without these elements. The content drives the activity forward, and then the rest falls in place.
As the students were presenting the ideas, I was taking notes. We told the students were going to send a survey out the following day to their Senior Class as well as staff and ask them to vote on their top 3 ideas. There were so many good ideas and told the students that they could do any of them at any time, but if they wanted to work as a larger group, having a narrower selection to work from might be helpful. After sending out the email to staff to vote, I received so many encouraging emails from staff members about the ideas that students came up with and offers to help out in different ways.
The top votes were:
This was really a fascinating activity. It was so great to hear their conversations, wishes, and desires for their classmates and school. In listening to them, what I took way was:
Last trimester, Kelly McGee and I worked with the 6th grade Science teacher in our middle school to do a STEAM activity during some scheduled 1/2 days. The students had so much fun and the teacher saw so many benefits that she asked us back for the end of the 2nd trimester! As St. Patrick's Day is not too far off, we decided to do a St. Patrick's Day themed activity. We rounded up LOTS of our STEM resources and wrote out a little storyline with embedded building concepts. The STEM resources we had available for students to build with were:
We intentionally wanted to give the students lots of choice their design as well as see what kinds of resources they liked building with. We found the most popular building resources were:
In ActionI love how learning can be messy. Some of the classes had messier learning than others, and that is totally okay with me as long as they were on task! You can tell the messier tables had a lot of building and rebuilding and trying different tools to see what would work best to execute the idea in their heads. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I often got caught up in conversation with the students and hearing about their building process. One of the groups not only completed the storyscape, but figured out how make their cart move by rigging it with magnets and using the same poles of the magnet to push the car. I wish I could have captured what they had shared - they were so proud and excited! Speaking of resources, it is always interesting to not only see what the most popular resources are, but how they are used during an activity. I think it is safe to say the students favored the green, yellow, and white Plus Plus pieces! :)
I was recently asked how some of the Quickfires I have done are different from a STEM Challenge. In a lot ways, they are very similar. But on the same note, they are also very different. Totally clear explanation, right?
The biggest thing that is different with the Quickfires is the constraints and time limit that is imposed on the students. In many STEM Challenges, the challenges are open-ended and give students time to plan, design, re-design, and explain their creation and the process it took to getting to the end product. This is also part of a Quickfire, but due to the constraints set on the challenge as well as the time limit, you are asking students to go with their gut feeling and create something that meets the given constraints. The time limit does not always allow for a full planning, design, re-design, and explanation, but rather, what can you create under the given circumstances. Let's say your challenge involves pipe cleaners...
At the end of the given time, we had students present their new pictograms and include:
Student Creations
Each year, our Tech and Media Team organizes a district-wide teacher professional development day called Rebel U. This year was our 8th year putting on Rebel U and we were so excited to share some exciting new resources and ideas with teachers. Each year we select a theme for the day and this year the theme was a multi-faceted - the overall theme of "Sports" as well as STEAM as a classroom implementation theme. We had many different breakout sessions for teachers as well as some self-directed activities for teachers. During previous Rebel U days, we have offered breakout sessions as the majority of the day, but this year we wanted to change things up a bit and give teachers an unique learning experience where they could take an idea and implement it in any classroom. Insert Quickfire challenges here!
Meets
Our intention for the Quickfire activity for the teachers was to present them with a challenge that was centered around a theme that stemmed from a narrative text. Our theme that we chose for the afternoon of Rebel U was the Winter Olympics.
The Setup
The Challenge
Reflection
I love the energy that Quickfires organically create. It is hard not to have something that is fun and new put in front of you with a little challenge twist! In our experience at Rebel U, the noise level of the room was different based on the resource and challenge. I wish I could have bottled up the energy from the room with the straw builders, so I could use it on a day when I needed a push! Between the challenge they were given and the size requirement of their creation, they had some very creative outcomes and they looked like they were having a blast. There was a definite vibe of creative innovation and collaboration in each room that could not have been accomplished without some serious critical thinking. Everyone who completed the Quickfire should be proud of what they created and the process that it took to get to that end creation!
In our district, we are using the 6C framework as established by the book, Becoming Brilliant.
As part of our evaluation, we asked our teachers to rate their experience based on the framework above. The average score for the Quickfire activities for the district was 18.32 - that is above a level 3! And this was a Quickfire that was structured simply to give teachers a taste of what a Quickfire is and how it might be used in the classroom.
So, what did our teachers think of the Quickfire experience? We received great feedback that would definitely help us structure the activity a little differently if we were going to do district-wide Quickfire again. I think due to the fact that each room had a different theme and resource, the amount of time it took to complete varied. Some were done early while others were working until the very end. One aspect I would add to this (as it was completed with teachers), is to add a component to plan how they could use their assigned resource to create a Quickfire they could use in their own classroom.
What we learned from our responses as well as conversations we have had since Rebel U is that they LOVED the straw builders and want some in their own classrooms! How awesome is that?!
I am not sure if it is the time of year where everyone is ready for a break or if seniors are starting to come to the realization that life will not be a normal high school life in several months when they graduate. Either way, we felt it was a great time for a Quickfire! There has been some noticeable stress and anxiety lately with students looking for help or assurance, so why not do a little something to help them out and point them in a forward direction? In the third trimester, our seniors take part of a "Capstone" experience where they explore a career, interview people in the field, research, write a paper, present to an audience, and other related experiences. So, as an activity leading up to this big project in a couple of months, we had the students complete an online personality survey to see what their preferences about topics say about their:
After reading about their personality type and exploring some of the career paths for their personality type, we asked the students to create a representation of a career of interest using pipe cleaners. With this part, the students not only had to isolate one career option, but also translate how that career could be visually represented. This part was difficult for many because the provided career options were ones they weren't familiar with, difficult to represent an aspect of that career, or weren't sure how they fit into that particular career. I think it was a great activity for them to explore and start thinking about possible careers before the third trimester arrives. Student CreationsNote: For these photos, I tried using Google PhotoScan. What I learned is that you get great images if you take a couple of seconds to line everything up and are not distracted talking, or answering questions while trying to take pictures of each sheet. I apologize in advance for some pictures that might look a little distorted. ;)
Today I worked with my 4th grade friends to make binary ornaments. I was inspired by Schooling a Monkey and Little Bins for Little Hands and their awesome ornament ideas. I liked how the wreath and stars offered the opportunity to spell things out, but I also wanted them to use their creativity a little bit more and think about how they could manipulate the pipe cleaners into a recognizable (holiday) shape. I tried it myself to show them one example (Rudolph and his pack on his back), and the manipulating the pipe cleaners really was the challenging part!
We had the students make their pipe cleaner ornament and then figure out how they would add their binary word or letter to it. They did great and were excited to show off their designs and have us guess what their letter was! For this Quickfire, we only allowed them to use the provided pipe cleaners, beads, the ASCII Binary Alphabet sheet from Little Bins for Little Hands, and scissors - no tape or glue. Student CreationsThe teacher I was working with got in on the design action too with a pretty cool snowflake design! Any guesses on what it spells? Hint, start with the light pink tip and work clockwise.
Now that Thanksgiving has passed, my mind travels towards holiday themed activities. Christmas is my favorite time of year (and luckily I LOVE snow and live in a place where we get a decent amount!) so I was ready to jump into some fun learning activities. For this Quickfire, I worked with high school seniors to make paper circuit Christmas cards which we would give to our local senior center. The students could decorate their card however they wanted, but they were to include at least 1 LED light that when pressure was applied to one point of the card, the light would light up. I had a DonorsChoose project funded in which I received lithium batteries, copper conductive tape, LED lights, and cardstock paper. The only other resources I needed were tape and coloring resources! If you haven't heard or seen paper circuits before - they are so awesome! Below is a short video (or you can view it here) for how to make a paper circuit card. It was amazing how quiet the room was as the students were working. Students who made cards in the morning came back at lunch to show their friends their cards. Students who weren't even in the classes I was working with today wanted to come and make a card because they heard what we were making. I think everyone had a blast working on these and the senior center was blown away by the cards and were so excited to decorate with them where people could interact with the cards. What a fun way to use learning about circuitry to give back to the community! Some Student-Created CardsA short week before the holidays will guarantee that kids will be wired...so why not capture their desire to communicate and channel it into a fun activity with Legos?! I had recently come across these Lego Challenge Cards from The Fickle Giraffe and thought it would be a great idea to modify for a Thanksgiving theme. The Pilgrims faced many challenges when they settled in Plymouth Colony after all! I started off by showing them this video to give them a bit of background knowledge. If they paid attention enough, they could also use some of the ideas in the video for their challenge.
This was a fun challenge for me to watch, as working in pairs creating a solution to a problem was more difficult than I anticipated. I am not sure if it was due to the short week and upcoming break, or if they truly had a difficult time discussing their ideas, coming to a common solution, and then actually building a prototype. Either way, it was a good brain workout for them! They came up with some great visual solutions and were able to explain (either in written or verbal words) why they constructed what they did. If I were to take this idea a step further (time permitting), I would love to take the students outside and ask them to construct actual representations of their ideas using resources from nature. This would give some great hands-on experience (and a little more realism) for what the Pilgrims had to go through. Student Challenge Solutions |
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