Digital Citizenship Lesson

Year 4-5 students reviewed digital citizenship rights and responsibilities using Kahoot. Prompted great conversations and gave me some valuable insight on which messages we need to work on to ensure responsible and safe use of digital technology.

International Dot Day

Happy International Dot Day! International Dot Day is inspired by Peter H. Reynold's book The Dot, which is a story of a girl who begins a journey of self-discovery after she is challenged to "make her mark." After we read the book, my students had a great time creating their own marks with QuiverVision's augmented reality.

Moonhack 2017

I signed my students up for Moonhack, which is Code Club's free World Record setting event for kids aged 7-18 around the world. "On August 15th kids all over the globe, in many languages and from all time zones will be Moonhacking. You can try one of our Moonhack projects or submit your own coding project with a moon theme."

My students love to code and there are so many different ways you can cater to their varying levels of confidence with coding.  Some of them followed step-by-step visual instructions to help get them started, others created their entire project from scratch. Some worked collaboratively in pairs and others completed individual projects. We can't wait for next year's Moonhack! #getkidscoding

 

Bake Sale Maths

It's the end of term and we had so much fun with our 'Bake Sale Maths' projects! Students worked together in teams to research a product that they would like to bake and "sell" in a classroom bake sale (using play money). They needed to visit grocery shops online to calculate the total cost for ingredients, work out how much they would charge per item and present their initial proposal to the 'bank manager' to apply for a loan.

Once their initial plans were approved, they needed to produce a persuasive marketing campaign for their 'company'. Some students made advertising posters or powerpoint presentations for their campaign, others created television advertisements using a green screen and DoInk app.

They then "purchased" their ingredients, made their products and set up shop. We used play money for their cash registers and each student was given a certain amount of money to spend on other stores. The rule was that they could only buy one of their own products and the rest had to be bought from other groups. We had students from other classes come along as extra customers. Half way through the sale I asked them to offer a certain % discount on items they had left. At the end of the sale they needed to calculate total profit (minus any initial costs) and evaluate the success of their business strategies.

It was such an engaging way to differentiate for varying student needs and they were all motivated to keep learning. Their only complaint was that profits were fake money. Great way to end the term!

Adora Svitak: "What adults can learn from kids"

In 2010, 12 year old Adora Svitak delivered a TED Talk: "What Adults Can Learn From Kids." I just love her message about the power of inspiration and dreaming. She says the world needs "childish" thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. 

"Kids can be full of inspiring aspirations and hopeful thinking, like my wish that no one went hungry or that everything were a free kind of utopia. How many of you still dream like that and still believe in the possibilities? Sometimes a knowledge of history and the past failures of utopian ideals can be a burden because you know that if everything were free, then the food stocks would become depleted, and scarce and lead to chaos. On the other hand, we kids still dream...

No matter your position or place in life, it is imperative to create opportunities for children so that we can grow up to blow you away.

Adults and fellow TEDsters, you need to listen and learn from kids and trust us and expect more from us. You must lend an ear today, because we are the leaders of tomorrow."

Rollercoaster Marble Challenge

Design Challenge:

Can you construct a rollercoaster that will carry a marble from the top to the bottom using gravity and forces?

Questions:

How is your design similar and different from a real rollercoaster?

What features in your design were necessary for the marble to roll all the way to the end?

What problems did you face in your design process?

How did you improve your design?

How does friction affect your marble?

How are potential and kinetic energy used in a rollercoaster?

Vocabulary

Gravity: Force of attraction of objects to the centre of the earth

Potential energy: Stored energy that an object or substance has because of it’s position or condition.  For example, rollercoaster at the top of the track.  Potential energy can change (transform) into kinetic energy

Kinetic energy: Working energy that an object or substance has because of its’ motion. Examples, rollercoaster going down a hill, waterfall

Friction: Surface resistance to motion

Borrowed Bee Bots!

Our school currently has very limited access to digital technology. We are lucky enough to have smartboards or tv screens in most classrooms, and laptops are stored in a central place for classes to share. Most classrooms have one or two iPads to share within the class, but we don't own any of our own robotics. So I was pretty excited when I found out that there is a local Technology in Schools program where you can borrow equipment!

Since our students have had very little exposure to programming, I decided to start with something very simple.  Bee Bots seemed like an obvious choice because they're something that can be easily differentiated for all early-childhood and primary levels.

Students in Years 4-5 explored the concept of sequencing steps and decisions using the Bee Bots. They worked in groups to solve progressively more complex routes, and programmed the Bee Bots to navigate through mazes that other students created with physical objects. They had to plan the path for the Bee Bot using paper grids or mini whiteboards and then test, evaluate and improve the path of the Bee Bot to ensure it avoided the obstacles. Lots of fun and plenty of learning took place!

     

Kid President

I love Kid President and so do my students! I use his pep talks at the beginning of the school year or whenever we need a bit of encouragement or a boost. He's also great at motivating students whenever we're starting new Passion Projects or creative group projects.

Butterflies

Bringing the real-world into the classroom: What could be a better way to spark interest and learn more about life cycles than to observe a chrysalis transform into a beautiful monarch butterfly? 

STEM is life

STEM is literally everywhere in our lives.  It encompasses everything around us, from things that we use every day to natural laws. Did you use a smart phone today? Did you cook anything? Have you thought about where your clothes come from?  Someone designed and engineered your outfits. They used science to consider the appropriate fabric, mathematics skills to calculate the amount of fabric needed, and they probably used technology to sew. In 2013 Australia's chief scientist at the time, Professor Ian Chubb, said, "STEM is everywhere. Our nourishment, our safety, our homes and neighbours, our relationships with family and friends, our health, our jobs, our leisure are all profoundly shaped by technological innovation and the discoveries of science."

STEM research (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) is often considered innovative and ground-breaking. However, although there has been an increasing demand and push for STEM approaches in educational institutions over the past decade, there is still so much room for improvement. Young children have an inquisitive nature, they don't memorise steps and their early educational experiences do not come from a cookie-cutter approach. Our education system needs to get better at finding ways to tap into that natural curiosity and hunger for learning that many students usually arrive with. 

My 3 year old visiting my classroom butterflies (we set them free as soon as their wings are ready!)

Think back to your own education experience: what were some of the best things you ever did at school? It is usually always something that had meaning and relevance to you as an individual. Maybe it was something connected to your interests, but whenever I ask others this question it's often something they built or made or created. 

My own favourite memories either have a creative component (anything art related), real-world connections and experiences (exploring rock pool habitats on a Year 5 camp) or they are self-directed projects that I had ownership of. When I was 8 years old I was given a creative writing project where I could write about anything I wanted. I made a collection of short stories called Cat Mischief, I illustrated it and chose red card for the cover page. My teacher laminated the cover and bound it for me and I felt like a real author. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who did "Genius Hour/Passion Projects" before it became a 'thing'! The rest of my experiences as a student were pretty boring in comparison.

So what does that have to do with STEM? Well, in my classroom the STEM framework is a teaching approach, a lens to put over what we already know about what motivates and engages our students. It's a hands-on approach to teaching Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, but there are also opportunities for a very natural integration across the whole curriculum; there are also arts, literacy, geography, humanities.

At my school we're taking what we already know about how students learn: inquiry, project-based learning and design thinking and using that to underpin our approaches to STEM. The STEM framework that we're working from essentially opens up pathways for all of our students regardless of their interests and their different learning needs.  It allows them to play with the possibilities and to really begin to navigate those 21st Century Learning Skills. We are teaching, modelling, practicing the transferable skills of being able to think critically and flexibly to adapt to our rapidly changing world. It goes beyond engagement to empowerment.

It's important to encourage curiosity and reflection in meaningful, authentic ways. This guides our students towards innovative thinking and helps to support the development of life skills in problem-solving and resilience. A big focus for me this year will be to look for mentors and materials beyond the classroom, and to encourage students to learn by creating and making mistakes, and to collaborate and share. Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager, co-authors of the book Invent to Learn, discuss the importance of maker spaces to provide students with hands-on experiences, “We must reimagine school science and math not as a way to prepare students for the next academic challenge, or a future career, but as a place where students are inventors, scientists, and mathematicians today.”

Student voice and student feedback is a really important component of my teaching and learning cycle: "What are you curious or passionate about? What do you want your future to look like? What problems would you need to solve to get there? What skills will you need?" We are all familiar with the adage, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," and I think that's what STEM does.. It's feeding our students for a lifetime.