When Are You No Longer Innovative? #EdChat

I've been thinking about the concept of innovation and being innovative as an educator. At times, I think I have been innovative in different approaches to teaching and helping students learn. Whether that is through large projects like 20 Time that led to hosting TEDx Events or The Epic Romeo and Juliet Project or smaller changes to my every day instruction like increased wait time and how I ask questions. These big or little changes can have an impact on the students in class and pushes me to continually evolve as an educator. Despite these changes, and others over the years, I started to wonder at what point does an innovative strategy cross into the realm of traditional and no longer innovative. 

Right now, there is great work being done around brain science and what it can do to help teachers. An article from ASCD, Every Educator Needs to Know How The Brain Learns, does a wonderful job explaining the why of brain science for teachers. SEL is also very important in the classroom. I would argue that teachers have been concerned about Social Emotional Learning long before it was a buzzword in education. Where those teachers innovative in the fact that they were addressing something that was not considered mainstream yet? Once it became mainstream, is it no longer innovative?

Using a television in the classroom was considered extremely innovative at one time. Reading Rainbow and Sesame Street were considered so far ahead of their time. Using television, and visual media in general, was considered cutting edge. Those two programs were instrumental in educating tens of thousands of children around the country. It was innovative and impactful. Would you still call those programs innovative today? (Note: This dyslexic child learned to read because of LeVar Burton and Reading Rainbow. Watching that cart with the TV wheel into class gave me so much hope that I would be able to read and be awesome like the kids featured on the show. I was able to meet Mr. Burton in person years ago and thank him with tears in my eyes. I know I wasn't the first or the last person to do that.)

June 2014 ISTE Conference

I have fully embraced Project Based Learning and Maker Education as a way to engage students in the learning process. I want to help students be creators and not just consumers of content. Project Based Learning has been around for a very l long time. Is it really still innovative to allow students to explore topics that are meaningful to them and let them learn through the process of discovery? I don't have the answer to that, but if PBL and MakerEd have transitioned into the realm of traditional pedagogy, does that mean it is time to find the next innovative approach?

I think the scary thing with being innovative as a teacher is the fact that failure is part of the process. Lessons are going to be bad or simply not work out. Being innovative is not easy and it is not something everyone is comfortable being in the classroom. It takes educators who are in the right environment to try the new ideas and see how they go. They document and share and hopefully their innovative idea grows and expands to classrooms all over. However, it is not easy. I imagine so many innovative ideas shrivel on the vine because education is not set up to support innovative teaching. 

As a teacher who advocates for teachers to try the big crazy idea, yells from the rooftop that mental health needs to be talked about for teachers and students, that wants nothing more to find a way to support and nurture other educators looking to take their innovative idea to the next level, I want all educators out there to think about how they can be supportive of innovation in the classroom. Innovation will constantly evolve as technology and research provides more options and answers. My goal moving forward is to continue to support innovative practices, raise up voices that are trying to make education better for everyone, and not give up on finding the best thing for teachers and students, I just hope that every teacher feels that they have the option to try that idea because it could be the one that changes a generation of learners.  

Makerspaces in a post COVID world #MakerEd #PBL

As March comes to a close, some schools are starting to think about what the 2021-2022 school year is going to like for their students. One of the things that I hope sticks around is how many teachers embraced Project Based Learning as a strong pedagogical approach to learning during the pandemic. I have been lucky to work with different teachers across the the country that have embraced PBL and have seen the benefits it has for their students. The big questions is, "How do we maintain this positive movement into the next school year?" I think this is where an investment in makerspaces can be a great idea. 

If your school has embraced PBL, focusing on creating a space that supports these teachers and students is a wonderful way to keep the momentum. With teachers and students being able to work more closely next year, there will be a surge in possible project ideas that need to be supported. Having a dedicated space that would allow for a wide variety of projects would be great. By adding tools to a space, teachers will be able to expand the possible project offerings to students. If students have more freedom to choose their projects, having access to a larger variety of tools will help bring equity across the board. Having worked with schools that have built spaces to support PBL, I know what it is like to see students and teachers become more engaged in the process of learning with the addition of these learning spaces and the tools in them. Striking while the iron is hot is crucial. 

If you are a teacher that is excited about the strides you and your colleagues have made during the pandemic and you want to keep the great work going, I suggest you explore the plausibility of makerspaces in your school. There is so much that can be done to support students and their ideas when they have access to a makerspace. Some schools will look at the 21-22 school year as a chance to return to "normal". Other, more progressive schools, will look at the 21-22 school year as a chance to fix some of the problems that became glaring during the pandemic. Dedicating time and resources to support a positive change in instruction and learning is the best thing we can do moving forward. I have seen what a makerspace can do for students pre-pandemic and I know it will be a difference maker post-pandemic. 

If you are interested in exploring makerspaces and have questions, I'd love to connect and help in anyway that I can. If you have worked on setting up makerspaces, I'd love to connect and see what we can learn from one another. 

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Minecraft and Literature #MakerEd #PBL

 I wanted to share a fun project that I created for my students when I had to be out of class for a couple of days. My middle school design students were working on a Design Thinking project, but could not work on it because the world was with me on my computer. I needed something for them to do that would have them think and create. It came to me quickly and I think it is going to turn out wonderfully. 

I gave students links to "The Raven" and "A Tell-Tale Heart". I like Poe and these were chosen for that reason and that they are both very short. I wanted students to be able to listen/read them in class. I used the YouTube videos of Christopher Lee reading them and you can find them both below. 

 

After reading/listening to these two pieces, students have to choose a scene from each that stood out to them and design a version of it in Minecraft. Students would start with a paper design and then move to Minecraft Education Edition to fully flesh out their design. They would post their design and multiple images of their completed build in SeeSaw with explanations of why they chose the scene and how they built it. Here is the example I created for the students to see what I was looking for from them. 

My sketch is very rough, but it conveyed the idea I had. 

I really thought I did a good job showcasing the eye here. 

The full scene from afar. 

If you want to see my SeeSaw post, you can check it out here. 

These students are very gifted builders and I can't wait to see what they can create using Minecraft Education Edition. I think this is a great way to allow students to demonstrate understanding and meaning of texts in a way that is comfortable to them. Imagine students building entire towns or homes of characters and explaining their symbolic value in the story. Themes, motifs, symbols, characterization, and much more could be discussed in depth through their creations. I think there is so much here worth exploring and I would love to hear how other ELA teachers are using Minecraft to connect their students to the reading. Tweet or tag me @TheNerdyTeacher and we can connect!

Minecraft and Design Thinking #MakerEd @PlayCraftLearn

My first lesson for my Design and Innovation class needed to be something that would engage the students immediately. Minecraft is huge in our Middle School and I thought that would be a wonderful way to get students thinking about design. Luckily, we have Minecraft Education Edition rolled out for every student in our Middle School.

The goal of the fist design challenge was to design a house for me. The students were not allowed to ask me any questions. They just had to build me a house based on what they think I might like. They were given 20 minutes to put together a prototype. The kids were understandably frustrated, but they all worked very hard to create something that they hoped I would enjoy.

We discussed the mostly completed houses and I would tell them what I did and did not like. Next, I allowed them time to ask me questions and dive deep into what I do like and what I need in a house. The reason they had to build the first house without the questions was to show them the value of listening and asking questions.

In design thinking, you want students to have empathy for the person they are designing and you can do that with the help of asking the right questions. Having the students see the value of asking questions allowed them to embrace this part of the design process. Kids love to jump to the ideation portion of design thinking because it is more fun, but they really need to spend time focusing on empathy.

The kids asked so many amazing questions and really focused on what I liked to do with my spare time and how I move about my own house. I could see they really were looking for questions that didn't just give them one answer (Do you like carpet?), but for questions that could provide a multitude of information (What do you do when you are bored at home?).

Minecraft is a wonderful tool for this intro to design thinking for students because it was so easy for them to log in and start crafting. Students were put up houses of all different shapes and sizes in a matter of minutes. That is what I was really hoping was going to happen and it was awesome to see them all working and helping one another. No grades really seems to help them take their time and try different things. One student built a red stone operated door that was protected by a golem. Ya, that was a weird sentence to write.

After their second version of the house, I walked the students through the rest of the design thinking process following the handout created by the Stanford d. School. I modified their handout that can be found here.  Next week, students will pair up and go through the design process with a partner and try to create the perfect vacation experience in Minecraft. This is their chance to really stretch and see if they can find empathy for their partner and really build something amazing for their partner.

  

View this post on Instagram

@uniliggett Knights designing and building using Minecraft Education Edition. Just the first lesson in our new design class. #MakerEd #playcraftlearn

A post shared by Nicholas Provenzano (@thenerdyteacher) on Sep 13, 2019 at 4:38am PDT

Here is a quick example of using SeeSaw to post images taken from Minecraft to demonstrate what was built.

Stay tuned for more exciting adventures in the design class!

NP

Back to work #DesignThinking #PBL

Today I go back to the proverbial front of the classroom.

Over the past two years, I have been working with teachers and building a makerspace for our school. It has been a fun experience, but I have always missed out on having "my" class and the challenges that come with it. Today, I will be teaching a class I will be building from the ground up.

Since I started at University Liggett School, there has been talk about creating a class for the 6th graders that would focus on problem solving and critical thinking. There was talk about a Makerspace class, but I did not want to teach a class on how to use 3D printers. However, teaching students how to approach problems and use different tools to create solutions sounded amazing.

I spent the past 6 months diving into what a class that is a trimester long might look like and I found myself drawn to the Design Thinking model of problem solving to create a base for the class and using that to jump to other design ideas. As a trained ELA and Social Studies teacher, I feel a bit out of my element, but excited to learn with the students and see what happens. I'm also excited to implement things I have always dreamed of doing in a class.

• Mindfulness - I will be starting each class with a few minutes of mindfulness. I am using the Calm app on my phone. My class is after lunch, so I want to take a few moments to calm the bodies and mind before asking them to dive into problem solving and critical thinking. I'm nervous to as Middle Schoolers to sit quietly and look inward for relaxation, but I feel it is important and I'm going to give it a try. 
• Portfolio/Project Based - This class is going to be based on what they create. Everything will be stored in SeeSaw and that is where my feedback will live as well. Students and I will be able to have an ongoing dialogue about their work and how it evolves over the course of the trimester. 
• No Homework - I will not assign anything that requires students to work at home. My goal is to create an environment where students are excited about their projects and want to work at home and share with their family. I refuse to add more work to their busy schedule at home. 
• No Grades - I will not be giving grades for this class. Students will have a 1 under the assignment if it is completed and we have met to discuss it or a 0 is the project has not been completed and we have not conferenced about it. I feel like giving a grade to a student who solves a problem one way and a different grade to a student who solves it another way is just not what this class is about. I also think by getting rid of the grades, students will be more likely to try big ideas and embrace failure instead of taking the easy route to finish the work. I could be way off here, but I love that I get to try. 

I have some ideas for projects that might be super fun, but I will have to roll them out and see what the kids think. I will be starting with the Wallet Challenge from the Stanford d.school and then moving to a Minecraft for Education challenge to create the perfect vacation destination for a partner. I will be trying Chindogu with my students to bring a fun, light approach to design and I'll see how students might repurpose underutilized areas of the school. I also have an idea for students to create a small line of products that people might want to buy and setting up an Etsy shop to see how that goes. IDK. Lots of ideas and I can't wait to see how much of it works and how much of it blows up in my face. If it does, than I'm modeling exactly what I want to see from the students. 

Can you teach creativity and innovation? #EdChat

I random thought went through my head the other day and I shared it on Twitter. Here is the tweet.

Can you teach innovation or creativity? I don’t think so. Teachers can create environments that support both, but, ultimately, I&C has to come from within the students. Thoughts?

— Nicholas Provenzano (@thenerdyteacher) August 12, 2019

There have been some great responses to the thought and I was very curious about what other people think about this.

For me, I do believe all people have the capacity to be creative and innovative. What that creativity or innovation looks like will be different for all people.  I just do not think you can "make" someone creative or innovative. You can create an environment where their natural creativity can flourish. Teaching skills like painting, drawing, pottery, etc, are create skills, but that's not teaching creativity. It's teaching people how to express their creativity. Exposing people to different ideas, cultures, experiences, etc. can enhance their creative minds, but it doesn't create creativity from nothing.

It is very likely that I'm wrong about all of this, but I would love to hear from other people on this. Feel free to leave a comment below and share far and wide. I'm open to having my mind changed on this.

NP

Innovating with TED-Ed #EdChat #TEDEdChat

This past year, I've been very lucky to be part of an wonderful group of educators put together by TED-Ed. The TED-Ed Innovative Educator cohort has been an amazing experience for me. I haven't written much about it, but I wanted to change that today.

As part of the cohort, we needed to come up with an innovative project. This could involve students, staff, or both. I was really stressed over this. I always just come up with ideas and see how they go. Creating something that is supposed to be innovative from the start was just something foreign to me. I was not sure where to go with the project, but I knew who to turn to.

My cohort and the leaders from TED-Ed making this group happen this year have been amazing. They have been supported of me through my stress of choosing a project and trying to get it going. They have also been an amazing support group for when school and life get crazy and I needed a place to share. As a group, I feel like we have really come together and helped each other when we needed it. I've met some awesome people and have made some great connections. We are spread out all over the world, but our love of teaching knows no borders.

When I finally needed to come up with something, I decided to give my students the chance to be innovative in my innovative project. I was taking over a new class that needed some tweaking. The one tweak I brought to the table was to give my students one day of the week to work on an innovative solution to a problem. The first quarter focused on solving a problem they encountered in their daily life and the second quarter revolved around a problem in the community or the world. It was a but like 20 Time and Shark Tank combined.

I had students design their own earbud wraps so they would not get tangled in their pockets. I had a student create a knee brace for a specific condition she was dealing with in sports. I had another student spend their time trying to design a submersible that would clean the ocean and run on the garbage it collected. Two students worked on an app that would connect people who wanted to adopt dogs to shelters in their area. The list goes on from there. These students were highly engaged in their work and really loved what they were doing. One project is even going to be piloted in our district after the student presented their bathroom pass scanning creation that runs on Raspberry Pi! It was great to see students working on things that they created on their own. Their excitement has led me to get my hands dirty with different tools as well. It has been a great experience for teachers and students.

Now that the semester is over, I can reflect on the the project and I can see all of the places I would change the implementation. To some, this might cause extreme amounts of anxiety. It will probably cause me some, but I know that my TIEs will be there by my side to help me in any way they can.

Interested in applying to be an Innovative Educator? There is some time left! Sign up closes January 29th. Fill out the application here.

Time for an upgrade

One of the many things I was looking forward to this year was the possibility of becoming a part-time tech facilitator. I was told a job was going to be posted and I just needed to apply. I had spent countless hours planning all of the different things I was going to do to help the students and staff of my district. I talked with so many great people in my PLN, I was sure I was going to help my district accomplish its goal of being a leader in educational technology. My district was in desperate need of an upgrade and I was excited to be part of the solution.

Well, the budget was hammered out and that position, among others, was lost. I do not want to use this space to rail against the decision to cut the tech positions while the district claims to want to be a leader is educational technology. I've covered that topic before and I do not need to preach to the choir. So, I've decided to build a better position and pitch it to the powers that be. I would appreciate any comments on the make-up of the job I'm proposing.

Details:

- This position could be part-time or full time. If it was part time, the person who fills the position would teach two classes in the morning and would fill the tech facilitator responsibilities the second half of the day.
- The tech facilitator would be available to all buildings in the district.

Tech Facilitator Duties:

- Working with all building administrators, including the superintendent, to get them signed up to Twitter. If they are willing to sign up and lead, the teachers will be more willing to do so.

- Setting up blogs for each school for admins to share information with parents, students and staff.

- Creation of building Facebook pages

-Individualized PD

- The TF could be checked out by teachers like a book from a library to help construct lessons that incorporate technology. Teachers could get workshop hours for these 1:1 sessions.

Large PD

- Building Admins could check out the TF to run building wide PD or have them create smaller in-building workshops.

Tech All-Stars

- The TF would work with willing teachers from each building to create a group of Tech All-Stars that would help teachers within their building with tech integration and grade specific help.

- The Tech All-Stars would meet regularly to discuss tools and integration strategies to best help all the buildings in the district.

Tech Blog

- The TF would run a district wide Tech blog that would provide examples of new tools available in the district.

- Screencasts would be created and uploaded based on the needs of the students, staff and parents of the district.

Attending and Presenting at Conferences

- The TF would attend and present at conferences to be up to date on the current trends in technology and pedagogy.

Business

-The TF would work with local businesses to try and bring new tech to the district. Building a relationship with local families and business could help offset major budget cuts.

After School/Weekend Seminars

- The TF would run after school and weekend seminars for parents, students and staff on various tech related items.

Policy

- The TF would work with the administration, parents and school board to shape new policy as technology grows and changes.

All of these job duties, and possibly others, would be performed by one person who would also be teaching 1-2 classes as well.

The ultimate goal of this proposal is to create a position that would best use the money available by drastically changing the way PD is offered in my district. In the long run, money will be saved on PD because the TF will be working with more teachers effectively.

Please feel free to comment on anything I have or might have left off. This is going to be my last ditch effort to create some change in my district before I start considering other options. A person can only roll the boulder up the hill so many times right?

Thanks again for all of your support and wish me luck!

-@TheNerdyTeacher

Innovation

Picture from Flickr CC by are you gonna eat that

A friend of mine directed me to a documentary on George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic company. I'm a huge movie guy and a bigger Lucas fan. I sat down late last night and watched all six parts on YouTube. It was very cool. As I watched, the one thing that was really focused on was the fact that the ILM team was being asked to do things that were "not possible". They were the first to do many things involving technology and film. They never said, "We can't do this", it was always, "How can we make this happen and make it great?"

I look at my approach to teaching the same way. When I encounter an obstacle, I immediately think of ways to accomplish the task. It might be something that has never been done before or it might be using tools in ways people haven't used them for. No matter what the situation, I committed myself to finding a way.

I think people assume that innovation needs to be a life altering invention. It doesn't. Innovation can simply be taking a different approach to an old problem. Using a tool in a different way to make something, like a lesson, more successful. Lucas and his team at ILM did this time and time again.

There was a brief part where the documentary covered the resistance from the old guard of special effects. There were some people that did not like the changes and wanted nothing to do with it. It took some hand-holding, but some of the more resistant people eventually came over and became some of the best in the business. It wasn't said, but the feeling was there that those who refused to adapt were left behind.

This is where we are in education. There are amazing educators that are resistant to change, but could be some of the strongest users of technology in the classroom. They could be the innovators if given the time and proper training. However, there will be those that will be left behind as the rest of us move forward. That is just an inevitable part of innovation and progress.

I highly recommend that you watch the documentary. It's only an hour, but it really shows the determination of a group of passionate people bent on setting the standard for the movie industry.

I think there is a group of educators out there trying to do the same for education and I'm proud to be among them.

If we keep working hard, we can make a difference and set the standard for what education looks like in this country.

- @TheNerdyTeacher