Summer Off

For the first time in about 15 years, I am not conducting teacher workshops or doing summer camps with kids. I am excited and nostalgic at the same time. Before I leave I wanted to get some things ready for STEAM by Design which will have 4 sections plus a new trimester course called CS Explorations. A long-time colleague will be teaching this class while I will split the STEAM by Design teaching with a person who was recently hired. This is the largest expansion of computer science courses in the history of my school and for sure in the middle school. Below are a couple of videos I made for how we plan to assess and encourage students to own their learning.

This text is from the new MS Computer Science site I built for the new courses.

We will be using a Depth of Knowledge model to align better with proficiency-based learning and computational thinking.

The main component of all MS Computer Science courses will be the creation of a reflective portfolio by students with examples of work products including a narrative paragraph on the learning process.

Those who do the work, own the learning. STEAM by Design will require students to own their learning and document the learning. This video shows how we hope to accomplish this goal.

View a presentation on how students can own their learning in STEAM by Design.

Design Thinking meets Computational Thinking in STEAM by Design.

View a presentationon how students will use Computational and Design Thinking in STEAM by Design.

Summer Camps for 2020

The Schaefer Polk Computational Thinking Camps are part of the Durham Academy Summer Program. You can learn more at the website we use for our camps.

What is Computational Thinking? The image from Barefoot Computing does a great job of highlighting what we consider to be Computational Thinking. Our camps feature many of the concepts and approaches shown in the graphic. We spend a lot of time working with verbs: Develop, Adjust, Participate, Adapt, and Adhere. Our camps allow campers to learn at their pace. Campers have access to the tools after camps for further learning opportunities.

New this year will be camps for just Middle School Aged 11 – 15 campers. Our camps will be held in the Upper School’s Hock Center and Learning Commons.

Camps Information:

3D Design and Printing: Week 5: July 6 -10 AM and repeated Week 6: July 13 – 17 AM.

Storytelling with CS First and Scratch Programming  Week 5: July 6 -10 PM

Game Design with Google CS First and Scratch Programming Week 6: July 13 – 17 PM

3D Design and Printing: Week 6: July 13 – 17 AM. (Same as week 5 camp)

Build and Explore Virtual Reality – New for 2020 Week 7: July 20-24 – AM

Donovan and I would love to learn with you this summer.

Visions of Future Learning and the STEAM Lab

If all goes well, the new STEAM by Design Lab will be constructed during the 2020 – 2021 which will include Science Labs and the Library. I feel this is one of the most important efforts I will ever be involved in as a professional educator. I believe a well designed learning space will fuel learning for the next 50 years of learning. A poorly designed learning space will restrict the next 50 years of learning. Which will we build? Will the design be based on the research and neuroscience of how we learn? Or will the architects design a space that comes in on a budget set in times when rooms for learning were teacher centric, relied on compliance over engagement, and when information was scarce and learners could not learn without being in school. All of those things have changed dramatically in just the last 20 years or so. I have been thinking about this a lot as I think we need to get this right.  Another factor is the fact that this will not be a space I help design for myself but for most likely my replacement. As my career is now sprinkled with the internal debate of retirement along with the occasional question from colleagues; “How many years do you have left?”, it is clear to me that my lasting impact on the future DA students will be how I helped our school think about designing spaces for learners and learning and not for teachers and subjects.

The drawing above is where my thinking is now for what I think the STEAM by Design labs should look like. A list of must haves is forming although I am sure it will change before the ground is broken or the current building is touched.

My thinking is being guided by my 25 years of teaching and learning along with these awesome organizations and folks.

TranscendEducation has put out a wonderful resource for designing spaces for learning. http://www.transcendeducation.org/designing-4-learning

Learning Transformed Book by Eric C. Sheninger and Thomas C. Murray http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Books/Overview/Learning-Transformed.aspx

David Jakes’ many resources: https://davidjakesdesigns.com/ideas/2018/8/28/what-your-spaces-say and https://davidjakesdesigns.com/

American School of Shanghai Learning Spaces Manifesto : “If a space delivers everything we expect, it hasn’t been pushed far enough. “ https://www.saschina.org/academics/learning-spaces

Designing for Learning by American Association of Architects: http://designforlearning.archfoundation.org/

And good ole Will Richardson and Bruce Dixon at Modern Learners: https://modernlearners.com/ and especially the post about Designing for Learning https://modernlearners.com/designing-for-learning/ which discusses the work of  Carol Black and her post http://carolblack.org/the-gaze and Ira David Socol https://mystudentvoices.com/what-does-it-mean-to-build-a-school-or-to-rebuild-a-school-3c8dd5b356d5

Watch her video on WEIRD societies. (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic)

 

Tinkercad and 3D Printing Camp

Tinkercad is wonderful software for learning how to design objects in 3D. We also use Makers Empire but due to technical issues, (my brain forgot to ask to have the app installed) we were not able to use it at camp. Tinkercad is free like sunshine while Makers Empire is a very affordable subscription model. We had 12 creative young people who worked hard this week. They were successful with most of their designs and prints although failures were abundant since doing more prototyping will result in the refinements needed to slice their designs.

Below is Octavio’s Snowball Fight Snow Speeder.

Ella really got into making Bunny figures with different themes like; Too Much Coffee Bunny, Scuba Bunny, etc…

Why I Love What I Do and Where I Do It

Modern learning is more about creating the environment for learning now that information is abundant and learners can learn without us. I think of it more like solving a puzzle as we are somewhere between school 1.0 and school 2.0. Two years ago I came up with the idea for STEAM by Design Seminar and wondered how it would work out. I had some nonnegotiable things like no grades or homework. That made this a seminar (not a class since classes have grades and homework), which has turned out to be just what I and our students needed. I have made a good living being a teacher and digital learning coordinator. In fact Durham Academy just did a profile of me which tells my story pretty well. I did a poor job of describing when I moved out of the house at 13 as I did come back each Sunday night to go to school, but spent the weekends on the farm of Eldon Crapp. Read it here. I am lucky that DA has allowed me to try almost anything I thought was worth trying. Granted, I study things and believe I should learn it first before I suggest the school jumps in. That was mostly true with STEAM by Design with the exception of no grades or homework part. As I continue to learn and adjust the seminar, I am grateful to receive the positive feedback like the article, the cards from students, notes from parents, and the affirmations from people I have learned with over the years.

Here are a few of the affirmations in the last week or so:

From a student: note tells it all.

From a parent: Just wanted to send you the latest from the people who inherited Zach (He was in STEAM by D last year). I am glad he found the US teachers of Beck and Starling as well.

From a company:https://www.makersempire.com

We are very excited to let you know that Cal’s entry in our February competition has been selected as the WINNER.  We were impressed by Cal’s original design that showed creativity and fit for purpose design.
This student’s entry was chosen from over 1000 designs that were entered in our ‘Help Theo the Dog’ competition. A cool Makers Empire prize pack will be on it’s way to Cal soon and their design will be featured in the gallery in the Maker’s Empire App.
We are also pleased to announce that entries from the following students were selected as runner-up in the February competition:
Lauren from Wilderness School in South Australia
Natalie from Verona Area School District
Chloe from Woodcroft College in South Australia
We have an exciting new competition called Feeling Dice, challenging students to design an emotions monitor.
We hope you are enjoying your 3D designing and printing at Durham Academy and we look forward to seeing more great designs.
Kind regards,
The Makers Empire Team

https://dash.makersempire.com/designs/cal-baker-theo-s-stick-contraption#

Last but not least from Will and Bruce at Modern Learners: Read The Artistry of Teaching and listen to Changing Educational Norms That No Longer Serve Us .

I think the Seymour Sarason quote Will shares … gets to the heart of what I hope to achieve with STEAM by Design.

“There is one goal [of education] that, if not achieved, makes the achievement of all other goals very unlikely. That goal is to create those conditions that make students want to learn; not have to learn but want to learn more about self, others, and the world. The overarching purpose of schooling and its governance is to support that goal, i.e., to create and sustain contexts of productive learning supportive of the natural curiosity and wonder with which children start schooling.”

 

 

 

Magnetic Marble Run Update

While it took some time to get the STEAM by Design students fully committed, we have lift off or rather marble off. My thanks to John Umekubo @jumekubo  at St. Matthew’s Parish School for the inspiration with his marble run project http://www.creatorsstudio.org/special-projects/magnetic-marble-run-wall There have been many iterations by the students to get theirs working and as you can see many interpretations on designs. I gave the student the following information and directions. Your name must be on it, and these are the measurements you need. Marble, 18 mm, Magnet is 15mm x 3mm and Tinkercad hole measurement diagram.

I did not discuss mass, plane, or gravity. While I wanted them to prototype with cardboard, this aspect is a weak point with our students as most want to get it done like on a checklist. I will keep working on this aspect since we have no grades to motivate this type of hurried learning. Today the students were pretty excited to see how it could work and I have to say, it is pretty awesome. I love how students will play on it during the day.

The Moment it Happens

I was nervous as the first day of coding Code.org CS Discoveries and Adafruit’s Circuit Playgrounds had not gone as smooth as I had wanted. I was not sure how to make the second day go better. I spent about four hours going through the tutorials like I was a student hoping to figure out how to move the class from “what are we supposed to do” phase to the “I can do this”. And then it happened. One student exclaimed, “We’re coding” and they were off helping each other while I helped other students. I felt more empowered as WE were learning and troubleshooting together. The energy in the STEAM lab was “electric”!

Heck, I even tweeted it out.

16 Hours 40 Minute Flight Not Needed for a Student Connection

As part of the STEAM by Design Seminar I have prodded and held on based on what I and the students needed at that time. I love this fluidity and most of the students are adjusting to owning their learning more each day. Emma has had an awesome week as she was working on getting the City of Lights project ready to film, started an art project with Julia as they felt we needed more art in our STEAM by Design Seminar. I had to get more Pink Duct Tape for their projects. As class was proceeding Emma said it was too bad that our 3D Wox printer by Sindoh did not have any pink filament. I said they do not sell that color and we can only use their filament. She said, “I think I will contact them!”  She wrote all of this on her own and as you can tell she is great at persuasive writing.

Hello,
I am an 8th grader at Durham Academy in Durham North Carolina. I use the 3D WOX printers in my STEM class at school. I really like to make cool  things that I can use, but you don’t make any pretty colors for us to print with. It would be awesome if you could make colors such as pink, purple and sky blue. I like the 3D WOX printers better than any other company, but the only thing that would prevent me from recommending it are the filament colors. I think that you would get a lot more buisiness with better colors.
Thank you very much for considering this idea.
Sincerely,
Emma

Dear Emma,

The new Filament colors (Purple and Pink) are going to be available in the early March. (This had not been announced anywhere – emphasis mine)
You will be able to purchase them through Amazon.
Please let us know for any other questions.
Thank you.
3DWOX Team

This was really a cool response and we were both happy about the reply. She went to her first two classes and then came running into the STEAM lab at break beaming with smiles and floating on clouds as she had another message.

How cool is this? I love this printer (have 3 and ordering 3 more) for our school as the printers just plain work! Now I love this company for supporting a students dream to print in pink!

3D Administrators – More Than Just Pretty Heads

Our school has an auction each year to help our parent’s association raise funds for educational items. This year I thought about offering something called “Family Scan” with the following description:

Would you like to explore the world of 3D scanning and printing? Your family could have the opportunity to be 3D scanned using the Structure 3D Sensor https://structure.io/#home-about-vid​ which will allow the creation of a 3D printed bust of up to 6 family members. Mr. Schaefer will work with your family to schedule a time to scan and will then print your busts to be picked up later.

As a proof of concept, I worked with my STEAM students to scan the, Head of School, Associate Head of School, Upper School, Middle School, Lower School, and Preschool Directors. My student Will is now my go to person to scan as he has become very good with using the scanner.

The Reluctant Learner Uncovered

ussbenhamdd-397

The USS Benham DD-397

On the first day of the STEAM by Design Seminar, I asked all of the students why they signed up. It sounded cool or my parents signed me up were the most common answers. One student who was signed up by his mother was reluctant to stay and said so. Since the seminar is done through study hall, he could easily just not come. I did suggest that he give it a day or two before he decided. Those days were filled with struggles and a desire to stop. He persevered and worked on the lessons until his skills and confidence grew. Then one day he asked if he could make his own creation and I said yes as long as it was his creation and not a copy of someone else’s work. That was the day the once reluctant learner became uncovered as he has become a very engaged and creative STEAMer. I found out that one of his passions is WWII aircraft and ships. He is using Wikipedia as a source for his images for inspiration while he creates the 3d object. I asked him why he likes to do these planes and ships and he responded that he just enjoys researching and reading about them. He proceeded to tell me all about a ship (not this one) that was a fuel tanker during the attack on Pearl Harbor that was destroyed. He knew the backstory of the ship and what happened to the crew after being bombed. He also knew how it was scuttled and other details. Is he a reluctant learner or just a uncovered learner that has found his agency in learning. I am very proud of him for the growth he is making.