Irving 9/4 and 9/11

During weekly sessions at Irving I have been shifting programming to be part of the Innovation Station for two different groups. Next week I will be in the rest of the classrooms that I will be working with. At this point I will be getting to know students, collaborating to co-teach, and implementing PBL.

During Innovation Station times with Ms. Miller and Ms. McConnohies's class, Mr. Thompson worked to establish both digital literacy and digital citizenship expectations. On 9/4 students participated in a discussion about what this means. We also had a community circle where students were asked, " What would you like to build or create this year?" We heard robots, planes, boats, coding games, and more.

This week in addition to discussing digital citizenship, classes took part in their first Team Challenge. Students will be working frequently in collaborative groups this year during Innovation Station sessions. We would like to establish with students the purpose of strong teamwork skills and interdependent thinking. Today we practiced by challenging the students to create the tallest free standing, weight supporting tower possible with index cards. They worked in groups of 3. Students were given 3 minutes to plan and design, 10 minutes to build, 3 minutes to reflect, 10 minutes to build, then we tested the towers. The ideas of constraints (time and materials) and specific criteria for success are part of Next Generation Science Standards in the are of engineering. Next week we will reflect on the experience and develop norms for collaboration.

I am really excited to expand my role at Irving to get to work in the amazing new Innovation Station where students will be collaborating, innovating, building, creating, inventing, and problem solving. We'll be using an incredible program called Project Lead the Way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al65aeTBKNE

I am also looking forward to launching PBL (Project Based Learning) units in a number of classrooms. This model of teaching and learning has shown to increase student engagement as well as achievement. Students have the opportunity to take part in authentic experiences and tasks that connect to academic standards and community. Its going to be a great year here!

Below are pictures from our Team Challenge: Index Card Towers

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/693f34_7f4369222be24b34a139c5c0bb028ec5/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Stay tuned next week for welcome letters from me. Identified GCT students have an additional goal setting form that needs to be sent back as early as possible.

Have a great weekend!