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I found myself today starting a summer camp with a great group of excited students who want nothing more than to be THE ONE to build the robot, THE ONE to code the robot and THE ONE to make all the decisions about everything to do with their amazing robot. This is great until each student realized they had to share their robot with two other people who wanted to do exactly the same thing.
This got me thinking about sharing, group work, compassion, empathy, skill building and all of that lead me down a small rabbit hole where I was trying to work out what might be a week-long “how might we” question that I could focus on for the week that would lead to student growth not only in the areas around robotics but in the area of personal growth as well.
I think I am going to go without much more refinement than what I have now, which is “how might we use team building games to build community decision making”. I spent my non-computer troubleshooting time today coming up with that and seeing as how I only have these students for a week, I think this is what I am going to run with and see where I can get to with my littles.
When I think about team building games and community, I always think about TRIBES (https://tribes.com/) and one of my teachers from the BEd who was incredibly invested in the program. I have been known to use some of the team building games with my students at the start of the year, or when we have a few minutes left of class but never before have I fully invested myself and my classroom into the whole process.
This has inspired me to try out investing myself for week-long intervals during the summer with successive camps and working out how some of the policies, community building and team ideas would work in my own classes this coming year. I can see no fault with trying to create an increase in compassion, and community.
What are you doing this summer to ignite your passion for teaching and prepare yourself for 2019? Do you have a resource you want to invest your time in this summer to benefit your school year?