I hope everyone has been having a good start to the year, it’s been a complete whirlwind for me but I wanted to take some time to reflect on some great successes I’ve had so far this year as well as commit to my goals for the future.
This year I was so happy to take on a new leadership role as the Middle School Tech Lead. With it came some new responsibilities such as planning out Wellness Wednesday activities for our Middle School maker space.
This year I wanted to try something new and put myself out there. One of my goals in the past was to learn more about 3D printing and how I can incorporate it more into our curriculum. Not only that but how can I present it to my colleagues without overwhelming them? To that end I decided to start small by using the software Tinkercad and having the students and teachers learn how to make their own name tags or key chains. Here’s an example of the first one I made!
I can’t begin to express how much fun I and the students are now having on Wednesday afternoons when they began to learn the software and create their own designs. The software is so user friendly and fun. I’m debating on making a post on how to use it if anyone is interested please let me know and I will make one! It ended up being a really approachable activity that (fingers crossed) the students enjoyed and will hopefully incorporate more into their own PBL projects in all other subjects.
There is another reason I was so thrilled with how this activity went, and it has to do with my personal goal this year that I want to focus on.
I want to create more opportunities for students to really try things, mess up and learn from their mistakes. My first year at Cohort 21 my goal was to learn more about how to make Middle School students more comfortable with trying things and making mistakes in math. But as I continued my research I realized that I wanted to go deeper. I firmly believe that we need to make more opportunities for students to really fail at something and learn how to deal with that failure. Failing at things is a learned skill, nots something kids know how to do inherently. A maker space is a perfect place for that to start. It’s a space where you build things, break them and build them again. The stakes are low but the learning opportunities are high.
This year I would like to develop more curriculum that centres around failing and moving forward with that failure. With the concept of learning how to fail and how to get back up again. I often wonder about how much we tend to protect our students in an independent school setting from failing and how that might correlate with anxiety and strong levels of perfectionism that I see among our students as they get older. I believe this goal is not only pedagogical but cultural and I will no doubt hit some bumps along the way, but I want to firmly point myself in this direction and try to take a step forward this year.
So, #sharpsweetandsalty here is my post and my first step. I am so excited to see what everyone else puts forward and to encourage you every step of the way!
Congratulations on the new role Robin! It looks like you found TinkerCAD – so fun. We do the same starter projects; keychains, bookmarks, game pieces, stamps, cookie cutters, etc. The entertaining aspect is talking to students about what will require support for the 3D print, and how to resolve any design issues. The #failingforward part, is a right of passage to learning in a maker/innovation space. Sounds like you are off to a wonderful start, way to go!
Love this! Especially after a long stretch of online learning, I feel that maker spaces will be a real infusion of creative thinking and collaboration. The idea of having centres is interesting and I can’t wait to hear about what happens. Making mistakes on your own is hard, but if learners can watch and see others struggle and redirect, it might really inspire some self-reflection.
Hey @rgarand! Congrats on the new role and love your continued emphasis on highlighting the importance of learning from our mistakes. Math educator Jo Boaler has some great articles on the neuroscience that supports making mistakes that I have shared with students https://www.youcubed.org/evidence/mistakes-grow-brain/
I also try and talk about the importance of modelling mistakes with parents. How might we as adults talk about failures that occur at work and how you rebound? Alex Russell also has some great insights into the importance of experiencing instances of ‘non-catastrophic failure’ for growth. Looking forward to connecting on Sat!! @emartin @mmoore @ljensen
Yes @rgarand! I really love that you’re exploring the role of failure in learning. FAIL is simply your First Attempt In Learning – a cheesy acronym but one that rings true nonetheless.
As a person with basic home renovation skills, I can say that over the past three years, I have failed at a number of projects. Failed, but then learned and was able to go back and fix my mistakes. A plumber told me once “Why is that we don’t have time to do the job right the first time, but we always have the time to do it twice.” It connects to so many things in teaching and learning.
Also, I wonder what role Assessment For and As might play in exploring this topic. I read Power Teaching this summer and it was a neurological look at deep learning. One chapter was about metacognition and how as learners we often thing we know more than we do. This relates to having notes in front of us as a crutch but when they aren’t there, we don’t know it. It also takes into account the forgetting curve and the role and importance of interleaving key concepts so that we make better use of active recall and storage of knowledge. The idea of BBQs – Big Basket Quizzes, not for grades, allows students to see what they know, and what they need to revisit and reinforce.
I’m super curious to know where the idea of failing falls in your journey. Does it mean lower grades? Does it mean more formative feedback? I can’t wait to hear more about this, and I think you’re onto something exciting. I wonder what your students will say?
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!
D
#SharpSweet&Salty