Deeper Learning at the Museum School

21st Century Learning

I hate to be that guy, but I'm going to discontinue my use of the above phrase and try my hardest to not be a snob about it.

With that out of the way, I'm excited to share an overview/reflection of deeper learning experiences my team and I have been working on the past few years at the Museum School. Our school is based on three design principles and three partnerships:
-Place Based Education (Grand Valley State University College of Education).
-Design Thinking (Kendall College of Art and Design).
-Museum Context (Grand Rapids Public Museum.

The outflow of this foundation is the goal of creating authentic, local, project-based, 21st-err... deeper learning. We by no means have it all figured out, but I'm super excited about the direction we are going. I made a long winded reflection screencast (right up to that ten minute cut off- thanks Screencastify) starting with our XQ Learner Goals and the similar Deeper Learning Competencies and over-viewing our curriculum integration, project cycles, and some of the ways we've had to break time and space.

While digging through the XQ outcome resource documents, I found a linked article tracing some of the background case studies that lead to the learner goals (Kiel, 2014). I think the key area my co-teachers and I are striving for is summarize in the point "Reaching beyond school walls with partnerships and real world experiences." Our students are constantly shaking hands, making phone calls, and doing work alongside our growing list of community partners. Our project work and the development of 21st century, soft, human skills like communication, collaboration, and creativity flow out of our connections to people and organization already doing good work in our city.

Next week our staff meets with our place based, design thinking, and museum experts to continue co-creating the Museum School deeper learning experience for our students. The two biggest areas we/I are focusing on improving is the competency based framework, and scaffolding.

Competency Based Education. This is a separate blog post. Suffice to say, we are trying to do school without grades. Learning, feedback, proficiency checkpoints, progress monitoring. No grades. I love it, but this is tough work.

Scaffolding. This is my personal goal. I'm finding that while I often provide opportunities for students to execute critical thinking, collaborative, and related skills, I don't often teach it or transparently model it. I think this is a UDL growth area for me, and I want to develop more explicit ways to help students develop these skills as they do authentic project work.

Onward and upward. Or deepward? Deeper learning, right?

Kehl, W. (2014, July 11). Deeper Learning: How Eight Innovative Public Schools Are Transforming Education. Retrieved from https://www.gettingsmart.com/2014/07/deeper-learning-eight-innovative-public-schools-transforming-education/

Insert "Pi" Pun Here

I'm trying to figure out how to use one of these Raspberry Pi things.

A little back story. Last December my students pulled off an amazing "Green Solutions" showcase event at our school. Short on time and with not-fully-formed vision they invited guest speakers, called it the Edu-Green Show (we're all in this together, right?), and as teams and individuals got to work on tracking their environmentally themed project progress on Trello. Two girls converted their bedrooms to mock "tiny homes" and analyzed their trash/waste rates. One kid made a rain barrel. Locally grown vs not taste test anyone? Biodegradable McDonalds toys made from milk plastic (ooo that smell). This list goes on. Some serious, some comical. Some brilliant, some questionable. Wide range of feasibility. I loved it.

A team of students took it upon themselves to organize the actual gallery walk and did a fabulous job wrangling guests from West Michigan Environmental Action Council and the sustainability coordinator for the City of Grand Rapids. Meanwhile, I was asking questions like "did you CC me on that email? You forgot again? Ok, well, you got this under control right?".

Good times. But next year, better times.

I had numerous students getting stuck on evaluating the effectiveness of their green solutions. Would adopting a bunch of "rescue" house plants really affect the air quality in our school? How does this anti-light pollution concept actually affect the number of lumens above the street light?

Enter, Raspberry Pi. And also more of me not quite knowing what I'm talking about. Yet.

I'm creating an Innovative Technology Plan to be more prepared to assist my students in testing out and quantifying the success of their green solution ideas. Check it out and leave a comment. 

Happy Camper

At the beginning of the summer I started using the "Want To Go" list of saved places. My family and I travel to Iowa at least twice a year and realized that at some point, we needed to switch up our route planning. Cousin in Chicago? Let's stop in. Aunt and Uncle in Ottumwa, IA? Never been there, that would be worth a detour of I-80. Mountain bike trail outside Cedar Falls? Yesss....

I began using the same mindset around our home state, marking all the nearby Lake Michigan Beaches (Kouw Park, who knew?), recreation areas, parks (Hemlock Crossing, how had I never been before?), and bike paths I hadn't visited.

Throughout the summer we've made a lot of headway and it's been great to switch up our usual destinations. We still have favorites but now we are finding more favorites.

New on my list is the Manistee River Trail. Also new for me is backpack camping. Enter my networked learning project for my graduate class.

Photo Credit: AdamB1995 Flickr via Compfight cc

Sources so far:
-Wood camp stove

-Sleeping pad review (also beard growing inspiration)

-Maps. I love maps. And oh, there's disc golf nearby!

Next steps:

-Borrow a tent or settle for my current heavy one. Might have a friendly hook up at Switchback Gear Exchange.

-Food plan. And cooking gear. 

My PLN, Ten Years Later

Almost ten years ago, I look a seat in a computer lab (that's how you know it was a long time ago) for my first teacher education class, EDU-262. It was a night class. It was my first semester with the intention of become a teacher. I was green.

That educational technology course turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my college career. It might be cliche, but I think I truly learned "how to learn" and not just "what to learn" with topics from project based learning, universal design, and digital creation/sharing. In large part this was due to the focus on professional learning networks.

I started off tapping myself directly into the firehouse. I was in regular Twitter chats through New Tech Network #pblchat and #miched, even hosting a chat regarding digital citizenship. I followed a slew of educator blogs- John Spencer in particular was a favorite. My school organized a conference and invited John to lead a few sessions and my family ended up hosting him in our home. I became involved in PBL consulting largely due to Twitter networking.

Slowly my network has changed however. Twitter and Feedly show up only occasionally in my browsing history, and my networking focus has shifted to a smaller set of focused relationships. Two past PBL co-workers and I regularly keep in touch via a Voxer voice chat. We discuss pains and gains in our PBL consulting, reminisce on past project stories, and have a long standing pipe dream of creating our own teacher-led school.

I also find that the local community partnerships with businesses, organizations, and public officials has become an important professional network for me. Whether its Friends of Grand Rapids Parks, the Rapid bus, or Heartside Ministries, my connections and relationships with community members have developed greatly over the last few years as students and I get more involved in local projects.

All that said, maybe it's time to re-expand back into digital networks. My school's emphasis on local issues is wonderful, but obviously every local happening is in a global context. You might see me back in the Twitter-verse this year.

And Now, Fruit Salad

I couldn't help getting my kids to do this activity with me.

The overlap of technology tools, content knowledge, and pedagogy (TPACK framework) was the context for this evening adventure- to essentially make do with a random set of kitchen utensils to accomplish a simple culinary task. My kids say some funny things. Here's the video.

The TPACK framework is a reminder that educational technology isn't just about slapping the shiniest "new thing" onto education and hoping for the best. Like in my fruit salad fiasco, the tools and purpose and sometimes just chance play into it. This makes me think again of Derek Muller's This Will Revolution Education commentary about how technology tools don't actually change what learning really is or even the role of the teacher. Obviously teachers ought to leverage available tools (shiny or otherwise) to engage students in worthwhile projects, exploration, and authentic learning opportunities, as opposed to technology for technology sake.

My reflection in the video went a bit different of a direction though, more about a spectrum of minimal "multi-tools" vs maximal "specialized tools for all tasks." I thought about my garage tool box and also my arsenal of bike mechanic tools. In both cases, each has their place. Having a real wrench sure beats a crescent wrench and yet having a muli-tool in my saddle bag on the bike is way better than hauling around a full size version of gadgets.

In any event, access to tools and discernment on what to use and when seems to be the take home story. Unrelated, I was surprised to learn how well sliced watermelon keeps in the fridge, but I don't recommend it in a fruit salad. 

Almost A Remix Video

Educational technology was my first education class I took back in teacher school. I loved it. I teach an educational technology class at the undergraduate level. I work in a tech infused, forward thinking high school.

All that to say, I don't really have an excuse for this. "Thou shalt understand the limitations of free and trial versions before creating content" is definitely written in binary code on some top ten list of the Web 2.0.

Sigh.

Some of my best memories with students are from video projects. Romeo and Juliet (Halogens and Noble Gases) is a highlight- slow start but worth a watch. States of Matter impersonation videos and interpretive dances were... fun. Nuclear politics commentary PSAs has a memes doc that still gives me shivers.

Now it was my turn. Take off the teacher hat, put on the student hat. Find fair use content and give attribution. All the stuff.

Huge library on WeVideo of professional quality content? Free with WeVideo for school plans? I just got a trial! Let's go!

Several cheesy jokes and close-but-not-quite transitions later- I'll just explain the rest in my Almost A Remix Video screencast.

Public Domain from Prelinger Archives:
Dumpster Fire uploaded by FlipEEPhile
Fire Safety by El Segundo TV

All other almost used content from WeVideos Essentials Library.
Thanks WeVideo. This is not your fault. It is mine.

Constructivism and the Museum School Symposium Project

"Mr. Langel. I just sent an email to the principal asking permission to visit the liquor store on Division tomorrow to do an interview for our food access project."

A number of responses come immediately to my mind.
-Student! How many times do we have to remind you to show us the email and CC a teacher before you send?!
-Am I going to get in trouble for this?
-Hmm, isn't this the team that shared research about the YMCA "Healthy Corner Store Initiative"  in a meeting yesterday? Do they want to go to the liquor store and see if they know about the program or are interested? That's actually really compelling...
-Corner store. Not liquor store. Corner store. 
-I wonder if Dr. Hanks is going to say yes to this one. Wait, who am I kidding? With enough clarification in a follow up email the answer will obviously be yes. 

Questions and thought processes like these are a daily phenomena. It's one of the most mentally taxing yet exhilarating aspects of my job. My students "construct" their own learning, experiences, and ideas on a regular basis. They also tend to get themselves (and me) into trouble. Here are a few other student questions along with my first reaction.

"Mr. Langel. Who was that landscape engineering lady we worked with in the River for All project last year? Do you think she would be a guest speaker for our conference session?"
It's been awhile since we've asked a favor of that architect firm...

"Mr. Langel. I emailed our artifact coordinator. We found some really old drug education pamphlets in the archive we want to use for our decriminalization session."
What's next? Actual drug paraphernalia artifacts?
10 minutes later. Oh, dear. 

"Mr. Langel. My mom is mad at you. I got the crickets at the pet store last night and prototyped a recipe."
Inevitably, I will be forced to eat a cricket within the next week. Sigh. 

You get the idea.

Way back in teacher school, I remember the first time I ran into ideas from Vygotsky about constructing meaning through the social process of the learning. My professor was sitting informally on a desk, the rest of the class around in a semi circle, and we did jig saw presentations of some of the big thinkers and ideas in educational psychology. The constructivism notion didn't go away. The 5E inquiry science lesson format made sense in a constructivism frame work. Same with student centered learning. My PBL training for my first teaching job revisited the mindset. Graduate class? "A characteristic common to many approaches to constructivism is the role of authentic tasks and experiences. The experiences that children have in their communities are important contributors to their cognitive development." (O'Donnell, 2012).

The authentic tasks and experiences is a facet of constructivism we spend a lot of time designing at the Museum School. Like most things, fostering a constructivistic learning environment is easier said than done. I am extremely grateful for the opportunities I've had in my career to actually give it a shot. All of the student questions above were from an integrated project at school this past year. Our unifying project theme was power and we studied different facets through deep dives in history, current social issues, and biology/physiology.  Students then chose a specific topic to design a conference session for a public showcase event. Students invited guest speakers, ran simulations, curated museum artifacts, and led excursions to relevant sites downtown. They were the organizers, instigators, and doers of the conference.

My teacher team and I are very proud of the event and our student work, but we are far from having it all figured out. We joke that we are building the curriculum and project planes as we fly them and that metaphor is fitting. We want students to truly build their own understanding, make real connections to people and events and issues in our community, and that involves plenty of risk taking, trial and error, and learning by doing from us as teachers.

O'Donnell, A. (2012). Constructivism. In Constructivsm. Retrieved from https://d2l.msu.edu/content/enforced/820294-US19-CEP-811-733-97NBTG-EL-14-204/O'Donnell_Constructivism.pdf?_&d2lSessionVal=OM2xeE5J0cJ5JGcMnBW8HfnZ6&ou=820294

Museum School Symposium - By the Numbers

Infogram

The Good, The Bad, The Khan Academy

"I should really start blogging, it would help me to process my learning and growth as a teacher."

-Me for the last four years.

Well now it is graduate school time and someone else is requiring me to blog. I should thank them some day.

Rightly so, our class is starting off by simply re-exploring what learning is and how we do it. As we read and watched class materials I kept thinking of YouTuber, Derek Muller, and his Veritasium channel. Derek tackles science videos with a very different approach than the content forward, clear explanation style of Khan Academy videos. I analyzed a bit of Derek's thesis, Designing Effective Multimedia for Physics Education and his style of educational videos in an essay. Instead of focusing on an information dump, Derek draws out the preconceptions and ideas people start with then uses conversation, experiments, and dissonance to move towards a more accurate conception. We are calling this "conceptual change" in our class as opposed to thinking of learning as just absorbing content. My full essay is here.