Multi-faceted Refractions

It is the eve before Interim Week at North Shore. I love Interim Week. It gives us a chance to halt the routine and spend a week engaged and immersed in a passion-based project. This year, I am the guide on a Interim called “Innovate, Tinker, Design“. We will be spending the week using the principles of Design Thinking to work a a project yet to be determined. That is part of what we will spend tomorrow determining.

I was scanning my Google Reader when I saw today’s post by Seth Godin, “What Do You Do When You Don’t Know the Answer“. I will be using this as the first reflective prompt in the morning, to get us warmed up. I especially love the the first answer:

“Nothing” is the most common response.

Do nothing until you do know the answer. Study and practice and wait for approval and then do something.

I can’t wait to see what the student’s replies are.

Over the past two weeks, we have had many alumni who are on their mid-fall breaks from school stop by to see our new high school. Either they were in the modular units with us last year or they have heard about and now see the grand new entrance to the school. One such alum, who I had in class for two years and graduated in 2004 asked me during his visit, “Was the cost of the renovation worth it?”

I had to ponder the answer, but only for a moment to gather the arguments in my head. My answer was, “Yes, of course and here are the reasons why.”

• When spending that amount of money on a renovation, you want to end up with a space that is designed for tomorrow, not for what we are just doing today. And since we cannot accurately predict the future beyond the next academic year, the space has to adaptable so that it can easily be reconfigured to take advantage of the changes in order to get a positive return of the capital expenditure. (BTW-did I mention that this particular student is working on his MBA at Duke)
• The new space now gives us the capability of beginning to rethink pedagogy. While one would like to think that we would automatically switch, change is a process and we cannot expect across the board changes. The new space amplifies some of the changes towards a student centered, collaborative environment that we had begun to implement in the old spaces which were restrictive to these changes. We now have the environment to really begin to experiment and further define what best are best practices in a collaborative, 21st Century style.
• The new space has encouraged us to begin to rethink what we do, where we do it, and when. Along with further implementation of our Google Apps for Ed and our current Moodle implementation, plus our Haiku pilot, we are not only defining what happens within school, but what we can develop and in our extended spaces. The buzz, excitement, energy, and re-invigoration puts everyone in a different mindset, more open to the change.

Today, the North Shore Science Olympiad season will begin with our Kick-off Meeting for students.  This will start the 20 week season, 26 is we qualify for the State Finals Tournament as we have done in each of the previous 13 years since our science department chair, Lee Block, first approached me about whether I was interested in helping him start the program.

Our program has grown from the 18 students who participated on our first team to the 25 – 33% of the Middle School students who have participated recently.

I love coaching Science Olympiad for several reasons:

• Passion-based learning in science. The students are able to choose between 23 different science and engineering based events each year. They are asked to pick areas of science that they are interested in learning.
• Shift to student-centered learning and highly motivated students who are self-starters. For each event, we have a coach/guide who helps point the student in a direction. However, the amount of time  needed to be prepared far exceeds the amount of time spent with a coach. To achieve the level of success that we have had, students have had to go above and beyond, with a goal for learning for learning’s sake.
• Hands-on learning using principles of Design-Thinking. The engineering events require students to brainstorm, build, and then test a device to meet a goal. Students are given some guidelines, but other than that, it is an open-ended problem. Using the principles of Design-Thinking, to brainstorm and quickly prototype a solution, students build their devices. I am always excited and happy to help with these events, since I know that more and more students are not building, constructing, and deconstructing objects with their hands like I did when I grew up. I am afraid they are missing great opportunities for learning as a result.

Tonight was Parent-Teacher conferences. In our Upper School, one long afternoon through evening and then the next morning to early afternoon, we have the opportunity to partner with parents. Tonight, since I am not teaching a first semester course, I got to participate as a parent. In two weeks, I get to participate in conferences as a teacher in our Middle School.

Although these can be grueling  and draining, I find these meetings important as both a parent and as a teacher. It is a great time to connect, establish the relationship to partner, and check in to make sure that your observations match those of either the parent or teacher. Afterwards, I am so thankful for the opportunity to establish this important relationship for the benefit of our students.

One of the projects that I absolutely cherish at North Shore is Interim Week. Interim Week is a week where the schedule is put on hold and students and teachers immerse themselves in a week long study. At North Shore, Interim Week occurs the first week of November, between the fall and winter seasons of athletics.

I love Interim Week because it allows me to explore something that I find interesting and want to know more about. The projects that I have led in the past have included creating a 3-d model of our campus (back in 1994 before Google Sketchup, using rudimentary tools), creating documentaries for service agencies, and graphic novels and anime. This week has allowed me to expand my horizons and explore.

I am really excited about my offering this year. Inspired by reading Play:How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul  by Stuart Brown and Shop Class As Soulcraft by Matthew Stafford, I looked for a way to marry design, innovation, and creativity into the lives of our students. Coupled with the new Learning and Project Studio spaces, I was inspired to create an Interim project that would allow me to experiment with our new spaces that freed and challenged our students to be inspired to design and play.

I knew that Christian Long and David Bill have begun to design workshops around Design Thinking. Upon research this summer, I realized that this was what I was looking for. I So I created a proposal, pitched it to the students, and now have a group of seven students who will be exploring the principles of design thinking along side me. I further feel excited that I am thinking about implementing this project after it was highlighted by Peter Gow in his blog, Not Your Father’s School, as the first of eleven things that schools should be thinking of.

I will be spending the next four days creating the curriculum and experiences in which the students and I will be c0-learning together.. I will be drawing on resources David has shared on a recent blog post, We are All Designers. I look forward to reflecting and sharing the development and execution of this project.