The nature of my position allows me the privilege to collaborate with teachers across grade levels. I was fortunate to be surrounded by passionate and engaged teachers that immediately stepped up to help form the STREAM Team last year. This team of educators created a collective vision of the Classroom of the Future. This valued feedback has led to a greater investment in our space and a shift in mindset. Positive Peer Pressure, encouragement, partnerships, and mentoring have meant that all students have visited the studio and participated in innovative lessons at least three times so far this school year. I have worked to maintain and strengthen those relationships by offering my time, finding or creating resources, and leading school-wide professional development. Recognizing teachers for their efforts to be innovative builds confidence and empowers them to take risks and support one another. Sharing my own epic fails allows others to see that I am constantly taking risks and trying to learn from them. Our shared Google Drive Innovation Folder houses grade level lessons and Seesaw and Flipgrid give other teachers access to lessons and ideas that are being used throughout our school.
Risk taking and failure is also celebrated in the classroom. Students know that “epic fails” often lead to the most learning. Tasks that require perseverance prove that with hard work multiple failures are just a part of eventual success. A recent project required some teams to make 50 or more attempts in order to program a bot correctly. Success was met with tears of joy and relief. As one student likes to say, “I feel so satisfied!” I also model risk taking by trying new technology and apps. As we all know technology often has a mind of its own, and even with our best efforts and preparation we often must problem solve to make things work. The students are champs about finding alternative solutions to our challenges. Last week I became inspired by a new technology and immediately planned a math lesson in which the students would be using the technology. The app worked well and the students were able to navigate it easily. The content confused them. Luckily they are comfortable with expressing their feelings and the teacher and I called it an “epic fail”. We reflected and brainstormed ways we could have improved the lesson with the students. The next day we followed up with a music and math integration to strengthen content knowledge and we will use that technology another time. I have built relationships with teachers through collaborative lessons and servant leadership (asking “How can I help?”) and I have built relationships with students by empowering them to become independent learners and valuing their feedback using SCRUM. One of the most important steps in bringing about a shift in mindset was building relationships with parents and community businesses. The Classroom of the Future Grant inspired us to reach out to local Girl Scout Troops, local artists, a local tree service company, and many parents for their assistance and expertise. The girl scout troop cleaned up and painted the courtyard. A former student artist designed and painted a mural. The tree service company donated their time and the wood necessary to build the outdoor stadium. Parents donated bricks and PVC pipe, and built hanging planters and see through planters for our Outdoor Classroom. Their hours of investment and dedication to our efforts will help maintain this incredible learning environment. After seeing the end result many more volunteers have offered to help this spring with our pond and planting. Students see that our community is an important part of our school and we count on and support one another. Over the past year I have written and received grants to help facilitate the use of innovative practices in my school; The Classroom of the Future Grant, a Hanover Creative Instructional Grant, and a Dominion Resources Pedal Power Grant. These grants have allowed us to purchase resources, technologies, and supplies in order to promote innovation. Reaching out to the community to garner support for our studio has been key to its success. I have built relationships with several local businesses and families that have helped to create and maintain the Outdoor Space. I worked tirelessly all summer to make our collective vision a reality; painting, ordering, researching, sewing, organizing, building, and planting. In connection with HEF Classroom of the Future Grant, I had the privilege of sharing how we are using innovative practices with HEF Board members, the Hanover County Council of PTAs, and Randolph Macon students. Furthering my understanding of innovative practices has become a priority and any spare minute I have is dedicated to reading about innovation and innovative spaces in addition to visiting other programs in the public and private setting. Although the resources we won are incredible, professional development was a necessity in order to help teachers become more comfortable with taking risks. In collaboration with a colleague we developed an Innovator’s Bootcamp and offered it to a small group during the summer and then to the entire staff this fall. As part of this camp we developed a common language about our innovative instruction and created a continuum that has now been shared with our county wide Innovation Team members. I attended the Virginia Society for Technology in Education Conference and the Children’s Engineering Conference. Providing professional development in Hanover over the summer was a great experience and lead to the opportunity to present App Smashing at the state VSTE conference. In addition, I facilitated the first Digital Jam at my school where classroom teachers were encouraged to share innovative practices as well as an Ignite Session to help teachers learn about some new technologies in our studio. I serve as the STREAM Committee Chair and worked to make our first STREAM Night a success. Over 250 people were in attendance with over 70 teachers and volunteers running stations. This winter I served as the mentor for a high school student working on a Community Service Project related to STEM. I helped her develop and run a free after school camp for 32 students called Blast Off. Upcoming initiatives include my travels in conjunction with the REB award for a proposal called Innovation Nation. I will be traveling through the United States and Canada in order to tour trendsetting businesses and learn about how we can translate their practices as we prepare our learners for the future. I was inspired to write this proposal after learning about SCRUM. It has helped to bring about a shift in our instructional practices and absolutely brought out the best in our students. I will be a certified SCRUM Master after my training this summer. I will also be attending the International Society for Technology in Education Conference in June. In an effort to bring all I have learned to life, I will be piloting the first Hanover Innovation Institute this summer. It will bring together professionals in our community with high school students who are looking to learn more about their fields of interests and to give back to their community. These high school students will be running the institute and creating an Innovation Camp for elementary students. I have submitted a proposal and hope that they will bring the Five Cs, Community, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity to life at the HCPSInspire Conference this summer.
Students enter the Innovation Studio and put on an apron. Every one of them can tell you that the apron is their pledge to have a growth mindset. They are ready to be challenged and learn in a new and different way. I also wear an apron as do my collaborative teachers. It is our pledge to our students that we are striving to teach them using new and better strategies, resources, and technologies. This innovative culture promotes an understanding that we are there to think critically, problem solve, and communicate. Students know that we are a team and it is our responsibility to remain active participants in learning. We fail together, are resilient together, and learn from our mistakes and our successes. Students are driven to question it, prove it, create it, fix it, show me, and share. One particular strategy has transformed my instruction, SCRUM. This framework for productivity and teamwork has empowered my fifth graders to be goal driven, independent problem solvers. They are collaborators, communicators, and critical thinkers. Through the use of story points, a backlog, and a SCRUM board students remain on task and support each other as they work toward a team goal. They began the most recent project by creating the criteria for a Minimum Viable Product which translated into a student created rubric. SCRUM allows students the freedom and voice that they need to be innovators. Through the use of effort rubrics, students gauge their own and their peer strengths and weaknesses in flexibility, perseverance in problem solving, communication, and collaboration. We focus on fostering creative, communicators, collaborators, and critical thinkers. Allowing them the freedom, voice, and choice to use those skills promotes innovation.
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Author“Challenge me! Inspire me! Listen to me!” This is the message in their eyes. I see myself in so many of the students I serve, because I was not easily inspired as a young learner. Now, as an inspired educator, I hope to motivate students to find joy in learning and to take pride in being part of a community of learners. Archives
March 2018
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