Sharing experience and having it valued

I enjoyed a swell visit today from both the Principal and Dean of Students at Walton Central School as well as the DCMO ISS STEM Coordinator. They are considering creating a MakerSpace and they came to pick my brain about our library's experience with that kind of thing. As always, it's wonderful to exchange ideas with colleagues who have experience in the trenches and are open-minded and appreciative.

Paving the way

Our school announced plans last week for an after-school activity program for students featuring staff coverage for homework help, a LEGO room, yoga, and STEM projects. You were there first with ATCI, Abby and Dominic; ahead of your time.

Featured Readers: Design

Our Elementary Librarian asked if I would work up a design for her "Featured Reader" incentive program. The series of wall posters will have a "book" format. Here's the cover and introduction. The reader pages will feature a student photo on the left and their accomplishment on the right.

Allowing each other to contribute

Doing some project-brainstorming with my Period E class; can we build on a suggestion? can we visualize tasks, possibilities, outcomes? who might be a resource, stakeholder? who are we teaching with our research? what will me make to demonstrate what we are learning: videos, flash cards, exhibits, games, mock-ups, events?

And, importantly, do I sense a willingness and enthusiasm to embrace this opportunity as their own?

Rockin' the Library

Some good community friends of ACSLIB brought in their rocks & minerals for a display in support of our Coffee House night. There are some awesome samples here! (Importantly, this very morning the display unlocked an opportunity for me to connect with two students; a fellow rock-hounds!)

How our perspective influences what we might see

Made this little video montage to illustrate these wonderful Agamographs (Yaacov Agam) that 6th grade art student created; currently exhibited on one our library's tri-fold displayers in the lobby.

Inspiring stuff

Reacting to the Past

I was led to this site by an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. "Reacting" is a role-playing curriculum at the college level to promote engagement with big ideas, employ collaborative skills, and inhabit the historical moment in all its context. Although it might not fly at the HS level, the idea of immersing students in the dynamics of an historical moment by having them be historical characters in it sounds awfully good. Perhaps a good PD visit for one of our staff.

What the poets know

This article in the NYT takes a look at the earning of STEM majors versus Liberal Arts majors over time. It states that out of the gate STEM students earn more, but that by the 40-year mark,  LA students show faster growth; nearly matching or surpassing computer and engineering majors. This is attributed to the Liberal Arts fostering "soft skills" like problem-solving, written communication, critical thinking, and the ability to work in a team; which have long-run value as workers move into higher-paying management and administrative roles.

This is an important perspective to keep in mind as we sometimes leap at the latest teaching/learning trend that appears to pipeline our students to "success."

Spreading the word(s)

My PBIS group really got into during our 20-minute end-of-the-day session. They worked in spontaneous small teams to tape some meaningful words to the library floor for all students to reflect on. We think it should be as easy to act on these words as it was to slap them on the floor!

Celestial currency

This was neat article in Discover magazine; ancient coinage commemorating solar eclipses! I like how it ends; encouraging readers to document other occurrences in this "wide-open" field.

Nurturing poetry

I collaborated with a colleague on a poetry unit where the students were creating concrete poems, black-out poems, and paint-chip poems. I suggested that they teach us how. The results of their creativity (posters, board games,slide shows, and...well concrete) are on flanking displays in our library foyer as well as having been exhibited in yesterday's Student Fair.

 

Inspired by questions

Our Tinkercad use got me questioning if 2D designs can be converted to 3D use in Tinkercad. They can!  Found a helpful video that led me here for easy conversions.

Charles Decker on Tubby Crane

Didn't want to misplace this:

Reading counts

I enjoyed meeting with our Elementary Librarian yesterday and brainstorming on some school projects that we can collaborate on: Seuss Day, Poetry Month, (and this morning) Reading Counts*! So excited I got right to drafting some materials for it. We hope to create some video or other digital record of the responses.

* A kick in the pants by Maria Popova helped too!

Medallion: a reader/maker connection

A prototype off our 3D Printrbot; a customized medallion for Elementary Library reading recognition later in the year.

Public pride

Tickled to see that one of few menu links at the Afton Free Library home page is for Afton Historical Minutes; the database of weekly articles by Charles J. Decker that our library curated, scanned and posted at the Internet Archive. Proud.

P.S. Learned from one of their board members at our coffeehouse last night that they recently had part of their Afton Yearbook collection digitized! Cool.

More than a grade

Students are posting and hand-delivering these handbills about our video project so that more people might view it. It is also a way for me to demonstrate my pride in their prideful work.

#gettingthewordout

Digitizing some posters for a colleague so that we can post and celebrate the student work in a variety of ways.

They just DID it!

Twenty seconds before the end of the period, two 6th grade students walked up to a stack of masking tape and transformed it into a car.  MakerSpace magic!