Winners Never Quit

By Barbara Soblo 

     Well, the honeymoon period is definitely over. The new clothes and supplies aren’t so new, the novelty of high school is becoming routine, and Studio D 9 is ramping up the expectations! Part of what makes our program so innovative and out of the box, is our focus on quality work over quantity. Doing multiple drafts is the norm in our class. But getting students to dig deep to create that quality requires a very different classroom vibe.

     Students know quality when they see it and when they produce it. The scary part for a teacher is that getting to quality can take a lot of time! Our first mini design challenge (what will your one sentence legacy be?) finally got to the Go! stage on Friday. For two weeks, students have designed a single sentence that captures who they are; a sentence that goes deep into their core and really captures their complexities using imagery, metaphor and words that carry multiple meanings. Friday they submitted their final work for grading; our job is now to print & post them before open house Thursday.

     In the Gather stage, students listed adjectives about themselves; don’t select words that describe what you do, but describe who you are. During the Glean stage, students boiled their list down to essentials elements. In the Generate and Gauge stages, students wrote their sentence and through several feedback sessions, the sentences changed into something wall worthy. Both teachers & students focused the critique on three things: word choice, flow, and pizazz. Students presented orally both in small groups & to the entire class. I got goosebumps when a sentence really hit the mark. But them react to the quality created by their peers really blew me away. These kids were mostly strangers some 15 days ago, and they were baring their souls to each other & asking for feedback.  

     The assignment is so simple- write a sentence about you- but in Studio D we don’t do simple. Here we begin embracing the ideals we’ll build on all year. That here we support & push each other in order to create something we can all be proud to put out in the community. That feedback must be given & received in the spirit of striving to make the work better. It’s exciting to be watch their brains switch on as they begin to understand more about Studio D and what we do.

     But the work has only just begun because our first big design challenge starts on Monday.

Studio D goes to Catawba Trail Elementary

Today, students from Studio D9 took a trip to Catwaba Trail Elementary school to work with their Quest 4th graders on a design challenge. I met Mrs. Thompson at a professional development I did on design thinking and she and I made plans for our students to collaborate. We liked the idea of it benefiting both my students as well as hers.

I planned for students to redesign the report card, which is a challenge that I had previously given to D9 early on in the semester. I wanted the material of the challenge to be understandable for the 4th graders, but still challenging enough to require them to work through our design process.

Charles, Kayshon, Emma, and Chelsea all came with me to Catawba Trail and led their own project groups.  I must take a minute and applaud these students for their great work today. They were wonderful leaders and led by example, working with their group and modeling all our techniques while teaching the 4th graders, as well. They were professional and the students in QuEST noticed, and commended them for their work.

When we arrived, the 4th graders had already brainstormed what they thought should be included in a report card. They were very thorough, and the students and I were all really impressed with how well thought out their list was. The students were all inclusive with things like grades, progress, attendance, social behaviors, and communication all included in their list.

Next, our students each joined a group and were then given a student for whom they would design a report card. Each group was given a current report card and interview, complete with picture, from  their student. Each interview contained information such as their likes and dislikes, educational goals, strengths, weaknesses, and what they would like to see on their report cards. The QuEST students read through those interviews and highlighted information they thought might help them create their new designs, and this completed the Gather Stage of their project. 

               

To move on to Glean, each group had to decide which information they highlighted, along with information they had compiled onto class lists before we arrived, was the most important to include in their new design. Everyone wrote down their ideas and after we had some time to read over our entire group's input, we chose a few things to focus on. After each group had some 'non-negotiables', we began a silent prototyping time. Students were quick to identify this as the Generate stage, because they were coming up with their first ideas/drafts of a new report card for their student. 

 

We reminded students that during the Generate stage, wild ideas are good things, not to worry about whether or not they thought they could bring their idea to life, not to criticize other people's ideas, and to be open-minded. After a great production stage, students had some good ideas that incorporated information they had gathered about their user. We talked quickly about how to critique someone else's work, and reminded the students to always be kind, specific, and helpful whenever they are giving their input on someone else's work. 

To make their feedback more honest, we made it anonymous by allowing students to write their comments on post-it notes and place the post-it on the draft. We each took turns writing our feedback about each design on the post-its and took some more time later to make clarifications on feedback, ask questions about comments that had been made, and decide as a group which parts of our individual design would we pull into our first group effort.

              

             

These guys were feedback wizards! Their feedback was to the point, specific, kind, and helpful. I was really impressed by how well they were not only able to give criticism, but also how well they received it. 

Wrapping up the Generate stage, we found we were out of time. Students in Mrs. Thompson's class were going to move on to the Gauge and Go stages without us for now, but we made a point to say that we'd love to see their final designs. I had such a great experience working with those bright 4th graders. They are students I'd be proud to have in Studio D any day! My students also had a great time, and loved getting to share their love for the design process with other, albeit younger, designers. Thanks so much to Catawba Trail Elementary, Mrs. Thompson, and the QuEST students for having us today. You guys are awesome!

11.15.13 Curious George and Human Rights

We started off this morning with a surprise quiz. Happy Friday!

I told students their quiz was to identify the steps of the design process in the video I showed, as well as identify the problem the design process was creating a solution for.

Students had to identify the problem, and then how each stage of the design process was shown in the video clip.

Just as a reminder, our design process goes like this:
GATHER
GLEAN
GENERATE
GAUGE
GO

The responses could be bullet pointed or written out.


Here's the link to the video for anyone who was out, or just wants to watch it again.

Windmill Monkey

After the quiz had been turned in, students split into thirds.
Here's a note on progress with the Educational Tools from Mrs. Soblo:

The educational tools are coming along as the due date (11/26) is quickly approaching.  So this past week students learned a new presentation tool- Voice Thread.  To showcase their educational tools & get feedback from both peers & users, students created a Voice Thread presentation of progress.  Our hope is that through this feedback process, the finished product will be really awesome!
Check out the rubric for the presentations & what they've done so far here.

Mrs. Auspelmyer worked with the students on how to do a quote analysis and close reading in The Book Thief. Here are the notes from class today:

Quote Analysis Notes

In Foundations, students re-wrote the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into more simple terms, and we posted them in the classroom. Next week, students will look more closely into the categories of human rights and how they have been broken internationally and here in the United States.

10.25.13 Prototyping Take 2.

Today students worked primarily on their prototypes and revised design plans. We began class as a whole group and broke out into our five design deliverables: French Drain, Octangular Table/Benches, Storage Chair, Storage Chest, and Pallet Garden. Octangular Table and Storage Chair groups had yet to add their design to the Bird's Eye View, and spent the first part of the class completing that task. Now that we have an idea of how much square footage each piece of the puzzle will take up things are starting to come together visually. After that was checked off their list, students worked on their new versions of their prototypes that were now done to a realistic scale. Students are responsible for prototyping their design EXACTLY how they see it in the OLS, and for completing as many prototypes as they want realistic components. At one point we ran out of some crucial prototyping materials (i.e. popsicle sticks and graph paper) so after a quick Walmart run we were able to begin again. It was great to see so many of the groups working so hard to get these new prototypes built. They were taking such careful measures to accurately measure all their materials to ensure the scale was as realistic as possible. I hated to break the momentum but while I was gone, Mrs. Soblo showed the film Born to be Wild, and related it back to the Educational Tool students are currently working on. It was a quick 40 minute showing and by the time the movie was finishing up I was back with the supplies.

A few weeks ago, Jordan and Breanne accompanied Mrs. Auspelmyer to an Outdoor Learning Symposium in Savannah, Georgia. They spent the day in some awesome sessions on Outdoor Learning Spaces and brought back a ton of information to share with the class. They spoke briefly the Monday after they returned, but had some great visuals and information still to share. Today was a good day for that sharing. They spoke about what they learned, how to make outdoor learning spaces more used, about aversions to outdoor learning spaces by both teachers and students, and even got to experience some tools for outdoor learning spaces. Here's their presentation complete with some cool pictures.

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After we heard from J and B, we continued on with prototyping. A few groups still had some struggles with communication in their new larger groups, but after a long productive conversation they were able to put creative differences to work instead of at odds against each other. Groups that didn't have these issues are obviously further ahead, and here are some shots of our groups showing off their new, to small scale, prototypes.

Tyler, Alexis, Taiyah, and Da'Naria- Pallet Garden Planters

Charles with his group's storage chairs

10.22.13 Ed Tool/Prototype Revisions

Today students met for the first time in their large groups. It was a somewhat productive day. Most groups finished their bird's eye view of the space that included their design, and some began revising their new prototypes to scale. Some groups had a harder time meshing in their new environment, and spent some time figuring out what their new dynamic would be. Students had to realize that the design doesn't have an owner, and students have to relinquish any idea of ownership over the design so that the new group can have input. It's hard to look at a design for weeks and then listen to someone make suggestions as to how to make it better, but we have to be open to changes for the benefit of the space.

With Mrs. Soblo, students worked on their Educational Tool. Students now are each responsible for 13 organisms in their Educational Tool. Some groups are making field guides and some groups are making games. Students are still working on researching and narrowing down the organisms they want to include, so they should have research to work on daily. 

10.22.13 Revision Begins

Now that we've narrowed down your prototype designs into the five that we as a class would like to bring to life, we have some major revisions to do. Just because a design was voted on doesn't mean that it's flawless. Now we have to pull out the microscope and find ALL the flaws so that we can revise them in our new groups. From our humble beginnings as 11 groups we transform into 5 mega groups. Each (new) group is now working on one of the five designs that you voted on as a class.

Today students took a serious look at the pallets in our tool room, and made some decisions about whether or not recycled materials would work for their purpose. What they imagined pallet wood to be, and what it really was did not match up. Students took some time to design a bird's eye view of the space and where they envisioned their deliverables going. Our next challenge is to take a close look at our prototypes with fresh eyes to see where we can make them better.

Here's a few of our winning prototypes: 

Our D9 Storage Chest

Storage Chair (Seat lifts up for student storage)

Storage Bench

Possible Pattern for the top of our Octangular Table.
Seats 16 and this thing is gonna rock!

With Mrs. Soblo students reattempted their dichotomous key quizzes using shapes instead of leaves. With Mrs. Auspelmyer students took notes on common citation mistakes in hopes that they won't make the same mistakes in the future, and with Coach West students began a study on culture in preparation for a future design challenge :)

10.21.13 Prototype Defense

This morning we're spending time putting the finishing touches on our Prototype Defenses. Student groups will present to the entire class and defend why their prototype should be the one we build to put in our outdoor learning space. Students have been working for the past two weeks on their prototypes, building plans, and 3-D sketches.

Requirements for Presentation:

1. Title
2. Scale of Prototype
3. Materials (What they want to use to build with)
4. Plans on graph paper with scale
5. Defense Prepared
• Why does this design meet the needs of the users?
• Why is this design the most sustainable of its category?
• Why is this design the most functional of its category?
• Why is this design the best in its category?

Students must put together a Google Presentation with pictures of their prototype- 5 slides in total. One picture of each of the four sides and one bird's eye view.

Students will use this link to access the form.

After presentations, students should complete at Stop-Drop-Reflect on what they just saw.

Answer these questions on a separate piece of paper. Name and Group Title at the top.
1. Based on what you saw, how feel your group compared to other groups? Were you as prepared? Was your prototype as detailed and complete? How well thought out was your design in comparison to other groups' design?

2. Based on what you saw, what changes, if any, would you make to your design? Be specific. What elements were frequently combined in the different prototypes? Did these combinations make sense? What combinations might we make that we did not see already?

3. Were there any prototypes that you would rule out automatically because they were too complex for the space, too labor intensive for our deadline (Dec. 20), or you felt they did not make sense? If so, explain what traits about that specific prototype makes you want to take it out of the running.

These go to Coach K.

We'll see how it goes!