Investigation 3 & Investigation 4: Thresholds 2,3, and 4...

High Five Friday to my TOP GUNS,

      This week I feel like you have had a lot thrown at you with little to no time to accomplish the things required of you.  So, here is your day.  If my memory serves me correctly here is our agenda or "to-do" list if you will:

1. TEDed - Finish annotating Threshold 4 video (TWO COLUMN NOTES)
2. TEDed - Respond/contribute to the online discussion in the TEDed lesson
3. Edodo - Respond/contribute to the online discussion in the Edmodo thread
4. PAIR READING & TEXT ANNOTATIONS
        -Investigation 3 From Alchemy to Chemistry
        -Investigation 4 Alfred Wegener & Harry Hess
5. PAIR READING & TEXT ANNOTATIONS
        -Investigation 3 Video and Transcript What Did Stars Give Us?
        -Investigation 4 Video and Transcript What Was the Young Earth Like?

      Always remember, never forget, and continue to apply SQ3R in all that we watch, read, write, and discuss.  As you read and annotate the texts be sure to be READING WITH A QUESTION IN MIND.  The question helps us see what is vital enough to annotate.  The annotations will guide us as we begin our research and writing process next week.

    Investigation 3, your question is HOW DO NEW POINTS OF VIEW PAVE THE WAY FOR PROGRESS?  

      

Investigation 4, your question is WHEN AND WHY DO PEOPLE ACCEPT A THEORY?

From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Godspell, South, and Mr. Jonas: Arts In School...

Howdy Y'all,
 
      Ken Robinson says, "Kids don't grow into creativity; they grow out of it."  This statement made me extremely sad when I first heard it.  It's sad because there is so much truth to it.  As an adult, I look around and see creativity expunged from many of my peers.  I envy those of my friends who have explored creative outlets and continue to develop them as they grow older.  I have friends who are writers, movie makers, musicians, singers, artists, sewers, woodsmen, comedians, and storytellers.

      It's at this point thinking of my creative friends that I think of Sir Ken Robinson and his statement reverberates in my mind, "Kids don't grow into creativity; they grow out of it."  How is this statement connected to innovation?  Can we still find value for the arts in school?  If so, what is the value of the arts?  What is the place for arts in school?  Why do we see it deemphasized?  

      Aspen Boyer, an 8th grader at the Waukesha STEM Academy, made an interesting observation this morning before we departed for South to watch the musical Godspell.  She said, "If you don't use it, you lose it."  If creativity is like a foreign language this statement couldn't be more true.

Creatively yours,
Mr. C

From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

First Flipped Lesson: TEDEd

Hey Gang,

      Welcome to Think Spot.  Welcome back for some of you.  Please click on the link below and register.  I'll try to guide you through the rest.

TEDEd Lesson & Discussion


From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Day 4 of Design Team Boot Camp: Themes and Observations...

Conflict: Blame others, point
fingers, and pass judgement.

Good Day Designers,

      So far, we have covered 3 of the 5 themes of the week.  Those 3 themes are:

Day 1- Ideation
Day 2- Revisit & Review Ideas
Day 3- Selection

      Yesterday's theme was Selection.  What Mr. H and I observed was a little conflict and disagreement as decisions were being made to bring ideas forward.  We also noticed that constraints are becoming apparent when we think about designing a solution to the earthquake/building problem.  As a learning community, we are all engaging and participating.  Engagement and participation are two things that make Design Teams function at high levels.

I-Messages: Describe a
behavior or situation;
not a personal judgement.

      Today, we will be looking at our fourth theme before finishing our week off.  Today's theme is Listening.  There is nothing more important for a Design Team to function and flourish.  Listening is the pivotal skill and it is extremely hard for middle school students to master.


      The activities that Mr. H and I have designed will push you and your Design Teams to the next level.  Differences of opinion, conflicting ideas, disagreements, and frustration are all natural challenges that even the best Design Teams face in the real world.  Adults face these challenges all the time.  Today, lets make listening our driving intention so that tomorrow's final designs demonstrate the best our Design Teams have to offer.

As we head into today, remember to listen to our Design Teams.  Let's have fun and enjoy our Professional Play.


Sincerely,

C & H

P.S.

I-Messages: State and own feelings

From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Day 1 of Design Team Boot Camp...

Good Day Design Team,

      Mr. H and myself are extremely happy and proud of the way our first day went.  You are all amazing thinkers with tons of potential.  This boot camp is designed to develop your ability to generate many variations of your ideas as well as combine them with the ideas of others to innovate and create.  In order to do this as a Design Team we have to learn certain habits of mind so that we can practice them with others.

       So far, we have spent time defining teamwork as a group, we have identified challenges that sometimes get in the way of teamwork, and stumbled upon some really great questions that will deepen our understanding as we grow as a Design Team.

How are mistakes and/or failures good things?

All throughout this blog post you will find pictures that log our work, our discussions, our questions, and habits of mind.  Click on some of the questions to see if you can think of any answers we have discovered.  Remember, we have learned:

1. Think alouds
2. Read alouds

How do we share "AIR TIME"?

3. Wizards & Gelflings
4. Reading a Visual Image
5. Turn & Talk (Think-Pair-Share)

How do we make sure everyone is included?

     

Reading a Visual Image

      We are looking forward to the rest of the week.  Enjoy yourselves and be sure to engage.  We love hearing your voices, your ideas, and your enthusiasm.  Our Design Team will only get better because of our work together.

Why is listening sometimes harder than
speaking your thoughts?

Sincerely,

Mr. C & Mr. H

What do you do after you realize a
mistake and you have put a bunch of
time in to your work?

Reframing Misconceptions: Historic Dates...

Dates are not facts to be remembered.

Dates are tools to help us frame a perspective and measure our understanding within the chronology of time!!

Sent from my iPhone

Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War, CC/CH, & UP...

Hey Nearly High Schoolers,

      Happy Thursday to you all and I wish you the best of luck on your MAP testing both today as well as next Tuesday.  Today, in continuation to the direction we are heading, we will be attacking a piece of text with a question in mind and viewing a documentary.  The question we are using to attack text is this: How does "inequality" affect the American Dream?  If this question does not suit you, if you would prefer to read with a question that you have generated yourself, then rock out with your bad self!  You are all asking some phenomenal questions.  Remember that when we attack text by using a question we are trying to construct meaning, make connections, and find RELEVANT INFORMATION.

Below is a short synopsis of what the documentary is about.  It is the hope of this teacher that the events, people, and themes we find in this documentary in addition to the relevant information we read in our texts will help us as we try to THINK LIKE HISTORIANS.

    Aftershock: Beyond the Civil War is a series of videos that examines and documents life after the Civil War. The series portrays a violent aftermath of greed, violence, anger, intimidation and fear that occurred during the Reconstruction Era. Many history books fail to portray this period of American history as vividly or in such detail as shown in this series. Many post Civil War stories for people and groups like ex-Confederate soldiers, Southern civilians, Afro-American and Native American troops are highlighted. The series includes many images of a time after the Civil War that includes the bloody surrender at Appomattox to the rise and decline of the Ku Klux Klan. The series depicts the plight of various segments of the Southern society; poor whites, newly freed slaves, returning soldiers and Southern white landowners.  To see a picture of what happened to people who fought against each other and interacted during the period of rebuilding their country and lives

One final thought...
These are the learning targets we will be reflecting on after this week's work.  Just something else to chew on.
Media in Social Studies: I can identify main ideas, analyze supporting details, and evaluate inferences within discipline specific readings

Content in Social Studies: I can apply content in order to evaluate relationships of people and ideas and draw conclusion

Yours Truly,
C

From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Welcome to WEST!!

Greetings Wolverines and STEMers,

      Here we are again guys and gals!  Your time here in Jonas's class will flow in 3 phases.  The phases are below and we will be referring back to this blog post frequently throughout the class.

PHASE 1:  DEFINE...

What is an American?  What does that mean?

That said, collaboratively define the American Dream.

PHASE 2:  INTERACT WITH TEXT and MEDIA

Two excerpts from Howard Zinn...

PowerPoint Slides...

"In the year 1877, the signals were given for the rest of the century: the blacks would be put back; the strikes of white workers would not be tolerated; the industrial and political elites of North and South would take hold of the country and organize the greatest march of economic growth in human history. They would do it with the aid of, and at the expense of, black labor, white labor, Chinese labor, European immigrant labor, female labor, rewarding them differently by race, sex, national origin, and social class, in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression-a skillful terracing to stabilize the pyramid of wealth."

"Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck." 

       -Howard Zinn from his book, A People's History of the United States

How does this fit into our definition of an American and/or our definition of the American Dream?  

How do these things relate?
  

PHASE 3:  QUESTIONING Documentation Application... textual overlay
      Over the past few weeks as I sat down to think about The American Dream and what it has looked like for Americans over the course of history, I have asked some of these questions.  Perhaps while you engage your partner in thinking and academic conversations these questions may help you generate some questions of your own.
1.Which aspects of the human experience were constant from 1801-1930?

Mr. C's CRAZY THINKING!!

Follow-up: Which of those aspects can we still see today in the 21st century?
2. Based on what we are reading, watching, and interacting with which parts of the past are comparable?
 Follow-up: From this, what parallels or similarities can you find?
 3. How do you think the past is similar to the present?
 4. How do you think the past is different from the future?
 5.Where can we see "deprivation" influencing the American Dream? (MLK Jr.)
 6. How has "inequality" influenced the American Dream?
 7. What do you think influences The American Dream?
 8. By looking through history, the past, what can we see influencing the American Dream?

Generate 5-10 questions pertaining to the American Dream as it applies to the Great Depression and/or the text so far.

We want you to collaborate on a document.  

Fold this into textual evidence.  

Frame your questions around the Great Depression.

 

Have fun and enjoy!  Phase 4 is a doozy!!

Yours Truly,
C



From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy

Mr. C's crazy thinking.

The American Dream: Happy Monday...

Hey Partially 9th Graders,

We start this week with a couple questions:

1.  How has your experience this year at STEM influenced your idea of learning?

2.  How do the times that a person lives through influence that person's idea of the American Dream?


      Our friends at West are eagerly awaiting our arrival tomorrow to begin work on The American Dream.  We will be interacting with text and media.  We will be thinking about and looking for evidence that answers some curious questions.  We will be formulating and generating questions of our own.  This last and final West experience is the start of our push to the end of the 2012-2013 school year.

      It has been said and quoted many a time that, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  Well folks, today is that step in a direction.  Most of the links found in this Think Spot post lead to a blog Dubbs found that is fantastic.  It gives us one author's perspective of The American Dream, and a tiny insight into the timing of the origin of The American Dream.  As I read this post it came across to me as a little idealistic.  An academic conversation with our 8th grade learning community would be an awesome place to share ideas about this text.

      Here is another person's idea of The American Dream.  Think about the Great Depression.  Think about what we know about the last two TLH categories: CC/CH & UP.  Remember CC/CH is "Change and Continuity".  Also remember UP is "Using the Past".  Let's look at the text provided by Dubbs and the link provided by your's truly to see if we can begin to THINK LIKE HISTORIANS.


Your's truly,
C
     

 



From the cluttered mind of C, Teacher
School District of Waukesha
Waukesha STEM Academy