Guerilla Educators

Hamilton in 5D

This "quick and dirty" video captures in microcosm how a unifying theme for Project Based Learning can be effected systemically.  In this case, we captured a small slice of a post-industrial small midwest city.  Using the river that runs through it and where much of the history of the place has played out, the video underscores how the city can be used in 5 dimensions (including realtime and cyberspace) as a unifying theme to achieve proficiencies across a variety of curricular and civic objectives.  Take a look...

Seeds to Trees, 2nd grade Best Practices; Science

Students in 2nd grade from an inner city school in South Philadelphia planted acorns  from native oak trees at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education. They were part of an initiative to reestablish native deciduous hardwoods in the Schuylkill River Valley.  When the acorns germinated, half of those oak saplings went back to their public school in South Philly.  Seeds to Trees was a powerful catalyst to help these students achieve curricular proficiencies across a variety of disciplines, demonstrated the 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning, and modeled the best citizenship and leadership skills.  Take a look...

Project Based Learning; Best Practices; Building a Bridge in 4th Grade

This video captures an activity conducted with my students as part of a bridge building project conducted in cooperation with the American Institute of Architecture's, Architecture in Education program.   It was also my first video.  My students were to measure the height of the Henry Avenue Bridge using a plumb bob.  Take a look...

This is a very powerful project that incorporates historical aspects of the American Revolution, geometry, public speaking, working cooperatively, ratio and proportion and a whole menu of grade appropriate curricular objectives and state mandated standards.  It also demonstrates many of the 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teachng and Learning.

Professional Developments for Educators at Rose Tree Media School District

Guerilla Educators has added a new client.  We recently completed  2 day Professional Development for the hard working educators at the Rose Tree Media School District that focused on how to successfully implement and complete curriculum and real-world based Projects with students.  The workshop was given through the prism of our 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning.  We'll return to ongoing work with the teachers throughout the 2011-2012 school year to assist with implementation and successful completion of the proposed Projects developed in the planning phase of the training.  Welcome to our family of clients, Rose Tree Media, that includes:

• American Institute of Architects
• The School District of Philadelphia
• Council of Educational Facilities Planners International
• Delaware Valley Green Building Council
• SchraderGroup Architects
• Fielding Nair International
• Philadelphia University
• District of Columbia Public School System
• Milwaukee School District
• Alliance to Save Energy
• York Suburban School District
• University of Wisconsin
• Environmental Protection Agency
• Education Environment Planning Consultants
• Regina Board of Education
• Philadelphia Zoo
• Re:Vision Architecture
• Wallace Roberts & Todd Design
• LOTI (Levels of Technology Integration)
• IQity
• Journal of Teacher Education
• Edutopia
• Barack Obama Green Charter High School
• MaST Community (Math, Science, and Technology) Charter School
• Friendship Public Charter Schools
• Rose Tree Media School District

 

Professional Developments for Educators

The Guerilla Educators Best Practices Professional Development for Educators and Educational Facilities Planners

Pedagogy  Practice  Planning Projects

Through the prism of our 12 Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning, our presenters focus on giving participants the tools to create a Best Practices environment with their students and to implement Project Based methodologies to help improve educational and civic student outcomes. Our 1.5 Day training is hands-on, interactive, and customized to effectively address your specific educational needs.

The Hallmarks: 

• Fun 

• Project Based Learning

• Ownership

• Engagement

• Cooperative Teaching and Learning

• Citizenship

• Mastery of Curriculum

• Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Technology

• Leadership

• Personal Responsibility

• The Teachable Moment

    

 Call us at 215-510-2059 or email John Sole at tcherjohn@aol.com for more information.  We will customize a training to suit your specific needs.  Our workshops can also be tailored to your time constraints, from ½ Day to the full 2 Day experience.

Download the Guerilla Educatiors PD PDF, here Download GE BP PD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CEFPI Southeast Region 2011 Conference

Arrived in beautiful downtown Savannah for the 2011 CEFPI Southeast Region Conference.  Presenting Monday morning on the topic, "Connecting Students, Teachers, and Curriculum Via Project Based Learning". This year 5 themes will guide the event:

Collaborate

Educate

Facilitate

Participate

Invigorate

Here is how the themes will be related to my topic:

*Collaborate - Educational Facilities Planners/Designers/Architects can demonstrate that their design processes, when used in collaboration with educators and students will have powerful circular ramifications on more effective school design and more effective teaching and learning.

*Educate - The session will educate the participants about what we believe to be a vastly under-utilized asset, i.e. how physical teaching and learning spaces are powerful resources for effective teaching and learning.

*Facilitate - Understanding the participatory and Community Based power of Project Based Learning will facilitate more effective design.

*Participate - There is a tremendous feeling of satisfaction for Educational Facilities Planners that comes with knowing that they are participating in the whole education of the students who are their end clients. This process encourages school architects to establish real-world, in-class Community Partnerships with their clients and see the positive effects their participation engenders.

*Invigorate - Imagine students coming into teaching and learning spaces excited about being there because of active hands-on Projects in which they are about to participate. Imagine educators and educational facilities planners being active participants in those Projects. Imagine more effective educational facilities design as a result of the school architect as teacher/learner. This is what the session will address.

See you in Savannah!

Guerilla Educators at the CEFPI Southeast Region Conference

On Monday, March 28, Guerilla Educators has the privilege to be a Featured Presenter at the 2011 CEFPI SouthEast Region Conference. in Savannah, Ga.Our topic will be:

Connecting School Design to Students, Teachers and Curriculum Via Project Based Learning

Our Course Description is as follows:

Just as Project Based Learning is the gold standard of effective teaching and learning, school design is one of the gold standards of PBL. This session will explore how Educational Facilities Design processes can be used as a powerful resource in the educator's pedagogical toolkit. Through the prism of our Hallmarks of Effective Teaching and Learning, we will learn how Educational Facilities Planners can become real world Community Partners for curriculum-based Projects that use the physical facility as a 5 dimensional (including Real-Time and Cyber-Space) teaching and learning tool.  Once we understand the premise that the educational facility can be a catalyst for the development of academic and social proficiencies, regardless of demographics and  even independent of whether the spaces have been designed effectively, then Educational Facilities Planners can begin to see the positive effects of these “inside out” understandings on the bottom line. In the session, we will use authentic short videos of real students conducting real projects in and out of real classrooms with real school architects, to demonstrate these processes and to show how they may be incorporated into your Planning.  Plenty of time will be built in for discussion so Planners, Designers, and Architects can walk away with a deeper understanding of what takes place inside the physical teaching and learning spaces they create.

See you in Savannah!

Grade 6 Archaeology at MaST Community Charter School

Differentiated Instruction stems from beliefs about differences among learners, how they learn, learning preferences, and individual interests.  For this process to authentically take place, it is important for educators to get to know the learners in front of them before they can best match their practices to meet the needs of the students. In this video you will see how Tarra Gordon, a sixth grade teacher at MaST Community Charter school used an archaeology project to teach content as well as to learn about her students’ likes, interests, and families.  This will give Tarra insights about her students so she can use the differentiation process to help her students achieve.

Click to view another video from MaST Community Charter School about best practices in 5th grade math.

Pets in the Classroom; Tamara

At a Public Charter School in Philadelphia over the weekend, it was necessary to unplug the filter of a 75 gallon fish tank.  Due to the inevitable and most unfortunate human error, the filter was not re-started as it should have been so this morning, when the teacher arrived, the big beautiful fish that have been a part of the culture of the school for years, except for the algae eater, were gone.  

Tamara is now a smart, happy 3rd grader at this school.  She has been a student there since kindergarten.  When she arrived at the school, Tamara was disruptive, violent, and uncommunicative.  By a series of good fortune, astute observation, and a caring educator, Tamara was given charge of making sure that the fish were well cared for, starting with feeding the first thing every morning.  That simple act of responsibility given to her in kindergarten and continuing to this day, helped transform this young lady from an asocial, belligerent child to, by dint of her consistent responsibilities with the school pets, a position of leadership.  Right about now, Tamara will be at the classroom door where the teacher will let her in and walk with her to the fish tank where there will be no fish to feed.  There will most likely be heartache and tears both on the part of both Tamara and the teacher as they commiserate over their mutual loss.  They will share this bond of sadness and then, if she is true to form, the educator will use this as a powerful "Teachable Moment" for Tamara.  There will be so many opportunities to explore and practically demonstrate how leaders act in situations like this.  There will be opportunities to use Higher Order Thinking Skills, and of course, there will be the necessity of determining next steps to lessen the impact of this tragedy on the student body, the faculty, and the admin team.  

My guess is that, before long the fish tank will be up and running with new fish in the tank and Tamara will get back into her routine of care and feeding, a little older, a good deal wiser, and farther along in her accidental development as a citizen/leader.

Project Based Learning Quick Start Guide

Based on the many Project Based Service Learning Professional Developments Guerilla Educators conducts, it has been apparent for some time that educators need a "Quick Start" reference guide about how to begin the process of using projects with their students.  To that end, I have developed this guide...

Project Steps

 Brainstorming:

• What type of project do you want to conduct with your students?
  
• Why (rationale)
• Will you be collaborating with other teachers in, or out of your school?

 Project Goals:

• What do you want to accomplish with your students?
• How will you get there?
• How will students participate in the creation of Project Goals?

 Essential Questions:

• Take a real-world topic and begin an in-depth investigation.
• Base your question on an authentic situation or topic. What is happening in your classroom?  In your community?
• Select a question about an issue that students will believe, by answering, they are having an impact on. Make it relevant for them.
• The question should be a "now" question -- a question that has meaning in your students' lives.

 Curriculum Connections:

• What curriculum, standards, and performance-based objectives will be addressed? 
• Project activities can and should be synchronized to curricular objectives.
• Build planning time in to address curriculum connections.
  

Technology

• How will technology be implemented to enhance the Project
• Telecommunications
• Information
• Website
• Sharing
• Collaborating with other students/educators via technology

 Community Partnerships/Resources:

• Which community organization(s) can help you with your project?
• In what ways will the Community Partners model good citizenship/leadership?
• What resources do you need to see the project through to completion?
• Will project related class trips be taken?

 Project Timeline

• Overall length of time
• Time per week
• Weekly Schedule

 Project Activities:

• Planned to achieve overall project objectives.
• Connected to grade appropriate curricular objectives.
• to achieve proficiency in standards and curriculum across at least 2 subject areas.
• FUN!

 Benchmarks:

• Set clear time referenced deadlines for each task and/or product.
• Should be scaffolds to build on previously achieved objectives towards success of the project.
•  Help build the frameworks and parameters in which the project can take place

 Reflection/Journals:

• Student journals will offer students the opportunity to continuously reflect and assess their progress toward completion of the project.
• Teachers can use student journals as valuable assessment tools.
• Offer students the opportunity to learn from the strategies that did and, perhaps more importantly, did not work to achieve project objectives.

 Assessment/Rubrics:

• An effective assessment program uses multiple strategies to demonstrate growth and performance, and should be closely correlated to your stated goals. Projects in which students create multimedia presentations, Web pages, artwork or songs may be evaluated differently than traditional written, typed, or even word-processed papers. Assessment strategies can include performance tasks, teacher observations, personal communications, standardized testing, and student and teacher developed evaluation rubrics, and others.
• Rubrics are an effective assessment and evaluation tool used for PBL. 
• Rubrics allow students to be involved in their creation, which creates buy-in and clarifies expectations all around.
  

Reporting Out/Celebration – Students will report out to peers, school staff, and the larger community:

•  What they learned.
• How they addressed the problems or issues.
• Their final products.

The students will be celebrated and recognized for their important work at the Reporting Out/Celebration!