Guerilla Educators

Best Practices; Imagine Design Project; Educator Reflections

As the "Imagine" student design renovation Project winds down, we hear from the educators at Obama Green High School about their impressions of the Project.  Take a look...

"Imagine" Design Project; Building the Model

The "Imagine" design Project continues at the Barack Obama Green Charter High School, in Plainfoeld, New Jersey.  In this video, the students are thinking critically, hypothesizing, and problem solving around getting the scale determined so all of their interior renovation design will properly fit within the site boundaries.  Take a look...

See this Project activity within the context of "Imagine" that has been going on since January, 2014, here...

http://guerillaeducators.typepad.com/ge/2014/03/best-practices-design.html

Hallmarks of 21st Century Teaching and Learning

With one pronounced, impactful exception, 21st century teaching and learning best practices are largely timeless and, as you will see, transcend grade level and other demographics.  Sound educational best practices in the 21st century share certain strategic characteristics that have been effective through the ages.  To that end, we have identified ten experience based Hallmarks of 21st Century Teaching and Learning that can be used as touchstones in the educator's pedagogical approach to teaching and learning. 

The overarching caveat, of course, is that technology in the 21st century has permeated most aspects of education and culture and has changed everything.  How we, as educators, use technology with our students is now the key to unlocking those 21st century global skillsets so that our students can lead and compete in a world where geography has become, in many ways, superfluous.

The Hallmarks:

• Project Based Learning/STEM
  

• Student Ownership/Engagement

• Collaborative Teaching/Cooperative Learning

• Citizenship/Leadership/Personal Responsibility

• Community Partnerships

• Mastery of Curriculum/Development of Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Technology/21st Century Skills

• The Teachable Moment/Agility

• Reporting Out/Celebration

• Fun

  The Hallmarks:

Hallmark 1: Project Based Learning/STEM -  Project Based Learning is the primary gateway through which the Hallmarks are realized.  There are consistent characteristics that make a Project viable.  Some of these characteristics include that Projects are:

• Hands-On
• Collaborative
• Multi-Disciplinary
• Student Centered
• Technology infused
• Real-Time
• Real-World
• Flexible

Just as any discussion about the design of 21st century teaching/learning spaces includes, by nature, flexibility of those spaces, so too the design of 21st century teaching and learning must also be flexible.  With technology an integral aspect of our lives, more than ever our students have individual learning styles that must be taken into account.  PBL provides a plethora of opportunities for students and teachers to be engaged in ways that are best suited to their optimum learning styles.

This short video demonstrates a real world boat building Project featuring middle grade students at a Philadelphia charter school that authentically models these characteristics:

  

Hallmark 2: OWNERSHIP/ENGAGEMENT - When students are interested and invested in the completion of a school-based project, they begin to own their educational processes.  With ownership, all aspects of their school career, including mastery of curriculum become important to them. With ownership also comes:

• Personal responsibility.
• Employment of strategies like critical thinking, generating hypotheses, and extension of learning becomes commonplace.
• Motivation to succeed.

Ownership starts with you, the teacher!  Get invested in the processes of PBL.  Initiate projects with your students that interest you, so you can authentically model ownership.

ENGAGEMENT - Ownership and engagement are essentially 2 sides of the same coin.  When students take ownership and personal responsibility for the successful outcome of their Project, it follows that they are engaged and interested.  Any good Service Learning project will present students with many opportunities to think critically, make hypotheses, and extend what they have learned.  Engagement is the door to performing these important skills, which in turn, engenders academic and civic success.

This high school Project activity using the built environment is a great example of student engagement: https://youtu.be/Mu5vODUKTeg

Hallmark 3: COLLABORATIVE TEACHING/COOPERATIVE LEARNING - Teacher collaborations present powerful opportunities for educators to learn from each other, which can increase the strategies available to them in their pedagogical toolboxes.  With technology, it is now just as possible to collaborate virtually with the teacher across the globe as it is across the hall.

Students working cooperatively in small groups to achieve project-based goals is a powerful strategy to achieve curricular and standards based objectives.  Moreover, when students are focused on the goals of a project, they are more inclined to negotiate with their peers which clarifies their understandings and solidifies their learning.  The cooperative nature of small groups working together for successful completion of the project also has an extremely positive effect on the classroom climate and behavior issues are significantly mitigated.

This Project with post graduate design students demonstrates collaboration and cooperation experientially: https://youtu.be/mr04qE46fXg  

Hallmark 4: CITIZENSHIP/LEADERSHIP/PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - Development of good citizenship skills as part of the fabric of teaching and learning is critical to the long term, real-life success of our students.

• Civic skills give greater depth, context and meaning to student mastery of curriculum and standards. Integral to a Project is the inclusion of Community Partnerships.  Professionals who freely give their time and expertise to benefit students are models of good citizenship.

• LEADERSHIP - Project Based Learning requires administrative and teacher leadership while developing those qualities in our students.  One of the key components of effective leadership is having the humility to know what you don't know and having the ability to listen and learn from those who do.  So, for teachers and administrators:

• Leadership involves having the inner strength to make decisions and to take personal responsibility for the consequences of those decisions.

• Leadership is enabling those whom you lead to be innovative problem solvers without feeling threatened by their success.

• Leadership is being able to buffer and protect those you lead from distractions and impediments so they may carry out their responsibilities unimpeded by those distractions.

• Leadership is the ability to turn mistakes into "teachable moments" rather than "blamable moments".

• Leadership is knowing when to step back to give opportunities for those in your charge to take the lead, while understanding that ultimate responsibility rests with you.

• Leaders understand that leadership is a way of life and therefore unbound by the time constraints of the school or business day/week.

• PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY - It is incumbent upon us as educators to instill in our students that, as much as the teachers have a responsibility to present information in interesting, informative, and innovative ways, students also have the personal responsibility to make sure that they have mastered the requisite information to satisfy the goals and objectives of the Project.  Student engagement, ownership, and interest in the successful completion of the Project engenders personal responsibility.  Ultimately, one of our most critical functions as educators is to inculcate this sense of personal responsibility in our students.

Hallmark 5: COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS - Community Partners are the heart of Project Based and 21st century teaching and learning.  Having real-world professionals and others in the community work with our students to help address real-world problems present powerful opportunities for students to get involved and engaged as citizens and leaders while achieving and retaining, curricular and standards-based proficiencies.  Community Partners also model good citizenship/leadership and provide opportunities for taking class trips that are fun and demonstrate real-world learning skills.

This video demonstrates how Community Partnerships both in, and out of, classrooms can have a transformational effect on students: https://youtu.be/PPrfbiVZmxo 

Hallmark 6: MASTERY OF CURRICULUM/HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS - The primary rationale to employ Project Based Learning is, in fact, as a tool for student achievement, both academically and socially.  A project's success is ultimately determined by whether the project-based activities are connected to grade appropriate curriculum and state standards and more importantly, whether these connections enable students to achieve mastery across a range of academic disciplines.  We have seen that when students work within the Project Based methodology they own their educational processes, are engaged in a project's activities, work cooperatively to achieve success, and see citizenship modeled by the Community Partners, then mastery of curriculum becomes more likely.

This video shows second graders making and testing hypotheses: https://youtu.be/b133AGFclCY

HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS - Universal access to the internet by our students has changed the equation of how they learn, whether we, as educators, are ready for this change or not.  Unlike the traditional teaching and learning experience, with the Project Based methodology students are gaining knowledge experientially. Rather than feeding the students disconnected facts to be regurgitated on a test, Project Teachers coach the students to apply that knowledge to real world situations which engenders Higher Order Thinking Skills like evaluation, synthesis, and analysis.  Many of the videos on the Guerilla Educators blog authentically demonstrate HOTS in Action.

Hallmark 7: TECHNOLOGY/21ST CENTURY SKILLS - Technology is the #2 pencil of the 21st century.  As such, any good Service Learning project will be embedded with a wide array of real-world technology-based applications.  We still, by and large, teach interminably about how to use tech applications with our students.  Well, that ship has sailed given the fact that the younger we are, the greater our ability to use technology in an agile way.  So now, more than ever we need an educational paradigm shift away from learning how to use technology and towards using it. 

This high school Project activity using the built environment is a great example of students using technology: https://youtu.be/Mu5vODUKTeg

Hallmark 8: THE TEACHABLE MOMENT/Agility - Agility is one of the foundational tenets of 21st century education.  Agile educators nimbly take advantage of those "off the curriculum grid" spontaneous learning opportunities when they occur.  These teachable moments are powerful opportunities for effective, authentic teaching and learning to take place.  Being able to identify and use real-time teachable moments is one of those transcendent qualities that good educators possess.  Click here to see two examples of teachable moments in real-time.

Hallmark 9: 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. ...and
• They will be celebrated for their important, authentic, real-time work.

Hallmark 1O: FUN - As a 4th grader concisely put it some years ago, "Teacher John, if it ain't fun, why would we do it?"  School and  Fun?  While the terms are usually perceived to be in diametric opposition to each other, students having FUN within the framework of their school-based activities is an integral aspect of Effective Teaching and Learning and is one of the overarching links that facilitate academic and civic success. 

This short video is a compilation from 2 elementary schools conducting on-site water monitoring and having FUN!: 

To see powerful, authentic demonstrations of the Hallmarks in action, take a look at this "Seeds to Trees" horticulture project... <

and click on our Service Learning Video Compilation, as well:

  

Let us show you how to incorporate the Hallmarks into your teaching/learning program.  Our Professional Development Workshops demonstrate in a practical, hands-on way how educators, using the Hallmarks as touchstones, can be more effective.  Contact John Sole at: [email protected] for more info.

Best Practices; "Imagine" Design Project at SSP Architectural Group

The "Imagine" Design Project continues with students from the Barack Obama Green Charter High School making a class visit to the SSP Architectural Group's offices.  The students were given a tour of the work areas and were able to interact with the educational facilities planners there.  After the tour, they presented their work thus far to the architects on their re-design ideas for the next iteration of the Obama Green physical teaching and learning spaces.  Take a look...

Special thanks to Jeanne and Jay Perantoni and all the folks at SSP Architectural Group for allowing us to invade their spaces and learn by their example.  ...and for the pizza!

Click here to view other video examples of the "Imagine" design process.

Sustainably Designed Gingerbread Houses in 4 Parts; 6th Grade Science

Students at East Norriton Middle School design/built models of sustainable gingerbread houses. This kickoff event features a presentation to the 6th grade science class by the Architect, David Mazzocco.  Architect Dave gives an overview of sustainability, its rationale, the 5 LEED categories, and then presents real-time examples of sustainability in the built and natural environments.  Next up, the students will brainstorm design ideas and materials prior to the actual construction of the models, here.  This is Best Practices at its best.  Take a look...

Part 2:

Part 2... 6th Grade Design Groups; "Green" Gingerbread Houses

After Architect Dave's presentation, (click here)  about the elements of susatainability and LEED, the students broke out into small working groups to begin brainstorming their gingerbread house designs.  This video documents their first design session.

Part 3...

Design Session #3; Sustainable Design in 6th Grade

In this video, the 6th graders at East Norriton Middle School have begun constructing their sustainable, edible gingerbread houses. Their design process has included a presentation from a sustainable architect, brainstorming about materials and design, marking up images of their model concepts, and online research about sustainability and LEED. They plan to present and defend their finished models in a couple of days to their peers, their teachers, architects, and the press. Take a look...

ENMS Final Model Presentations; LEED "Certified" Gingerbread Houses

In Part 4 of the Sustainable Gingerbread House Project, Mr. Taylor's 6th grade students presented/defended their finished gingerbread house models. Each design included the LEED elements of Site, Energy, Materials, Water, and Indoor Air Quality. After their presentations, the student designs were evaluated according to a judging rubric that was collaboratively made up by the participating teachers and that included the LEED frameworks.

Design Session #3; Sustainable Design in 6th Grade

In this video, the 6th graders at East Norriton Middle School have begun constructing their sustainable, edible gingerbread houses. Their design process has included a presentation from a sustainable architect, brainstorming about materials and design, marking up images of their model concepts, and online research about sustainability and LEED. They plan to present and defend their finished models in a couple of days to their peers, their teachers, architects, and the press.  Take a look...

Session 3 follows Architect Dave's presentaion about sustainable design and LEED, here:

http://guerillaeducators.typepad.com/ge/2013/12/sustainabe-gingerbread-houses-6th-grade-science.html,

and the students' brainstorming design ideas and materials, here:

http://guerillaeducators.typepad.com/ge/2013/12/6th-grade-design-groups-green-gingerbread-houses.html

6th Grade Design Groups; "Green" Gingerbread Houses

After Architect Dave's presentation, (click here)  about the elements of susatainability and LEED, the students broke out into small working groups to begin brainstorming their gingerbread house designs.  This video documents their first design session.

Teaching Interview Techniques in 7th Grade

This morning, Brendan Wills, the Education Reporter for the Montgomery County (PA) Times Herald paid a visit to Mrs. Margie Rothfeld's 7th grade students at East Norriton Middle School. Brandon helped Mrs. Rothfeld to teach interviewing techniques to her students. This video documents some of the great things that took place there today. Take a look...

Michael Simmons; Valedictorian of the Barack Obama Green Charter High School

Michael Simmons is the Valedictorian of First Graduating Class at Barack Obama Green Charter High School. Here are excerpts from his inspiring speech to his fellow graduates.

Best Practices; International "TechPals"

For much of the 2012-'13 school year, 7th grade students from the Chinese International School in Hong Kong and their US counterparts at East Norriton Middle School (ENMS), in suburban Philadelphia have been in regular communication with each other.  What began as a simple penpal arrangement between the students ("My name is..., I go to..., I like to eat,,,, etc) has become so much more.  Educators at the schools from both Hong Kong and East Norriton have collaborated electronically throughout the Project to include curricular objectives, local customs and holidays, and the increasing use of technology applications.  In April, students from ENMS filmed and edited their first video for their Hong Kong "TechPals", "A Day in the Life" at their school, here:

 

 

Their Hong Kong friends just sent a return video, their first, back to the ENMS students, here:

This Project has been a wonderful experience for both the students, teachers, and the entire school families at both schools. The hope is that it will continue into the 2013-'14 school year.

Student feedback about the project, here...