Super Summer Stretch

I started out the summer with ideas of jumping out of airplanes or quarry diving or kayaking down the Mississippi. As the summer progressed, my stretch idea changed.

My family goal this summer was to incorporate "service for others" into my family's life. Instead of having one big service thing we did, it became more of a bunch of little things to help others. I wanted to instill the value of helping others in my boys' lives and also teach them that even little things can make a difference.

We volunteered all summer pulling weeds at our church. We would go there once a week and just pull weeds. Some weeks it was easy. Some weeks, my kids did just not want to be there. We never stayed too long, just long enough to see a difference in what we had done.

We did other service projects throughout the summer. Each time I hoped that my boys would feel more and more thankful for what they have and understand and appreciate their skills and talents that they can share with others.

My middle son, who is going into 7th grade, completed 60 hours of service this summer doing various things. To see the proud look on his face as we kept track of what he did and added it all up at the end was priceless for me. He volunteered at his school library many hours each week. He volunteered at Feed My Starving Children. He packed sandwiches and donated clothing. He helped all week with Vacation Bible School at our church. His goal was 100 hours this summer. Even though he didn't quite make the goal, he definitely stretched himself.

Finally, what stretched me the most this summer was to visit a friend who was dying of cancer. Even though this sounds simple, it was actually quite difficult for me. Both of my parents died of cancer. My mom died 8 years ago at the age of 68 of esophageal cancer, and my dad died 2 years ago at the age of 74 of skin cancer. They would have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this summer. So, for me to visit my friend, Maria, who was dying of cancer was extremely difficult for me and brought back a flood of sad memories. However, it was good to see her. I brought food to her family and spent time with her and her children. She has three children; the oldest is graduating from college and the youngest is my middle son's age. One afternoon as I was leaving her bedside, I bent over and hugged her. As I was hugging her, she whispered in my ear that she was looking forward to seeing my parents and would hug them for me.

Maria died last week at the young age of 52. She was a beautiful lady with a strong faith and positive attitude even in the end. I went to the visitation and funeral. I talked to her husband and each of her children. Maria definitely coached them through her dying process and helped them to feel better about her leaving them. When I talked to her daughter, Jenny, the one just graduating from college, there were no tears. She was relieved that her mom didn't have to suffer anymore. Jenny told me that "her mom had a new birthday now." I am so thankful that I got to experience Maria's strength and positive attitude before she died. For me, that is the ultimate example of a growth mindset.

IDEAL Classroom

My IDEAL Classroom:

Physical set-up of my room
Since both of my classrooms have 30 computers in them for each of the students, the layout of each of the rooms is fixed due to computer wiring. 

Ninth grade room - In this room, there are tables at the front of the room and computers at the back of the room. I plan to start the year with the students at the tables doing community building and engineering activities. Once we start in on learning Inventor on the computers, then the students will sit at the computers all of the time. I plan to then teach from the back of the room so I am closer to them and can see what is on their computers.

High school room - The students will sit at the computers during the entire class. I will circulate around the room as I teach, moving from front to back. There is space on the side of the classroom for the students to do some community building and engineering activities. 

Communication between me and students and/or parents before (or when) school begins
      At the beginning of the school year, I will send out an email to all of my students and their parents. This email will explain how to access my class information, grading policy, and how to best communicate with me. It will include a picture of the laser engraver in the high school classroom. It will also offer an open invitation to any parent who would like to come in and help or present or share what they do specifically if they are an engineer.

Community building activities for the first days and weeks of school

First Week:
Tuesday (first day) of school:  Sentence Completion - Have the group introduce themselves by completing a low risk sentence. Examples: favorite food, animal, cartoon strip, musical group, funniest story they have ever heard, best joke, hobbies or interests, funniest relative, what would they like to do if they had two extra hours today, what would they do if they won the lottery, etc.

Wednesday: Foundation & Structure (Roots & Leaves) - Provide students with paper and markers and ask them all to draw a house. It must include a foundation (basement): things about you that are not easily visible (where you are from, values, important life events, achievements, things you struggle with, long term goals, secret dreams, etc.) and a structure (walls): things about you that are readily visible (hobbies, demographic information, important people in your life, distinguishable personal traits, favorite music, things you do well, etc.) Have students share and describe their house to the class.

Thursday: Find Your Match - Create index cards that contain easily linked individuals or businesses such as Beyonce and Jay Z, Bill Gates and Microsoft, George Bush and Condoleezza Rice, etc. Once students have found their match, they will sit and interview each other and answer the following questions:

• What middle school did you attend?
• What is your favorite book?
• What really annoys you?
• What really makes you happy
• What are 2 of your hobbies?

After the interviews are complete, each pair will introduce their match to the entire class presenting information gathered during the interviews.

Friday: Four Corners - Have students count off by four and go to the corner of the room corresponding to their number. As a group, they must come up with two similarities and choose a spokesperson. That person will explain the similarities to the group.

Second Week:
Where Are You - Have each person say where they were and what they were doing on July 4th, 2013.

Pick a Side - Students are asked to choose their preferences between the following dichotomies. They go to one side of the room or the other (designated by the facilitator) to show which one they prefer. No one can be in the middle. Discuss why people made the choices they made.
1 - Play before you work or finish your work so you can play
2 - Design a house or build one
3 - Jeans or sweatpants
4 - Would you rather be a bat or a baseball
5 - Texas or Montana
6 - Plan your vacation or decide what to do when you get there
7 - Morning or night
8 - Would you rather go see a play or go to a football game
9 - Chocolate or strawberry
10 - New York or California
11 - Hangout with a few close friends or get together with a large group of people
12 - Listen or speak
13 - Country or pop music
14 - 007 or Batman
15 - Happy Gilmore or Terminator (I or II)

Third Week:
Skip Greeting - roll a dice on the computer projector screen and skip that many people to the right and then greet them and say their name

Color, Car, Character - Each person writes his or her name on a piece of paper. Under their name, they write which color they feel best fits their personality. Beneath the color, each writes the name of a car that fits their self-image. Finally, under the name of the car, each participant is to write the name of a fictional character with which they identify. One at a time, group members identify themselves by stating their names, colors, cars, and fictional characters. In the introduction, each participant is to provide a brief rational for each of his/her three choices.

Fourth Week:

Cube Toss - write a question on each side of a cube and toss the cube, the person who catches it answers the question where their thumb is closest

Commonality - Prepare 3-4 sets of 3x5 cards that have names on them that are related. Then pass them out randomly and have students find their matches. For example, prepare 4 cards each one with a different name such as Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa. Once those 4 students find each other, they should realize they are the Simpsons. Use band members, movie characters, presidents, etc. Use something students will know. Once they find each other, have them sit together and introduce the group to the class. This is a great activity to get students into random groups.

Plan for use of community building activities throughout the first semester
I plan on doing a daily community building activity in my classes for the first week of school. After the first week, I plan on doing community building activities twice a week for the rest of the first month of school. After that, I will do a community building activity once a week or once every other week.

Rituals/Traditions I plan to use
This year, I want to create an engineering community within my classroom. I plan on doing this with the other teacher that teaches engineering in the same classroom. I will be taking pictures of my students working on projects and take a picture of each class and put these pictures on the walls in the room.

I want to take my students on an architectural field trip of the Twin Cities and have that become a tradition that I do every year.


Reflection:
Work on more classroom building activities
Send email to parents and students

I AM

What is my new story?

     "Service for others". My goal this summer has been to work on doing service for others and teaching my boys to do the same thing. I want to teach that concept in my classroom. I want my students to learn how to do things for others and experience the good feeling they get inside themselves when they do things for others.
     Since I teach engineering classes, I can teach my students how to use their engineering skills to help others. I can provide examples of engineers that help others. My overall goal is to do a project that involves designing and/or building something for someone in need within the larger community.

How will I "wake up" the forces of good within your students and your colleagues?

     I will start the year by doing simple community building activities within my classrooms. This will help build a community within the classroom. Then, I'll expand that community to the larger community such as the school by having the students complete a project for the school. I will then hopefully expand the community even further by having the students complete a project for the community outside the school. I will also provide examples of engineers that help others throughout the year. I hope to include my colleague in this plan and have him do similar things for his classes as well.

Goals for Improving Data Collection Tools

1. I need to add specific lesson plan information for each lesson in my unit linking assignments, assessments, technology sites, etc.
2. Review my Stage 1 and 2 to make sure they cover everything in the Unit.

Determination

Shakleton did not show worry or concern

He kept them busy with jobs and made them all equal

He inspired a sense of camaraderie; strength lies in unity

He made sure they had enough supplies to survive

What had happened had happened – he always looked to the future; he set a new goal to save every life

He was devoted to holding his men together

Unfailing cheeriness; greatest optimist

He had to make life and death decisions

He would order hot drinks to serve to all when he noticed one person was really cold

He created an unfailing belief in himself from his crew

He converted his disappointment into an odyssey of survival

Classroom -

Keep sticking with it

If something doesn’t work out, don’t give up, try a different route

Be motivating and encouraging

Be the cheerleader and leader

Colleagues –

Motivator

Leader

Concept –

Determination

ROL Review & Goals

Have other people read my ROL and highlight the different areas such as "how", "why", "IDEA", and "impact" helps me see what areas I need to add to or improve.

This process made me feel less intimidated since I knew my colleagues were only looking at specific areas. It also helped me feel less intimidated as a reviewer since I knew that I only had to look for the "why".

Goals:
1. I need to improve the IDEA paragraphs in my ROL
2. I need to add an annotated bibliography to my ROL not just a bibliography
3. I need to improve the flow of my paper, transitions, headers, and the connections to the topic

Critical Friend

What is your understanding of the role of a critical friend?

A critical friend is a person who helps you be successful. They accomplish this by asking you helpful questions and push you to do something even better. They give you feedback in a non-critical way and support you along the way.

What value could you gain from a critical friend?

A critical friend could help me improve my teaching, write better lesson plans, come up with different teaching strategies, modeling, mentorship, a trusting relationship.

Share your reaction and questions pertaining to the six-step process for critical friends.

Challenging as a critical friend to provide constructive feedback not just cursory praise.

Everything needs to be completed in 20 minutes.

What key character traits would an individual need to possess to be an effective and desirable critical friend?


Which traits do you feel will be the most challenging for you personally?

Ideas for lessons - Worksheets don't grow dendrites

I teach the 12 step engineering design process to all of my students. It is a very boring lesson with a PowerPoint. I've been struggling with ways to improve it for years now. Based on what I saw today, I would like to have the students role play the 12 steps. I can have the students break up into groups of 12 and then each group is responsible for role playing one of the 12 steps based on their group number. They have to come up with a movement or action that represents that step.

ROL - First Draft

Here's the link to my first draft of my ROL.

ROL

Growth Mindset

Curricular Design Unit
Goals:
1. Work on lesson plans to make them even more interesting
2. Think of more assessments for learning that I can use on a daily basis
3. Complete a UBD for the other units in my Civil Engineering & Architecture class
4. Complete a UBD for the units in my Intro to Engineering Design class

What has energized me:
Having everything planned out and linked back to the standards for the unit energizes me.

What has challenged me:
Thinking about the overall concepts for the Unit was challenging for me.

Questions about my Action Research
1. I am very concerned that it will be difficult to prove or disprove my action research question
2. I am concerned that I will be too one-sided when implementing my action research


Questions about my ROL
1. How many articles is enough research for my ROL?
2. How can I make sure the articles are good enough for my ROL?

Curricular Design

My Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3 of my first unit of my Civil Engineering & Architecture class are in the following document:

Curricular Design - Stage 1, 2, & 3

Data Collection Tools

Here is a draft of my data collection tools and implementation plan:

Data Collection Tools