I’m taking X.MTHED-404: Effective Practices for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics (K-12).
Here are my notes from Session 6, Harnessing the Power of the Purposeful Task, with Graham Fletcher.
Notes from previous sessions:
Category Archives: Social Media
Participating in Each Others Stories: Global Connections & Microlending (TBT Remix)
If shown a world map, could I find Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, or Ecuador? Do I have any idea how to connect with someone or something in a country that I can’t even find on a map? How will I find content to promote global citizenship while teaching content that falls under my responsibility?
So I joined Bill Ferriter (@plugusin), Dan Sudlow, and three of their students, E, C, and J, for a webinar discussing their Kiva Club and how they use microlending to help people in developing countries throughout the world.
E and C are 6th graders and J is an 8th grader. With expert and supportive facilitation from Bill and Dan, these young learners taught us about microlending through their experiences and stories. Worth emphasizing…I learned about microlending and integrating content and relationships that connect us to the larger world and the world to us from these three young learners.
The connections to math and geography are obvious to me, but I still have questions. You can read more about microlending on Bill’s blog The Tempered Radical. In High Tech High’s video What Project Based Learning Is, Jeff Robin strongly suggests to be successful with PBL you need to “do the project yourself.” While the math and geography seem obvious to me, what will be learned from a microlending project? So, I have taken the challenge to learn by doing. I am participating in funding multiple loans.
I have a better idea of where Kyrgyzstan, Uganda and Ecuador are when I look at a map, and I have the opportunity to connect to these women’s stories. I also know more about Kiva. Listen to and watch this beautiful story from Jessica Jackley about poverty, money, and love:
In her talk, Jackley says
The way we that we participate in each others stories is of deep importance.
I collaborated with 18 others across the world to help Carlina improve her business and family income. Her dream is to have a well-constructed house; her current home is made of reeds.
Each of the green pins in the map represents the location of a lender. The map and pins tell part of the story, but while informative, it is not very personal.
Don’t you think there is a big difference in seeing the pins in the map and seeing the faces of the lenders? The faces show humanity; the faces share more of the story.
If integrating “content and relationships that connect us to the larger world and the world to us” is an essential action, then what do we do? What actions do we take? How do we “do the project” ourselves? How will we practice? What will we learn?
Still wondering how social media can be used for learning, leading, and serving? Read One Tweet CAN Change the World from The Tempered Radical. I cannot physically take my young learners on a field trip to Uganda, Ecuador, or another part of the world. Social media (blogs, Twitter, YouTube, iChat, Skype, etc.) affords us opportunities to “connect us to the larger world and the world to us.”
Let’s experiment.
Let’s learn by doing.
2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Click here to see the complete report.
Top posts from 2014 include:
- Visual: SMP-1 Make sense of problems and persevere #LL2LU
- Calculus and the Art of Questioning – #NspiredatT3
- Reflection: gift of time and reflection with Honors College learners
- SMP-1: Make sense of problems and persevere #LL2LU
- #NCSM14 Art of Questioning: Leading Learners to Level Up #LL2LU
- Summer Reading 2014: Themes and Choices
- Meaning markers and routes to success
- PBL PD: Integrating Formative Assessment, Twitter, & Brain-based Research
- Visual: SMP-3 Construct Viable Arguments and Critique the Reasoning of Others
- Visual: Encouraging mathematical flexibility
Top posts continuing to be viewed in 2014
Sketchnotes, Doodles and Visual Thinking Jam – #GaETC2014
Jill Gough (@jgough) and Shelley Paul (@lottascales) are facilitating a session entitled Sketchnotes, Doodles & Visual Thinking Jam at the Georgia Educational Technology Conference.
The provocation:
How might we incorporate symbols and doodles (“on paper” and digitally) in order to better express ideas, and summarize/synthesize our learning and reflections? How might notetaking become more personal, visual, brain-compatible and shareable across networks? Come join an introduction, conversation, exploration and practice session to learn and share about the “doodle revolution” and how we might grow ourselves and our learners through visual thinking?
The plan:
- Introductions
- Read Ish by Peter Reynolds and doodle
- Hear a snippet from Sunnie Brown, Dual Coding, and practice sketch noting
- Practice by sketch noting Simon Sinek’s TED Talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action
- Gallery walk to show and share (#ShowYourWork)
- Reflect using the Visible Thinking Routine, Connect, Extend, Challenge
The norms:
- I can talk about what I know, and I can talk about what I don’t know.
- I can be brave, vulnerable, kind, and considerate to myself and others while learning.
- I can learn from mistakes, and I can celebrate what I thought before and now know.
The slide deck:
The sketchbook handout:
![photo[1]](https://jplgough.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/photo1.jpg)
The reflection: Connect, Extend, Challenge
- How do these ideas connect to what you already know?
- What new ideas did you get that extend or push your thinking in new directions?
- What is now a challenge for you to get your mind around? What questions, wonderings, and puzzles do you now have?
[Cross posted on Finding the Signal]
Visual Note Taking – Join the Doodle Revolution, #GISAConference
Jill Gough (@jgough) and Shelley Paul (@lottascales) are facilitating a session entitled Visual Note Taking – Join the Doodle Revolution at the 2014 Georgia Independent School Association (GISA) conference.
The provocation:
How might note taking become more active, personal, brain-compatible and shareable? How might we incorporate symbols and doodles to improve listening, better express ideas, summarize/synthesize learning and make connections? Join a conversation and practice session to explore how we might grow ourselves and our learners through doodling and visual thinking.
The plan:
- Introductions
- Read Ish by Peter Reynolds
- Share artifacts of visual note taking and impact at school
- Practice by sketch noting Simon Sinek’s TED Talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action
- Gallery walk to show and share (#ShowYourWork)
- Repeat as time permits
- Reflect using the Visible Thinking Routine, Connect, Extend, Challenge
The norms:
- I can talk about what I know, and I can talk about what I don’t know.
- I can be brave, vulnerable, kind, and considerate to myself and others while learning.
- I can learn from mistakes, and I can celebrate what I thought before and now know.
The slide deck:
The sketchbook handout:
The reflection: Connect, Extend, Challenge
- How do these ideas connect to what you already know?
- What new ideas did you get that extend or push your thinking in new directions?
- What is now a challenge for you to get your mind around? What questions, wonderings, and puzzles do you now have?
[Cross posted on Finding the Signal]
MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 5) – Learning Together
How might we learn, reflect, and share? What if we take a moment of learning and share it with others?
- Read one (or more) of the following blog posts:
- Diving into Project-based Learning: Brainstorms by Phillip Cummings (@Phillip_Cummings)
- Giving Student Choice with Digital Portfolios by Kathy Cassidy (@KathyCassidy)
- When kids write because they want to… by Paula White (@paulawhite)
- Add a Share button to you blog posts to make it easy for others to share your blog posts.
- Reflect, write, and post. Read and comment on posts from at least two others in ourMyLearning 1.5 cadre. You might consider using the following protocol for your comments:
- I like…
- I wish…
- I wonder…
- I want to know more about…
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 4) – Learning Together
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 3) – Learning Together
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 1) – Learning Together
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 2) – Learning Together
MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 4) – Learning Together
How might we learn, reflect, and share? What if we take a moment of learning and share it with others?
- Read Reflecting on My Learning 1.0.
- Watch The Future of Publishing (shown below). How might we reframe or reverse the way we are seeing, learning, thinking, and acting?
- Reflect, write, and post. Read and comment on posts from at least two others inourMyLearning 1.5 cadre. You might consider using the following protocol for your comments:
- I like…
- I wish…
- I wonder…
- I want to know more about…
BONUS: If you have written and published for other websites or magazines, cross post your work on your blog as artifacts of your writing and contributions to the learning of others. (Examples: Falconry: I believe in you is posted on Experiments in Learning by Doing and on Flourish.
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 3) – Learning Together
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 1) – Learning Together
- MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 2) – Learning Together
MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 3) – Learning Together
How might we learn, reflect, and share? What if we take a moment of learning and share it with others?
- Read Categories vs Tags and Silvia Tolisano’s (@langwitches) Anatomy, Grammar, Syntax & Taxonomy of a Hyperlink. Return to your previous post(s) and add both categories and tags and improve any hyperlinks if you have not already done so.
- Watch Matt Cutts: Try something new for 30 days (shown below). What habits should we practice? What habits are we modeling and teaching? What habits do our student-learners want to acquire? How can we make reflection part of the habit of schooling?
- Reflect, write, and post. Read and comment on posts from at least two others in ourMyLearning 1.5 cadre. You might consider using the following protocol for your comments:
- I like…
- I wish…
- I wonder…
- I want to know more about…
This course is designed to build teacher experience, confidence, and understanding of reflection, digital portfolios, and feedback. Strategies employed in this course will be hands-on and digital development practices for reflection, self-assessment, learning, feedback, and growth.
At the end of this course, participants should be able to say:
- I can use reflection as a formative assessment and self-assessment tool.
- I can develop and utilize journaling and e-portfolios.
- I can use authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to inform professional growth and learning.
- I can design processes that can be used in a classroom to promote and celebrate self-reflection for learning.
- I can integrate technologies that enhance self-reflection and asynchronous communication.
- I can facilitate authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to motivate growth and learning.
This class will meet asynchronously throughout the semester from August 1 through January 1. Participants will document their learning on their professional blog. Participants will collaborate, learn, and share by commenting on the blogs of others participating in this course.To earn 2 PLU credits (Georgia Department of Education), participants will
- establish a professional portfolio to document the journey of becoming a more reflective teacher.
- demonstrate fulfillment of required activities by posting completed work and reflections to individual blogs.
- model connectedness by reading and commenting on the reflections of others in this course.
- practice offering warm and cool feedback in constructive, kind, and purposeful ways using suggested protocols.
MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 2) – Learning Together
How might we learn, reflect, and share? What if we take a moment of learning and share it with others?
-
Read What Do You Know About Creative Commons by Bill Ferriter and/or How to Attribute Creative Commons images in your blog properly?.
- Peak Learning Exercise – “Think about your own life and the times when you were really learning, so much and so deeply, that you would call these the “peak learning experiences” of your life. Write a rough draft: Tell a story (you may include pictures, symbols, or other icons, too) about this peak learning experience, and respond to the question, “What were the conditions that made your high-level experience so powerful and engaging?”(adapted from 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times, Trilling and Fadel, 2009; used as choice in Writing-Is-Thinking CFT Pre-Institute Assignment with Bo Adams in 2012.)
- Post one of your Peak Learning Experiences on your blog.
At the end of this course, participants should be able to say:
- I can use reflection as a formative assessment and self-assessment tool.
- I can develop and utilize journaling and e-portfolios.
- I can use authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to inform professional growth and learning.
- I can design processes that can be used in a classroom to promote and celebrate self-reflection for learning.
- I can integrate technologies that enhance self-reflection and asynchronous communication.
- I can facilitate authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to motivate growth and learning.
MyLearningEdu 1.5 (week 1) – Learning Together
How might we learn, reflect, and share? What if we take a moment of learning and share it with others?
- Read Becoming a Reflective Teacher.
- Watch Obvious to You, Amazing to Others from Derek Sivers.
- Select a blog platform, get setup, and write an introductory post about your learning.
This course is designed to build teacher experience, confidence, and understanding of reflection, digital portfolios, and feedback. Strategies employed in this course will be hands-on and digital development practices for reflection, self-assessment, learning, feedback, and growth.
At the end of this course, participants should be able to say:
- I can use reflection as a formative assessment and self-assessment tool.
- I can develop and utilize journaling and e-portfolios.
- I can use authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to inform professional growth and learning.
- I can design processes that can be used in a classroom to promote and celebrate self-reflection for learning.
- I can integrate technologies that enhance self-reflection and asynchronous communication.
- I can facilitate authentic peer-to-peer and self-assessment practices to motivate growth and learning.
This class will meet asynchronously throughout the semester from August 1 through January 1. Participants will document their learning on their professional blog. Participants will collaborate, learn, and share by commenting on the blogs of others participating in this course.To earn 2 PLU credits (Georgia Department of Education), participants will
- establish a professional portfolio to document the journey of becoming a more reflective teacher.
- demonstrate fulfillment of required activities by posting completed work and reflections to individual blogs.
- model connectedness by reading and commenting on the reflections of others in this course.
- practice offering warm and cool feedback in constructive, kind, and purposeful ways using suggested protocols.
Experiments in Learning by Doing 