Mindful Ed

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about ecosystems and the impact humans have on their delicate balance. My teaching partner came across this website and we signed up for a camera spot. We connected with National Geographic Education's special guest Jonathan Colby who is studying frogs and the impact of the Chyrid fungus on their survival. The students listened intently as he described what he does (loved the idea of hanging out in tree canopies in the rainforest), and how they are working to protect amphibian species. Students from all ten connected classrooms from around North America had the chance to ask questions at the end of his talk. It was an incredible opportunity to connect with an expert and really brought the curriculum to life.  Check out the website here to book your own camera spot:  http://www.exploringbytheseat.com/ Grade 7 Students listening to Jonathan Colby's talk.  Curriculum Links Provoking thinking about human impact...

Our subsequent prints have led to some rather interesting results...  It is our thinking that the filament got tangled about half way through the printing process which led the extruder to be pulled and the calibration offset. Although the print was not what we intended, we do believe it is a rather beautiful failure - almost a work of art! I sent our images to the M3D tech support and they stated it could be an issue with the motor. They suggested we conduct an x-axis skip test and record the process. Let me pause here and note the vast amount of learning acquired through our trials. So far as part of this project we have uncovered the extruder and examined the mechanisms, learned the logistics of calibration, and used the manual to navigate the software to perform diagnostics tests. It is clear from our x-axis diagnostic test that our motor is skipping. We attempted to rotate the rod to a looser position as it states in the troubleshooting guide with no luck. M...

Last week, we visited Daniel Pink's website as a class and viewed examples of "What's Your Sentence?" responses. Students then spent some time thinking about who they are in a quest to come up with their own sentence. I found it quite incredible how much you can learn about somebody from simply one sentence. What is the essence of that person that they wish the world to see of them? Powerful!   Students then added personal reflections about their sentence to their blogs. I am adding purposeful time for meditation, prayer, and reflection to work towards the Catholic Graduate expectations. This includes providing more opportunities for students to reflect on who they are and how they wish to impact the world they live in.  As the students completed their own blogs, I reflected on my own sentence to model reflective and creative thinking. Summarizing oneself in as few words as possible is a difficult feat. Who am I as an educator, a leader, a sister, a daughter...

For our first project, the students worked in groups to design objects to add organization to our learning environment. Since we are experimenting with the use of tables over desks, this is relevant project very much connected with life in our classroom. During their first experience with  TinkerCad  students navigated through help tutorials to familiarize themselves with tools and functionality.  Then they got work brainstorming options. I noticed students using measurement tools to create designs that were reasonable in scale in relation to the objects they were intended to hold.  After our design work period, we selected our first print!  Unfortunately , our print stopped about half way through. It seemed as though the filament got tangled in the internal feed port.  We used this first failure as an opportunity to better understand the inner workings of our M3D printer as well as misconceptions about the scale in our designs (as you ca...

Just over a week ago, my classroom's 3D printer arrived. It was a Friday, and as eager as I was to check it out myself, I wanted to share the experience with my students. So there, on a large rectangular table, sat the box ... I took a picture of it and posted it to our instagram feed (@weberswonders7) to instill a little curiosity.  On Monday morning, the classroom was a buzz of excitement. We had a class discussion about what we believed to be in the box and what might be possible with this new learning tool. Students recorded their thinking on sticky notes and attached them to the (still closed) box. We have been talking about the design process and students made connections with the importance of getting inspiration from the world around them.  This sticky notes was my favourite!  The following day we opened the box and created a list of questions and wonderings about the M3D printer. Initial Questions: How do we take care of it? ...

As part of my experience teaching and travelling in China, I was asked to respond to a few questions upon my return. Here are my thoughts ... As a professional educator, what did you learn through this experience? Prior to departing, the STEM team got together frequently to plan and organize our activities. This solidified for me the importance of collaborative planning.  Preparing for the unknown brought a whole new challenge, but I enjoyed thinking through possibilities and discussing them with colleagues. This continued when we arrived in China and we spent time gathering together in our hotel rooms, discussing how our lessons unfolded and making modifications as needed to deliver the most relevant and engaging lessons for our students. I think building collaborative cultures like we developed over the course of our planning and implementation for SFLS is something we could work on in our own schools. These are often done formally within divisions, but more informal co...

This year I have been fortunate to spend time with +Rolland Chidiac-WCDSB at different points of his journey incorporating 3D printing into his grade 4 classroom. A few ah-ha's for me include the role of discovery, tangibles as gateways to student learning and improvement, and the inevitability of failure (and how we use it to feed-forward). This opportunity to learn, discuss, ideate, and share has been especially benefical as I am being provided with a 3D printer in my classroom next year as part of a reasearch study on spatial reasoning. One of my goals is to explore how mathematical concepts (eg. scale) and the design process can be intertwined to improve students' spatial reasoning skills. I also hope to discover ways to incorporate design thinking into other subject areas (with students leading the way I imagine). The chance to get started with 3D printing came before I knew it. As a final culminating activity in history, students were challenged to synthesize their lea...