CCES Bulldogs Ignite

Welcome to my first, and quite delated, blog post about my Innovation Project. I have been avoiding that task, because I am nervous about verbalizing it. I am hoping that that process of writing about it makes the process less terrifying. Let’s try it and see! For my Innovation Project, I am creating an Inquiry Unit for a small group during my ELA block. This small group has been reading Ida B. and Her Plan to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and Possibly Save the World --an adorable story about a rambunctious and colorful young lady who faces some tragic and drastic changes in her life. Our focus throughout this unit is character, so this text is an excellent segway into our project. As students read, they will be developing sketchnotes based on the text. Students will draw features of each chapter that stands out to them. Then, in small group, I meet with each child to discuss their sketchnotes and dig deeper, asking inference questions and forcing students to make conclusions ab...

You have to walk before you run; you have to crawl before you walk; and you have to learn to swim before you can dive into the deep end. Who knew? Passion Projects are an amazing way to empower students to take ownership in their learning. When we read Inquiry Mindset over the summer, I was excited to begin this journey. After our Passion Project PD, I was hyped to jump right in! (Who doesn’t catch the hype of Jamie’s enthusiasm?) We met as a team and I had the highest of hopes for my students. It didn’t take long for the daunting reality of implementing true passion projects set in. Twenty-two different projects? Twenty-two different topics to research? Twenty-two different products created? TWENTY-TWO. My face slowly morphed into that of ¨The Scream¨ by Edvard Munch. Things that helped me: To Do List: I created a To-Do List for each of my kiddos on one document that I updated each time I met with them. Students knew when it was passion project time, th...

Innovation, in our classroom, happens when the students are solving real-world problems and answering questions using their own ideas and their own designs. Over the past two weeks, we have been discussing weather and its effects on climate.  Yesterday, the students worked in small groups to put together a paper house.  The same materials were given to each group to ensure that the houses were the same.  The groups then attempted to use wind to knock their house over.  Now, I know what you're thinking!  This is not very innovative.  Well, you are correct; it is not.  However, what the students did next was not only innovative but awesome! I set out a variety of materials that the small groups could choose from in order to reinforce their houses and make them stronger.  The students were more than eager to begin making the strongest houses possible, and they were extremely creative in how they chose to strengthen their houses! Innovation, eng...

Watch this youtube video. Pay close attention to the "color" of the characters.  Innovative instruction is a way to teach students the content while keeping their curiosity--their color-- alive. In the book, Empower, by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, a conflict is posed between compliance vs. empowerment. “If you grew up in an education setting like we did, then you spent much of your time being actively compliant--trying to navigate a system that was designed to produce people who followed the rules and waited to be told what to do. Then you graduated. And you waited for someone to tell you what to do.” This is exactly what we see in the short film. The boy becomes compliant--follows the rules, completes the assignment based on the rigid expectations, even robotically puts his arms up for his backpack to be placed on his back. But what happens to his color, his essence, that spark that encourages him to play, to daydream, to take risks? It is snuffed out in orde...