The Plan

My group, Marti-jo, Rich, Kelly, Liz, and I, began discussing organization of our technology links.  We have jury-rigged a system that has worked fairly well for us in the past, but was lacking a good way for us to organize and sort through them for ourselves.  We decided to list all of our sites under two DIIGO groups - HMS 5th Teacher and HMS 5th Student.  The professional links we share under teacher and kid links under student.  We plan to label everything with helpful labels so we can search efficiently.

In addition, we plan to organize all of our shared google docs.  None of us can find ANYTHING! EVER!  So we plan to create shared folders by subject and sort our documents into these folders.  In addition we are going to do some investigation into work flow with our fifth graders.  We will consider setting up shared folders, naming conventions, doctopus, etc. 

Another aspect of our project will be determining what lessons we want for Boot Camp for the fifth graders.  We will determine who will teach what and how.  This can't really be done until we figure out the work flow.  So far we know: email, googledocs folders, desk-top

EdCafe - Takeaway

Ramsey-Musallam
- curiosity drives instruction - why?  why? why?  Want kids to question everything.

* students questions...
* need to start with inquiry, experiments, cognitive dissonance, then allow technology to come in with student questions.
* curiosity drives knowledge, didn't fear trial and error, reflection  allowed to design and refine
* curiosity comes first, embrace the mess, practice reflection

How to bring the curiosity into science class?  What demonstrations can we come up with that reinvigorate the "why" approach?  How do we use magnets which kids have had experience with practically their whole lives, to have them start questioning how and why they work?  How do you explain chemical process of battery, electron flow etc?  What are the big ideas that we want kids to walk away with?  How do we bring such a complex topic to fifth graders understanding of the world?

In math - it all goes back to " the hook"

Duckworth  - develop growth mindset in kids- grit is most important trait in success

What motivates people? The most important characteristic for success is grit - passion and stick to itiveness - living life like it's a marathon

how do you build grit?  no one knows
how do you build motivation - no one knows

grit is unrelated to talent - usually more grit means less talent

growth mindset - belief that the ability to learn is not fixed - it can change with your effort - have kids learn about how brains grow when you are challenged and fail 

How do we help kids develop a growth mindset?  I see this especially in math when the kids finally encounter something they don't know how to do.  They don't have the "try something else" or "What does this remind me of" strategies to draw upon.

EdCafe - topic of the week driven by student questions - assign to kids to lead a cafe

Smart is something you are - it's something you become

Our group talked a lot about developing grit in kids.  Grit requires repeated failure and it's messy, but our culture is so grade/standardized testing focused that we're puzzled as to where to find time and "permission" to develop grit.  How do you allow failure and still grade?

I see this too - how do you grade the process of learning and not just the learning?  Our life role outcomes are more a measure of this 'grit'.  Also the new CCSS process standards for math really reflect this grit - moving into and out of context,

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