invite | Design the Shift 2.0

In Summer 2014 60+ teachers came together around the challenge: How might we use instructional design to create effective, engaging and multi-disciplinary learning opportunities for our students? Participants prototyped their projects with their students over the course of the 2014-15 school year.  You can find out more about the summer institute through this Twitter story, or by reading the teachers’ stories in our blog.

This Summer (2015) we invite you to join your colleagues in a unique professional learning experience which nurtures professional growth and enhances your creative confidence to develop and enact engaging and meaningful learning tasks. We invite teachers from all disciplines to collaborate in an effort to bring new opportunities, experiences and inspiration to students.

Details

We are offering two opportunities this summer so as to include our modified calendar teachers. Teachers may choose to attend one or the other, but attendance at one full institute is expected. We need a minimum of 10 teachers for each offering.

August 10 & 11 (Modified teachers return to work August 12)

(We will work collaboratively with this group to find a common date for a third meeting)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

August 24, 25, 26 (Traditional teachers return to work August 27)

9:00am – 4:00pm

Education Centre

Outcomes

Each participant will:

• create a multi-disciplinary learning opportunity which invites students into a relevant and meaningful experientially focused learning task which brings fine or practical arts together with academics. Ideally this work will be taken up as part of a team.
• prototype their design with their students in the 2015-16 school year.
• document student voice in making their learning visible through documentation, reflection, sharing and engagement in the design process.
• collaborate with the Summer Institute team in gathering data through surveys, interviews and other means to provide feedback and information about the outcomes of this initiative.

Supports:

Support will be provided by:

• External Expertise and Community Partnerships
• Online and Face to Face environments to connect with your Professional Learning Networks (PLNs)
• System Facilitators for ongoing work
• Release time during the school year for collaborative meetings
• Other supports for project implementation

We hope you will join us in August.  Please let us know by filling out this form. And please pass on this information to others who you think might be interested.

If you have questions, please contact Erin Quinn elquinn@cbe.ab.ca or Tracy Dalton tadalton@cbe.ab.ca.

design thinking summer institute - MidSun School

Using Minecraft to Demonstrate Learning
Kaushik Tailor

Students at MidSun school had the opportunity to incorporate MineCraft in a meaningful interdisciplinary activity.  Our school Design program had purchased MineCraft Edu early last year, and the summer institute gave me the opportunity to mobilize the tasks in the company of my other colleagues.

In the project, students were provided a scenario where our school had won a 15 million dollar grant, and were asked to Design and create a museum that would fit in the back of the school.  The design constraints were the time they had to complete the task, having to create communication structures between the team members, the cost constraint, and the fact that the artifacts had to accurately connect in with their current learning.

The students were excited  to be working with the Minecraft Museum module in my class. It was clear that this made teaching and learning come alive for them.  To explain, were creating 3D functional hydraulic lifts from their learnings in Science Class, walking through 3D Water cycles, illustrating the isolationist policy of Japan from the Social Studies unit, and having fun demonstrating comma splices. Here are examples of some artifacts:

I believe this project sparked discussions in my school and in our school community of practices. Teachers in my school as well as other schools in our community of practice were impressed that students could be engaged with MineCraft and still yield high quality artifacts. What I found really impressive was this was a great hook for both high and low students. It was impressive  to see students that were typically disengaged from traditional classes to be looking at online textbooks to identify and research potential museum artifacts. Many  were accelerating their learning by researching through digital texts to create artifcats.  Students were also coaching one another on the validity/accuracy of the artifacts, and supporting one another. One student in particular had indicated that he had the wrong idea of what a certain concept was (Aquaducts), and he believes his understanding would not have been corrected had it not been for this project.

I believe it was clear that that both my students and I were actively involved in the design cycle. The students had a variety of design and logistical constraints that they had to attend to. As this was a new experience for both the students and the teacher, we had to collaboratively reflect on our work and make necessary adjustments as needed.

Students were sampled and asked to comment on the experience of the task. Students reported that the MineCraft project allowed them to synthesize the learning from the learning in the other classes in a “fun new way” that allowed them to demonstrate learning in a “more manageable medium”.  Other students also noted that by being able to create “things from other subjects” helped them connect understand by being able to “tie together” and “compare” what they “actually learned’.  One student reported that the MineCraft museum helped the student see artifacts from his other subjects  “in a 3D or virtual way”  and helped him see concepts that he “may not have seen”.  I believe this was a good representation of the experiences from the other subjects.  Ultimately, it was clear that students could still have fun working with MineCraft and still have a meaning interdisciplinary opportunity.

Students had to engage in considerations for the Design Studies Occupational Area and had to articulate the CTF outcomes as they collaborative designed, created, and adjusted their museum to meet the needs of the task.

design thinking summer institute - Centennial HS

Outdoor and Environmental Science - Centennial High School'
Carter Cox, Adam Sandbeck, Kenzie Rushton

Students at Centennial HS have the opportunity to combine a passion for outdoor education with their learning in Science, Phys. Ed, Career and Technology Studies and CALM.

Three teachers came together last summer to design the next phase of their OES program.

We are re-designing the way we deliver and assess the human system learning outcomes from Bio 20, Chem 20, CTS 2010 (Wilderness First Aid WFA) and CALM.

Our project was extremely successful for the students, however we were unable to implement all of our original ideas.  The integration of the human systems from the Bio 20 curriculum and the CTS credits and certification in wilderness first aid worked very well.  A first draft booklet was created for the students to help with the practical implementation of human systems theory to real life first aid scenarios.  The students were able to demonstrate a higher level of understanding of human systems as it directly relates to wilderness first aid scenarios.  The students memory recall showed improvements on tests and as a result the students were able to obtain their certification.

The grade 12 students were unable to design simulations for the grade 11’s and therefore we were unable to be able to model simulations for the gr 11’s to design.  This is our ultimate goal for next year, to re-think how the gr 11’s will have enough time to design their simulations and provide the ultimate form of assessment.  

design thinking summer institute - Langevin Science School

In August 2015 a group of 40 dedicated grades 4-12 teachers came together for 3 days to answer the following design challenge:

How might we use instructional design to create effective, engaging and multi-disciplinary learning opportunities for our students?

image from: IDEO Design Thinking for Educators

These teachers designed a learning experience for their students, tried it out and reported back their results. 

Over the next few weeks we will share their stories. 

Minerals and Metals: Changes to the lives of early Canadian explorers and aboriginals.
Ross Howe, Langevin Science School

The project which we tried related ‘Minerals and Metals” in our Social Studies, Math, Science and Language Arts. In our Social Studies student took on roles as Archaeologists, Anthropologists, Botanists and Ecologists. Students were able to research a scenario of the discovery of a three hundred year old site of an Eastern Canadian Aboriginal group. Students gathered evidence and presented findings in a “Science Symposium”. Of particular interest was the use and application of metals and minerals in the aboriginal dig.

In Math, we explored the “Unit Cell” structure of minerals and metals by creating a crystal model and evaluating this model through basic geometry. Students did find creating a model somewhat challenging but manage in general to create the result adequately. Use of higher grade paper would have been beneficial.

In Science, students took the opportunity to explore minerals and metals of Canada and created a brochure about the mineral or metal and are geographic location. What was interesting was the learning which we did regarding the geology of Canada and where the different types of minerals and metals came from. Students learned a direct relationship between geology and geography. 

Finally, in Language Arts students using the idea of “Story Telling” created a story about how European metals and minerals changed the way of life for the aboriginals. What was interesting was the manner in which students had different ideas about how changes took place with “First Contact”. Some saw it as an advantage while others saw it as a negative effect.

The whole process is very interesting and you really must trust the process in order to gain the maximum benefit of the experience. I will continue to work on this idea….Integrated Curriculum.