San Francisco

Day 2

Today was a big question day. Lots of ideas tossing around that are interesting; but, not fully formed.

"The Residue of Thinking" Look, I know the library is a mess a lot of the time. It's loud and chaotic and there's stuff everywhere. However, I loved using this phrase to describe the end of the day in the Burley Library. It's not a mess; it's the residue of thinking. Exibiting work that is "rough draft" stage and final product makes work accessible and mistakes acceptable.

Permission vs. Safety. By training students to use the heavy tools in a makerspace, we are most often approaching the issue from the perspective of safety. As teachers, we are preventing accidents by showing students the proper way to use tools. However, looking at this from a student perspective, training is also about giving them permission to use the space and agency over it. Permission and agency have a safety side-effect and lead to an empowered learner.

Disection vs. Destruction. There is a fine line here. At our take-apart table in the library, sometimes it's about disection and sometimes it's about destruction. Both are valid. Today, in toy disection, a lot was done to set the tone of the activity. The tools were presented in a way that mimicked a real disection. While they were small details, the tray, the gloves, and the glasses set a tone of cerebral disection instead of a more emotional destruction. The guilt at ultimately destroying the toy was tempered by the scientific tone of the activity. Interesting.

Music. Talk about setting tone. I'm buying a bosonova playlist and running it on repeat forever. I just finished changing the smell of the library and am happy with the results of that experiment. I think music also changes the tenor of library. I need to pay more attention to the background.

Time. Oh, time. Wouldn't it be awesome if I had time to make a frame for a periodic table, or make pop-up book examples, or arrange the makespace supplies into bins? Getting that breathing room is really hard when you're building a program. I try to get to "yes" so much that I'm running out of time to be excellent. Like every teacher, I need planning time, making time, and study time. Figuring out how to get there is hard while honoring my commitment to being a good collaborative partner and an open library.

Starting points. I really liked having a chance to explore materials before beginning an activity. Having "play time" prior to beginning a curricular standard let me thinking about the elements in their natural state before combining them into an item that achived the lesson. In the light play activity, we independently played with clear, colored, and solid objects in the lights before being given the prompt. I think that was important thinking space. Not having the "task" hanging over gave weight to the ingredients and not just the whole.

Project reflection. Having an opportunity for group reflection as an activity is much under-rated. One of the most valuable activities we've done is to reflect in a structured activity prior to writing. Hearing from others in a moderated way leads to a breadth of conversation that includes all voices and a depth of thinking can last. I'm back to the prompted as opposed to free method of reflection.

The language of prompts. Every word has to be carefully chosen.

As many of you know, tableau is one of my favorite assessment tools. I think, however, that magnet theater might need to stage a comeback.

Lots of things tossing around. My To-Do List for Monday keeps getting longer.

Day 1

Gabrielle and I are here at the Exploratorium in San Francisco for "The Art of Tinkering" workshop. What a day! I have 3 sets of notes.

Resources

• 501 Mechanical Movements
• Making Things Move
• Adventures in Art
• Home Hacking
• The Elements of Pop-ups
• And the Exploratorium's MOOC: "the Art of Tinkering" on Coursera.

Pedagogy

The idea of examples has long haunted me. I love them, then hate them, then love them again. When I give examples, students try to make the example. When I don't give examples, students are often paralyzed by too many choices and a fear of "failure". Today, however, I saw a great example. It was given by our workshop leader and it had a few previously unknown (to me) elements that made it fantastic:

1. It was minimal. This is important because it suggested an avenue; but it wasn't complete in any way. There was no "finished project" just a possible path.
2. It didn't work. Oh my gosh! So Important! Demonstrating failure in an example instills confidence.around failure. Having a teacher do the example and then model how to move around failure into another iteration was amazing!
3. The prompt was worded as "Try to..." It wasn't a mandate; there was room for creativity and failure. The pressure of doing it perfectly was off because it was a carefully worded "try" instead of a high-pressure "do".

Ideas

Here's the good stuff (for me). Things that I can do or try to do when I hit the ground next week.

1. Students who are building the cipher machines should add electricity. Why are we settling for mechanical? Why are we settling at all?
2. A tile wall - maybe made of cork? cardboard squares? something like that, anyway... of the periodic table. A pair could prepare a tile with the element, important information about it on the back and we can hang them with zip ties so that students can look at both sides as they walk through the library.
3. Hanger Chandlier. I know, I know... I already have a plastic cup chandelier... but, come on... one more isn't going to hurt and boy, does it look fancy!
4. Add a "tools" and an "electronics" section to my internship curriculum. These students should be trained to work every tool in the library - let's formalize that!
5. Music during clean-up time. Really nice, soothing music for neatening time was really important to make it seem like a soothing and normal thing. In a short block, it sometimes feels like the neatening is rushed, forced, and ultimately unsuccessful. The music changed the tenor (haha?) of the activity.
6. Bins! So Many Bins! Having a place for everything to go made the clean up less stressful. I think a lot of the stress around cleaning comes when there is no place or when the place is too far away. Having bins means that supplies are readily available and easily returned. It makes gathering supplies for activities more efficient. I have been converted to bin-land.