Blog Archives

Day 4 at the SCEWL 2014 Constructivist Conference #SCEWL14

7/31/2014

Jeff Morabito and Dionna Fitch hosting the banquet entertainment. Photo by B. Hale

Day 4 at the SCEWL 2014 Constructivist Conference was busy with a couple of hours of finishing up work on projects, preparing for both the Critical Friends process and showcase presentations. The showcase presentations were unique. Instead of setting up displays and having institute participants roam around and see each display as they do at the ILCE Constructivist Conference, the showcase here was a series of three minute presentations to all the participants at once. Most groups used Google Presentations or Prezi. It was great to get a three minute presentation for each project but I doubt it would be practical if you had as many teams as the New York conference has.

We had a group photo of all the conference attendees with our conference T-shirts on which was an event in itself. Tim Bedley videoed short segments of attendees sharing their observations of the week. After critical friends the attendees were asked to complete an online assessment of the conference and that wrapped up the week. Because the assessments were done digitally we were able to see the results almost immediately. Tim provided a brief synopsis of the feedback which went nicely with our PMI debrief of the conference. There was no doubt that the conference was a huge success. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Although all the facilitators and support staff felt extremely pleased with the results of the week our debrief shared lots of ideas of how to make the conference even better.

Congratulations to Barbara Hale, Tim Bedley and all the people that made the conference possible. I know the New York folks would be extremely proud of this event.

2 Comments

Project-Based Learning: Getting Ready for the School Year

7/31/2014

0 Comments

Are you getting ready for the school year and looking for some ideas for Project-Based Learning? One of the most important considerations as you prepare for Project-Based Learning is to have a plan for creating the right "culture" for these projects. Have you created a classroom "contract?" What are the routines and rituals that provide the framework for successful projects?

Here are some links for veterans and novices alike:

Getting Started with Project-Based Learning (Hint: Don't Go Crazy): http://www.edutopia.org/blog/project-based-learning-getting-started-basics-andrew-miller
How did I start my very first project: http://bie.org/blog/how_did_i_start_my_very_first_project
8 Essentials for Project-Based Learning: http://bie.org/object/document/8_essentials_for_project_based_learning
The Leading E.D.G.E. Teaching & Learning Philosophy White Paper: -http://www.realworldlearning.info/uploads/4/1/9/9/4199123/spec_whitepaper.pdf

The Leading E.D.G.E. Sample Packet of Challenges (Projects): http://www.realworldlearning.info/uploads/4/1/9/9/4199123/_3d_2009_sampler.doc

The Leading E.D.G.E. Blueprint Packet-How to Write a Challenge (Project): http://www.realworldlearning.info/uploads/4/1/9/9/4199123/3c_2012_blueprint.doc

The Leading E.D.G.E. Challenge (Project) & Product Quality Checklist Template - Fill in the blank: http://www.realworldlearning.info/uploads/4/1/9/9/4199123/challenge_template-fill_in.doc

The Leading E.D.G.E. Tool Bucket - Tools, Activities, & Techniques for Project-based Learning: http://www.realworldlearning.info/uploads/4/1/9/9/4199123/4a_toolbucket.doc
17 Intentions of a constructivist teacher: https://docs.google.com/a/realworldlearning.info/document/d/1eyELfhaq0iuanJeyBDUpBls9ozqljrje4nyImAnG_yA/edit

Let us know if we can be of further assistance.

0 Comments

Day 3 at #SCEWL14 - The California Constructivist Conference

7/30/2014

0 Comments

Leading an icebreaker. Photo by T.Bedley

Day 3 at SCEWL14 and the REACH Academy teams continue to work hard on their task. They are a great group of teachers and it will be fascinating to see how much they are able to move across the continuum from teacher-centered to student-centered classrooms. As I mentioned last night, yesterday I saw somewhat of a paradigm shift and I think some of the teachers want to use more student-centered practices but I’m not certain the culture is in place to support it. Only time will tell.

There were some excellent workshops today and as usual Tim Bedley was the headliner. Tim had two sessions. One was titled EdTech Tips and another titled Critical Thinking Activities. They both were standing room only. Another workshop was presented by Sandy Sanford titled Smarter Balanced - A Practical Approach. We got to know Sandy a bit and he has a fascinating background. He is currently helping schools in data management as it relates to summative assessments and teacher practice. Julie Miranda also presented a workshop on Japanese Lesson Study called Writing About Math (WAM.) I didn’t get to see it but it sounded fascinating.

Tonight we had the conference banquet at the beautiful McMahan House, a great on campus conference facility. After a fine dinner we had some great entertainment. (Well that might be a little exaggeration. We had entertainment and some of it was quite good.) Anyone who has attended the ILCE Constructivist Conference knows that the entertainment at the banquet is fine home spun local talent that ranges from hokey to incredibly professional. Dionna Fitch and Jeff Morabito played the western version of Carol Amberg and Frank Pickus. The highlight was the quiz game (a mix of Jeopardy, Family Feud, and others) which brought out the best (or maybe worst) in all of us. It wouldn’t be fair not to mention that our table won!

Tomorrow we wrap our work, do a session of critical friends, and share our efforts with each other. Stay tuned for a final wrap up.

0 Comments

Day 2 at the SCEWL "Constructivist" Conference #SCEWL14

7/29/2014

0 Comments

Jeff Morabito of Sycamore Academy working with teachers from REACH Academy.

Day 2 in beautiful San Marcos. It was a toasty 94 degrees today but we are working comfortably with the help of air conditioning. It is funny though because I slept kind of cold last night due to the automatic air conditioning. Not as cold as Saranac Lake though!

Some more differences between the conferences…. Amazingly, unlike the ILCE Constructivist Institute where we get a number of teams from St. Lawrence University, there is no one from the San Marcos Education Department here. They are missing a great opportunity.

If you were at the last couple of New York Institutes you have experienced the leaps and bounds made in the area of technology. Well here at San Marcos they have taken it another leap. Other than us old timers (Bruce & I) there is very little easel paper being used by facilitators. The teams using little or no paper seem to be kept logged onto the college network better than our teams are. Web access has been okay for most but for some reason random computers will lose access. It has been very frustrating at times. I think perhaps a finer balance needs to be found between paper and paperless activities. My feeling is that if you are creating a document that you are are going to regularly reference then it is nice to have it on paper so the entire group can reference it easily. It you are creating mind maps and other graphics, again, it makes sense to make them on paper. (You can always upload photos of it to the digital portfolio.) If you are collaborating on a written document then you can’t beat Google Docs. It is amazing to have a team all working on the same document simultaneously. Our team’s supervisor stopped by today and I would have been at a loss if we hadn’t had “artifacts” on the wall to share our intellectual journey.

As I mentioned yesterday the size of conference is a big difference. The small size of the conference makes it incredibly intimate. I thought today that it wouldn’t be too hard to do a large group activity with the entire conference. An icebreaker would be fun for fifty people. I’ll have to recommend that for next year if it doesn’t grow too much.

Another big difference between the conferences is the number of days and how the workshops are conducted. The conference here is only four days instead of New York's five which obviously provides some time challenges. The workshop sessions are a little shorter (45 minutes vs 60) and rather than one session per day as New York does they run two back to back workshop sessions for two days. All total there is one less workshop session than in New York which is pretty amazing considering that there is one less day for the conference.

It was fascinating to watch our team from REACH Academy experience the paradigm shift today as they appeared to “get it” regarding the difference between a traditional teacher-centered environment and a student-centered environment. It will be interesting to see if the school can successfully make the transition. Mary Bedley and Jeff Morabito, teachers at Sycamore Academy, have been indispensable in helping the teachers see how a student-centered classroom can indeed be created at the elementary level. Kudos to both of them.

I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

0 Comments

First Day Thoughts at the SCEWL Conference #SCEWL14

7/28/2014

2 Comments

Bruce Bonney with a group of teachers from REACH Academy of Riverside, CA

I thought I’d share my experiences at the SCEWL 2014 Conference here in San Marcos, CA where I am serving as a facilitator this week. What’s SCEWL? SCEWL stands for Student-Centered Education Working Laboratory and is pronounced skool. Get it? School and SCEWL….

SCEWL is an education conference that actually models good teaching practice. Participants are the center of the conference just as students should be the center of the classroom! It is modeled after the highly successful Constructivist Conference run by the Institute for Learning Centered Education conducted annually at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. ILCE has been conducting the conference since the late 1990s while this is SCEWL’s first conference.

As an easterner the first thing to make note of is the environment. St. Lawrence University is in a beautiful part of the northeast and the SCEWL Conference is located on the campus of California State University at San Marcos in southern California between Los Angeles and San Diego. It is beautiful desert country contrasting considerably to New York. Daytime temperatures have been in the high 80s and low 90s since we’ve arrived. The chance of rain so far has been 0%. My wife tells me it has been rainy with nighttime temperatures in the 40s since I left Saranac Lake.

The conference itself is much smaller and intimate with nine teams totalling around 50 people compared to its companion conference which sometimes has over 40 teams with nearly 300 attendees. So much for the major differences, let’s talk about how they are similar for a moment. Teams of educators attend the conference with a task in mind. The conference provides facilitators and using constructivist principles called “conference elements” helps the team accomplish their task. The SCEWL Conference is just like the ILCE Conference in that if you walk in you will see teams of teachers working with their facilitator to clarify their task, create a rubric to assess their work, create a work plan and the myriad other tasks needing attention.

I thought we had a great first day. I’m working with a group of teachers from REACH Academy a charter school from Riverside, California. Their task is something like, “How will REACH Faculty collaboratively develop a weekly schedule that incorporates small and whole group instruction, that utilizes unit development with sample projects, and addresses the ‘Big Questions’ of our curriculum.” They want to address ELA content, provide examples of project-based learning, and address elements of school culture. What do you think? Can they do it in four days? It is quite a task.

Tomorrow they will further clarify their task, create a rubric to assess the quality of their products, and then get to work. I’ll try to offer observations about this conference with some comparison’s with the ILCE Conference each day this week.

2 Comments

The Backcountry Classroom Available in Digital Format

7/3/2014

0 Comments

The Backcountry Classroom is now available in digital format for use on the digital reader of your choice. Check it out HERE.

0 Comments

Jack Drury's Leading E.D.G.E. Blog

Sharing Observations on Education, Wilderness, and
New York State's Adirondack Park

Jack with his wife Phyliss and Yellow Lab Cedar on the shore of Lower Saranac Lake.

About the Author

This blog was created and is maintained by Jack Drury with contributions from Bruce Bonney. Jack and Bruce have been working together since 1984 providing professional development in four areas:
* Education
* Meeting Design & Facilitation
* Teambuilding & Problem Solving
* Wilderness Adventure

Day 4 at the SCEWL 2014 Constructivist Conference #SCEWL14

Project-Based Learning: Getting Ready for the School Year

Day 3 at #SCEWL14 - The California Constructivist Conference

Day 2 at the SCEWL "Constructivist" Conference #SCEWL14

First Day Thoughts at the SCEWL Conference #SCEWL14

The Backcountry Classroom Available in Digital Format

Jack Drury's Leading E.D.G.E. Blog

About the Author

Categories

Links:

Archives