Category Archives: Energy and flow

What’s Different This Session?

Consequences, Culture, Energy and flow, Quests, Scientific Creators Inventors and Innovators

The high scores the new Creator Quest received on this week’s Fun/Important graph indicate that Eagles are finding the work both engaging and relevant to their Hero’s Journeys- for most of them, in stark contrast to last session’s Rocket Quest.  Why?

Guides had theories, yet despite our “no experts” ethic, we suspected the best way to answer this particular question would be to take it to the ones in the know: the Eagles themselves.  We asked:  Why were you so focused this week?  How is this project different for you?  Eagles’ responses fell under four main headings.

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 1.    Choice

High energy around getting to choose a hero who relates to their own gifts and passions.  A dedicated violinist chose Stradivari, a budding filmmaker chose Walt Disney, a talented cinematographer chose the Lumiere brothers, and one Eagle with razor-sharp focus on becoming a future race car driver chose Karl Benz.

They appreciate the independent nature of this project, which provides the freedom to do research, write and draw mind maps during core skills, and conversely, to continue core skills work in the afternoons during “project time”.

And they love getting to design their Rube Goldberg device from scratch, with their own choice of materials.

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2.    Diversity

The combination of specific, individualized work that must still fit into the broader goals of a team resonates with the Eagles’ powerful commitment to both their own Hero’s Journeys and to their learning community.  The diversity of hands-on drawing/design/building, along with deep research and multi-draft writing, keeps them energized.

In the words of one Eagle: “This project has everything: drawing, writing, research, history and even public speaking.”

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3.    Games

“This project has games within games,” one Eagle noted, mentioning the  Cornucopia, the pitches, and the final exhibition/competition.

While much of the work is independent, small groups come together for critiques, and larger groups form for pitches.

There’s nowhere to hide, and while no one wants to lose, if they don’t ace one game they know there will be another they can try to beat.  “Some of us will be motivated more by the Rube Goldberg presentation, some of us by the speech.”  And Eagles with the highest standards are in the powerful position of inspiring and lifting up the rest.

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4.    High Stakes

The Eagles crave meaningful experiences and real-life lessons.  When stakes feel high to them, they soar.  The word “pressure!” came up quite a bit in our discussion, but in the context of a challenge to be met rather then a negative to be avoided.  The space hums with excitement. Speeches, pitches, a public display of a giant Eagle-crafted Rube Goldberg chain reaction… AND a very special reward for the team with the highest average scores as rated by the Acton community.

Nikita’s slogan for this session best sums up the enthusiasm and focus in the studio:

 It’s ON!

 

 

 

 

Gamifying motivation.

Collaboration, Consequences, Critiques, Culture, Energy and flow, Excellence-Best You Can Do, Feedback, Guides, Quests, Scientific Creators Inventors and Innovators

What do Guides  at Acton Academy actually do, if we never teach or respond to questions?

The answer – we’re Game Makers.  We describe an exciting end goal, design the incentives, suggest a few boundaries or rules, provide a list of tools and process —  and then get out of the way.  Our goal is to inspire  Eagles to pack as much learning into the day as possible.

Take for example, this session’s Creator Speech Quest.  First, each Eagle chooses a Scientific Explorer of Ideas (a paradigm buster); Innovator or Inventor.   Five weeks from now, at the public exhibition, each will deliver an original four minute “hero’s journey” speech from the shoes of their Creator and unveil a Rube Goldberg device that celebrates the scientific contributions of their hero.

Here’s the catch –  a maximum of eight Creators per category will be allowed to speak.  So who determines which Eagle qualifies for which spot?  The Eagles themselves.

1. First, all Eagles in a category deliver a two minute pitch displaying their research and mind map, asking  to be “green lighted” (approved.)  Everyone in the group rates each pitch and provides warm and cool critiques.

2. The top rated 2/3 of the group (a maximum of five) are elected to be the Excellence Committee for that group.  The Excellence Committee decides whether those receiving a lower rating should be admitted immediately (up to a maximum of eight) or asked to do more research and polishing and then pitch again.

3.  What keeps the Excellence Committee from quickly approving more members and filling the group?  The final ratings, from customers at the exhibition, will be based on the average rating per person.  So you do not want any slackers on the team to bring down your average score.

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Today was pitch day.  Nine Eagles pitched for Inventors; nine for Innovators; three for Creators.  Five were admitted to the first  and second groups; two to the third group.  Standards were high. Many Eagles were asked to do additional work and pitch again.

The result:

1. A high level of energy and enthusiasm, because each Eagle chose a hero who appealed to his or her calling.

2. Standards were set by Eagles and kept high.  If you hadn’t turned in first rate work, there was no shame, but you got the chance to try again.  Plus you received a great deal of encouragement and coaching.

3. Along the way, there was much work and learning around the processes for research, mind mapping, pitching and how to compete for scarce resources – all with an eye toward rigor.

4.  Eagles learned a lot about the lives of twenty four different scientific heroes, and what motivated them.

Examples of the criteria Eagles developed to judge “productive research:”

  • Quality and credibility of sources;
  • Number and variety of sources;
  • At least one serious biography selected.
  • Facts; opinions and stories.
  • Clearly organized and present with enthusiasm.
  • Tells a Hero’s Story.

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Some of the questions asked during grilling:

  1. How much time will you be able to work on this? What will you sacrifice to make room for this effort?
  2. What progress have you made so far on your Rube Goldberg device?
  3. How will your Rube Goldberg device reflect your hero’s contributions?
  4. Are you going to spend more time or less time and effort on this project than you did on the rocket project?  Do you promise?
  5. Will you spend more time and effort on your hero’s speech or your Rube Goldberg device?
  6. How much research have you done and how much more will you promise to do?

Self organizing learning; making research fun; adding a competitive edge to encourage rigor and excellence – not a bad day’s work for a Guide, especially since we didn’t do much at all.

 

 

 

Zombie Tag Distraction

Consequences, Core Skills, Culture, Distraction, Energy and flow, Guides, Trouble

Building a self sustaining learning community is difficult.

Everyone begins with good intentions, but like entropy,intentionality  almost always moves towards disorder.  All will be diligently working, and then one bored studio-mate begins to amble about, distracting others.  Like a game of Zombie-Tag, each person who is infected infects others, and attention and work ethic quickly crumble.

How do we reverse this entropy of learning potential without becoming controlling teachers?  By clarifying rights and privileges, for Guides are allowed to insist that the covenants set by Eagles should be respected.

Eagles have the right to work individually and quietly on Core Skills, to meditate or even rest.    Soon, however, most hit a flat spot with individual work.  The going gets tough; an individual becomes tired or bored.  He or she soon seeks the company of others.

Chance social interaction is like a quick sugar high, a cheap boost of energy.  And while Eagles have the right to work hard individually or even to be bored, they do not have the right to distract others.

Middle Schoolers live for community.  In fact, the love of community is far more motivating than the love of learning.    That means that the privilege of collaborating can be used to encourage serious work.

Yet collaboration, poorly defined, becomes little more than hanging out with friends and frittering away time.  Frittering away time is not a habit for heroes who want to change the world.   So collaboration must be tightly defined as individuals, working toward a specific measurable goal, for a set period of time.  Added to this antidote to bolster intentionality are weekly SMART goals and Long Term goals that cannot be adjusted on a whim.

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we have created a new system to encourage and support these habits.

A Green Card means you have earned morning and afternoon breaks by being current with SMART goals (set and checked) and have reached your weekly Core Skills goals (reading, writing and math.)   A  Yellow Card means you have been respecting the rights of others to work without being distracted, and thus can collaborate with others if your are doing so in a SMART way.

Will this new approach work?  Likely, only for a while.  Yet it seems every step towards transparency and accountability more deeply imbeds the habits of grit and perseverance that will serve our young heroes well, and prepare them to create even more powerful systems themselves.

 

“Best Work” in Science

Culture, Energy and flow, Excellence-Best You Can Do, Quests, Rocket Olympics, Science, Scientific Creators Inventors and Innovators

What does it mean to do your “best work” in science?

Is it diligently repeating ancient experiments?  Carefully watching a few simple demonstrations?  Neat and tidy documentation? Or simply open ended inquiries?

Which is more likely to spark a love of discovery?   Which will develop the grit and perseverance required of world changing scientists? Which will better prepare Heroes for the 21st century?

Here’s a page from one of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks:

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Here’s a collection of our Eagles scientific output, as they struggle to document their findings in hands-on experiments involving gravity and projectiles.  Is this a mess or an example of genius at work?

Today we discussed the criteria for best scientific work, by comparing the output from the Eagles with da Vinci’s work.  The Eagles’ criteria for “best work” in science:

  • Curiosity: The question must be interesting.
  • Clarity: Ten out of ten people must be able to understand the results.
  • Beauty: The notes should be organized and presented in a visually pleasing way.

So what do you believe defines “best work” in science?  An interesting question.

Lord of the Flies Returns

Consequences, Culture, Distraction, Energy and flow, Guides, Trouble

Today was complete chaos in the studio; Lord of the Flies; a lack of intentionality.

It was cold and wet Eagles couldn’t burn off energy outside. We were coming off the difficult American Revolution experience; Colonists had lost and there was lots of “bad energy” in the classroom. Even worse, a group had earned the right to another “roll of the Revolutionary Die” by doing extra work, and had lost a second time.  Emotions were  high, the Eagles on edge.

On Eagle failed to turn in an assignment on time and a Council member intervened on her behalf, pleading for leniency because of a computer glitch.  Several Eagles protested that an exception would be lowering the standards; the vote was close to protect the standards.

The Intentionality Champion tried to reign in the Eagles but was ignored, partly because he equivocated and rambled.  The studio become noisier and more chaotic.  One Guide stepped over the line by refusing to show a visitor around the studio, because the chaos was embarrassing.

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Then something miraculous happened.  The Eagles began to self-reorganize.  A new curtain was used to separate the room (one Eagle compared it to the Berlin wall.)  Eagles, having found during the Revolutionary War that desks separated from each other seemed to lead to more intentionality.  Individuals began moving desks into private clusters.

Eagles got back to work; the noise level dropped to a whisper.  One group later requested to be allowed to leave for the High School to establish an even more intentional space.

The lessons? Almost too many to count:

  1. Hard cases make for bad law.  An unfair case, especially one that makes you want to bend the rules as a leader, can lead to a conflict between Justice (treat everyone the same) and Virtue (do what is right). A real world example of the Moral Frameworks we discussed last week.
  2. Leaders must be clear, tough and uncompromising; but this is hard to do when you have to make rulings about your friends.
  3. State’s Rights versus Federal Rights.  Exactly what we have saw in the Civil War.  Having small groups experiment leads to new discoveries, but risks fraying the principles that hold our Eagles together.
  4. Above all, self rule by the Eagles may be the most important learning experience of all, if a Guide can ask the questions that lead to deeper lessons.

What should a Guide do?  This is where being a Guide becomes an art.

  1. Praise in private.  Praise the leaders who took tough stands. Applaud their courage in holding the line. Encourage them to step up even more.
  2. Constructively criticize to unveil the principles at stake in private.  The Eagle who wanted to bend the rules for a friend needs to understand where this could head.  The Eagle Champion who equivocated and rambled needs to understand how this affects his power.
  3. Encourage Eagles to return to their frameworks and contracts when in doubt.  Appeal to identity.
  4. Set forth the historical examples above, and ask Eagles to describe the parallels in the studio.  But don’t push too hard.  Ask questions that demand difficult choices; don’t give answers.
  5. Point out the power – and the danger – of separate communities.  Encourage Eagles to protect the individual rights of the group without diluting the principles that make them a powerful learning community.

Tomorrow should be a day of deep discovery.  Because being willing to endure chaos led to even more self rule, which will lead to more powerful revelations that a Hero can use. The Eagles earned their lessons.

Whew!

Consequences, Core Skills, Culture, Eagle Buck-Pts, Energy and flow, Excellence-Best You Can Do, Feedback, Guides

Sometimes it’s helpful to realize just how much work our Eagles get done in an average day and a week.

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As one of the Eagles said recently: “It’s hard to explain to friends that I get a lot more work done than they do, even though we don’t have any homework.”

So here’s a sample from today:

  1.  Check your Personal Learning Plan and SMART goals to make sure you are on pace with your Khan math, reading and Learning Badge plan for the year.
  2. Finish No Red Ink grammar lessons 3&4 and make a 90 or above on the quiz.
  3.  Read the Newsela article on Massive Open Online Courses, score a 90 or above on the critical thinking test and participate in a Socratic discussion. A sample question: “In many countries, cell phones were such new innovation that they “leapfrogged” the old landline technology.  If other countries go to “new type schools” while America clings to old style schools, could that be a threat to America?aa ms 10.31 2aa ms 10.31 3
  4. Do independent research on Darwin; Evolution and Natural Selection and bring a great Socratic question as your entry ticket.  While completing an Art lesson in how to draw with the “right side of your brain,” listen to a college level lecture on Darwin.  afterwards, participate in a Socratic discussion. A sample question:                         “What exactly was the “turning point” about Darwin’s theory that made it so
  •  Man is not the center of the universe;
  • Creatures evolve and change over time or
  • Those with the best characteristics survive?”

5.   Answer the journal question: A rare bird is set to disappear in West Austin because of real estate developments.  Given Darwin’s theories, should we pass a law to curtail development and protect this species from going extinct?

6.  Write enough in your bestselling book to deliver a minimum of 50% of your rough draft by Friday.

7.  Role play how to deliver warm praise and make time to go to the Elementary School and provide “warm praise” to your individual group members.

8.  Be sure to clean the studio at the end of the day, since we don’t have a janitor.

Whew!  No wonder the day seems to go by so fast!

Nothing concentrates the mind like a…

Consequences, Covenants, Culture, Energy and flow, Excellence-Best You Can Do, Exhibition, Personal Learning Plan, Quests

Nothing concentrates the mind like a public exhibition.

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Samuel Johnson said: “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind …”

In this same spirit, the air is sizzling in anticipation for next Thursday’s Motivation Hero Debate and Personal Learning Plan exhibition.  Nothing like having to perform in public to motivate an Eagle.

Today, we upped the ante with the following Personal Learning Plan Challenge:

“Eagles,

  • Do you want to impress your parents and friends with your Personal Learning Plan (“PLP”)?
  • Do you want to “prove what you can do” to land an exciting apprenticeship this spring? or
  • Would you just like an Ice Cream Party next Friday to celebrate the end of the session?

Here’s the deal: If everyone meets the requirements below, we’ll have an Ice Cream Party next Friday afternoon.  You can even invite the Elementary Eagles to attend if you throw in 40 Eagle Bucks to pay for their ice cream.

All returning Middle School Eagles have to send an email (vetted by another Eagle or Running Partner for grammar) to the entrepreneur or manager who sponsored your apprenticeship with a “thank you for what you inspired me to do this year at Acton” note AND a link to your PLP by next Friday at 10 AM (copy Ms Abgail).

All Eagles new to the MS need to send an email note to your Running Partner’s parents saying “look what my Running Partner inspired me to do,” including a link to your PLP.

Each Eagle’s Running Partner must certify that your Personal Learning Plan has met the minimum recommended requirements, including the Evidence Tickets for each area below, presented in a clear and attractive way:

  • Math deadlines for Pre-Algebra and the next math challenge (Algebra; Geometry; Trig)
  • Reading goals;
  • Writing goals, including typed versions of your three best journaling examples.
  • Civilization goals;
  • Learning Badge goals
  • At least eight MyHJ tickets, including: Gifts; Flow; Opportunities and Injustices; Eulogy and Epitaph; My Heroes; My Three Apprenticeships;
  • For your Motivation Hero Debate:  at least one of the Mentor Text analyses; your final written presentation and at least one of the written video analyses.

Note: As part of the PLP Contest, every parent will receive: (1) a schedule comparing your commitments for this coming year in reading, writing, math and Learning Badges to your classmates; (2) a complete copy of all of the Evidence Tickets for the session; and (3) the minimum requirements listed above, so they can have more perspective on the work you’ve done this semester.

Please feel free to revisit and update your plans – especially for Math and Learning Badges.”

Making promises – to yourself and people you respect.  Public exhibitions, even when it’s hard, because real world consequences prepare heroes for the real world. Special celebrations, because hard work and fun are not mutually exclusive.

Spotted: an Entire Colony of Bigfoots!

Acton Academy Expansion, Culture, Energy and flow

Reported in today’s Edsurge is the sighting of Bigfoot – defined as “spotting kids learning at their own pace.”

According to the article, students mastering skills at their own pace is so rare that few educators can claim to have “seen it in the wild.”

Seriously?  Lots of what we do at Acton Academy is hard.  But convincing Eagles to soar at their own pace isn’t one of them.

So for those of you who like to chase legendary creatures, here’s an entire colony of Bigfoots.

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Perhaps next we’ll go in search of the Loch Ness Monster – Eagles guiding Eagles without an adult in the room.

PS.  If we went looking for educational Unicorns next, what would these beasts represent?  Extra credit for the best submission. (Whoops, I forgot that Guides don’t award credits.  Must be the influence of a misspent educational youth.)

   

Life Isn’t Fair

Consequences, Core Skills, Culture, Energy and flow, Excellence-Best You Can Do, Guides

We’ve got a new way to encourage excellence at Acton.

Eagles manage several projects at once, with “Evidence Tickets” and deadlines tracked by various Eagle Champions (Math, Reading, Writing, Projects.)

Today we began asking each individual Eagle to post his or her Evidence Ticket on a board, choosing whether they believed it belonged in the top, middle or lower third of the class in terms of quality. Running Partners then either affirmed this judgment with a “check mark” or used an arrow to indicate whether they believed the work deserved to be ranked higher or lower.

This way, all work is displayed publicly.  There’s no place to hide.  And Running Partner judgments are displayed too.  While it’s acceptable to be in the lower third on an assignment, by tracking such self rankings over a long period of time, a Running Partner can ask classmates for support if his or her partner is struggling.

One new middle school Eagle was near tears when his Evidence Ticket wouldn’t print and he missed the deadline, so his ranking wasn’t recorded on the tracking sheet.

“It’s just not fair,” he complained.  No, it’s not.  Sometimes the dog really does eat your report.  Sometimes you get a flat tire on the way to an important interview.

It would have been easy for a Guide to intervene “just this once” and allow the distraught Eagle to post.  Instead, we shared stories about how sometimes you do get unlucky and life isn’t  fair, but that hard work and perseverance almost always triumph in the end for true heroes.

Real consequences. Even when it’s hard.  Even when unfair.  Because a caring adult won’t always be around to “fix things,” so you need to learn to pick yourself up and try again.

“This is important.”

Core Skills, Culture, Energy and flow, Feedback, Math

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During three hours of Core Skills you could have heard a pin drop.  The room was alive with energy – directed, serious, purposeful energy.

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Likewise the room was humming with intentionality during Project time, as Eagles worked individually and in squads on The Contract of Promises and Rules of Engagement that would govern our learning community.

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There was even time for a team building exercise and some reflective reading.

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When asked to rate the day, it wasn’t as “fun” as Tuesday and Wednesday, but the results were a solid “5” for importance.

When we asked “Why?,” the response was immediate and unanimous.

“This is the foundation for everything that follows.”

“This school matters.”

“This is the beginning of my Hero’s Journey, so I need to focus and work as hard as it takes.”

Our Eagles understand that what they do matters. A lot.  There’s no more important foundation for a learning community that will change the world.

 

 

 

Your Hero’s Journey

Apprenticeships, Culture, Energy and flow, Exhibition, Guides, Hero's Journey, Quests, Smart Goals

Every Eagle at Acton knows that he or she is on a Hero’s Journey that will change the world, in a profound way.

We learn the most as Guides, when we ask important questions.  Today we asked which experiences in the last seven months havebeen the most valuable for each Eagle’s individual Hero’s Journey.

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The results surprised us:

  • First Place:  My Apprenticeship
  • Second Place: Setting and Achieving My Own Goals
  • Third Place: Exhibiting My Work in Published Exhibitions.

The lessons for us:

  1. The real world is far more important than any classroom.
  2. “Learn to Do” and “Learn to Be” trump “Learn to Know” in the 21st century; and
  3. Incentives matter but grades do not.

DST

Culture, Energy and flow, Socratic, Trouble

The discussion this morning was terrible.  Low energy. Lethargic.

Even Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address couldn’t penetrate the fog. Uncharacteristically, no one seemed willing to participate.

What to do?  Simple.  Ask the Eagles what was wrong.  So I did.

The answer: “Daylight Savings Time.”  Everyone was tired and grumpy from getting up one hour earlier.

The solution – an unscheduled fifteen minutes outside in the cold air, running and jumping and playing.  Then back to work, with new energy.

It’s one of the secrets to Acton.  When something’s not going well, we ask the Eagles.  And then let them solve the problem.

Our best ideas come from Eagles

Collaboration, Communications, Core Skills, Culture, Energy and flow, Journey maps, Math, Reading, Writing

Flow, the feeling of being “in the zone” while working, is a powerful force at Acton Academy.  When an Eagle is in flow in completing a Khan math exercise; reading a book or writing a speech, learning happens at an extraordinary pace.

Collaboration is an important part of Acton Academy too.  Sometimes you need a friend to explain a difficult concept, or even more importantly, to ask the right question.  Almost all of the real learning at Acton is student to student, not Guide to student.

But collaboration can interrupt flow.  And too many interruptions can ruin a two hour block of Core Skills time.

So what to do?

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Our Eagles came up with this solution – a Collaboration Request board.  Now if you need to ask someone to collaborate, you post a request rather than interrupting.   When your potential collaborator takes a break, he or she can check the board and rendezvous at a set time.  Plus, we have a record of the peer to peer learning.

Collaboration happens. Flow is protected.  Our best ideas come from Eagles.  Every time. If we just ask.

Intentionality

Collaboration, Consequences, Core Skills, Covenants, Culture, Distraction, Energy and flow, Journalling, Math, Reading, Writing

Today we returned from break.  Only eleven weeks until summer session.  Time to put the finishing touches on our learning culture before we let new Eagles into our tribe.

The focus word for this week: Intentionality.

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Acting with intention. Being purposeful. Tapping into your passions. That’s what heroes do.

So time to eliminate the trivial; to minimize the unimportant. Time to put all of our energy into learning. Time for a new definition of work times, based on a survey late last session, asking Eagles how we could reduce distractions.

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So we created new definitions of the our Work Blocks.  All Core Skills time is now silent.  We added No Tech Core Skills time, where all computers are closed and Eagles simply read, write and ponder.  

No interruptions are allowed – if an Eagle needs to collaborate, he or she posts to a Collaboration Request board.  An added benefit – we now have a record of who is helping whom and why.

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We also rearranged the desks in the classroom. All of this was based on recommendations submitted by Eagles.

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Core skills time was incredibly focused and purposeful today.  Deep concentration on “blacking out” Khan skills; serious writing; deep reading.  Not a sound in the classroom.

In the afternoon, the launch of an exciting new project.  But more on that tomorrow.

The Courage to be Vulnerable and Grateful

Culture, Energy and flow, Hero's Journey

Yesterday, as a continuation of our discussions about sarcasm and passive-aggressive behavior, we asked our Middle School Eagles to share their greatest fears.

The remarkable outcome?  Each shared a deep, serious, personal fear; fears that all humans share, but few ever voice.

Then, one by one, each Eagle expressed gratitude to a classmate who had inspired or helped them.  Face to face; eye to eye.

It was remarkable to witness.  A real honor.

Whew!

Culture, Distraction, Energy and flow, Portfolios

Hard work.  Last minute scurrying. Lights. Adrenaline. Showtime.  Celebration.

Then, the morning after. An energy hangover.

Some Eagles are distracted.  Others listless.  A few, uncharacteristically sleep in.

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Others build protective walls in order to recharge, an innovative approach to self preservation.

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All of this is a natural part of the ebb and flow of human creativity.  Rest. A phenomenon to be explored; a ritual to be incorporated next year..

Some schools consider the week before Christmas a “dead week.”  We’d never be that disrespectful towards time, but building in a purposeful lull to recharge does make sense; a time to just “be” for a few hours; a time for mindfulness; a time for rest.

Most of the afternoon we worked on Portfolios, synthesizing the work of three months into a celebratory narrative.  Tomorrow we finish these portfolios, and begin to look towards the adventures of next semester.

Inspiration, learning and storytelling

3D Game Lab - Probability, Art, Communications, Core Skills, Culture, Energy and flow, Guides, Journey maps, Quests, Storytelling

One of the biggest surprises about guiding Eagles has been the realization that people learn at a 10X rate when they are inspired, and hardly at all when simply instructed to do so.

Of course, this isn’t surprising when you think about your own learning.  Who cares about learning something simply because you are ordered to do so?  It also explains why most corporate training fails.  Training is for guinea pigs; human beings want to be free to accept or reject challenges, not to be trained..

As Guides, much of our energy goes into creating challenges that matter to Eagles. Difficult, meaningful – and yes, fun challenges.  Our goal is to “inspire,” a word whose root means “to breathe life into.”

Long lasting inspiration requires an important quest or journey – a clear path to a worthy Grail.   We need an end that matters to our Eagles and a map we can continually refer to update our progress as a group, as in “you are here” and “here’s where we are going together.”

Below is an example of such a map from this section of the gaming quest.

In the gaming project, Eagles have entered design mode.  To unlock the final challenge of designing a game for the Game Expo, this week students are working through a series of mini game creation challenges.

Yesterday they designed simple, single-player games of luck, and then manipulated the rules to make their games easier or harder to win.  Today they designed games of skill, then added an element of luck to these games to see which version playtesters enjoyed more.

 

Tomorrow Eagles will get a taste of online game design on Gamestar Mechanic.  Next week, students will choose whether they want to design an online or offline game for the Game Expo at the end of the session, at which they will pitch their games to parents and fellow eagles.

Is creating games a trivial skill?  Not in the 21st century.  Arguably, being able to weave a compelling story and keep people engaged may be one of the most important 21st century skills of all.

In storytelling, images can be even more important than text.  And in the Hero’s Journey story, dragons are not only possible, but to be expected.  That’s why Eagles have been working in Art on drawing dragons.  As they create, Eagles have been listening to “A Tale of Two Cities,” immersed in images drawn with words, as they create visual metaphors of the challenges each will face on their hero’s journey.

Here’s a sample of dragons in the making.

 

Inspiration, storytelling and maps – keys to learning in the 21st century.

Perspective, Energy and Rhythms

Culture, Energy and flow, Journey maps, Signalling, Uncategorized

The first task in any new school is establishing a healthy learning culture:  this requires paying attention to perspective, energy and rhythms.

Perspective means giving Eagles a map showing where we are heading as a group, and how it connects to their personal journey.  The map should display the final goals; important  mileposts and include the most important questions we will ask.  A map helps us to pause occasionally; mark where we are in the journey; reflect on where we have been and foreshadow where we are going next.

Included with this map should be an easy to read list of projects and mini-projects for the session and a weekly schedule to shows at a glance when we will be in Core Skills; Art; PE; History or Project time.

The more uncertainty you can remove by providing a road map and schedule, the more energy that goes into discovery and deep learning.

Monitoring energy is important too.  We want the class humming with excitement.  We want our Eagles engaged, in flow, laser focused, losing themselves in the learning. But such engagement can only be sustained for so long before you need a break.  And points of reflection are needed to synthesize ideas and let important lessons soak in.

That’s why we carefully think about the flow of energy during a six week session, and include exhibitions to add excitement, as well as times of reflection to recharge.  We take a similar approach to energy management when designing the weekly  and daily schedules and when planning Socratic Discussions.

One student even came up with an idea we adopted: color coding the peaks and valleys in energy.  A “red” rectangle posted on the wall mans we are fully focused in Socratic mode – it’s like the “red light” in recording studios  – in our case signaling that serious learning is taking place. Discussion “rules of engagement” are in force, so no squirming in your seat; no getting up for the bathroom or a snack.

The “yellow” sign means collaborative rules are in effect: Eagles can move around or talk quietly with others, as long as they aren’t disturbing anyone else.  A “green” sign means free time.

Intense, high energy “red” periods can only be maintained for brief periods, usually no more than fifteen to twenty minutes; “yellow” collaborative time for an hour to two hours, particularly if individuals are shifting between projects and skills;  “green” periods need to be no longer than fifteen minutes, but are critical to blowing off excess energy or mentally recharging.

Within discussions, forcing students to take a stand and defend it raises classroom energy.  So does asking concrete A/B choice questions.  So does asking for specific examples and evidence to back up a point or conclusion.  Conceptual questions drain energy.  Conceptual questions may be needed for synthesis or deep learning, but must be used judiciously:  like a pilot, a Socratic Guide only has so much energy to burn before the conversation stalls.

Perspective, energy and rhythms – if we manage these well, deep learning is sure to follow.