9-03-10 Adopt a Stream

On Friday, September 3, I participated in a short workshop about “Adopt a Stream.”

[From the Adopt a Stream website, http://www.adopt-a-stream.org/  “This workshop is designed to teach you about basic stream water chemistry (some aspects of larger water bodies will also be included). The chemical tests are collected with hand-held field equipment. Accuracy and precision of collecting field data will be discussed. We ask that you conduct at least the following parameters: pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, turbidity, and temperature.”]

How could our school become involved in Adopt a Stream with Nancy Creek? How could Synergy 8 play a role in studying the creek and improving the quality of this natural resource?

Also, a related way to get involved…an essay contest on the Georgia Clean Water Campaign
http://www.cleanwatercampaign.com/files/Essay_Contest_Entry_Form_and_Flyer.pdf
For background and other resources: http://www.cleanwatercampaign.com/html/573.htm

8-31-10 Malone Dining Room

Director of Business and Finance Wendy Barnhart inquired about ideas pertaining to a study of Malone Dining Hall…

  • How could organization and flow change for greater efficiency?
  • How could lines be diminished?
  • Could the capacity and/or flow change to allow for more schedule options?

I asked…

Sent: 8/31/2010 5:08:30 PM

Subject: Fwd: Re: Cafeteria study

“Any chance of students helping/directing this study of the flow and capacity of Malone? Great project-based, place-based learning opportunity. A REAL problem to deal with that matters to them!”

Mrs. Barnhart liked the idea of student participation and study. Anyone interested?!

Homework by Choice

This first semester of 2010-11, Jill Gough and I are co-facilitating an eighth-grade course called Synergy 8. In brief, Synergy 8 is a inquiry-based, community problem-solving, persuasive communication course. For several days, we have been working with our 24 students to determine which archive/communication tool we will use for the class. Journaling, class discussion, data mining, and polling have been steps in the process. In the last two class days, we have been experimenting a bit with Grou.ps as a tool. Ms. Gough and I have assigned no homework with respect to Grou.ps. However, students are choosing to post blogs there, form groups, write to wikis, and comment on videos. They are messaging each other and giving the chat feature a try. Two students have attempted to invite their parents to see what they are doing on the site. The posted work, in most cases, is high-level, in my opinion, all things considered. Why are students choosing to assign themselves homework? Some teachers believe that students are only motivated by the currency of grades and the authority behind homework. Perhaps, as they started in the world before school, children are motivated by LEARNING. Maybe we teachers have habituated them to the seeming rewards of grades and check marks for completed homework. Maybe we don’t give children and students enough credit – the real kind. Maybe we need to make the learning more fun, more relevant, more engaging, and more enticing.

8-31-10 A Question About Schedule

Does our daily schedule allow for deep learning, especially when the class time is chunked as 50-55 minute blocks? What if we wanted to explore the campus, work in the organic garden, develop a complex project? Would a double-period allow for more experiential learning?

What about pass times? Can we get where we need to go and do what we need to do in 5 minutes? What if pass times were 10 minutes? How could we make this work and not lose instructional time?