Scribbling Machines and a Learning Framework

So, I'm participating in this MOOC (massive online offering course) called "The Art of Tinkering" and it's awesome... most of the time.  This particular MOOC is being put on by The Exploratorium in SF, an outstanding, interactive museum.  Today was one of those days where I felt like, "Oh, I love this! I'm learning how to build a scribble machine. I could totally do this with my students!" I was riding high and here's why:

1. The authors of this course have set it up in a way that they expect you to get frustrated and then push through it to learn. When I have to be frustrated as part of the learning process, then I'm ok with it.
2. I was successful with building my machine on the first go round (for the most part).

So here is what my machine looked like:

Now, here is the thing.  I felt comfortable making mistakes because I knew that was one of the learning objectives, so I was supposed to do that, but I was also successful on my first try.  And, because I didn't have any other containers to work with, I figured, I'm done.  I was not willing to try something more complicated.  I wanted to end on a high note.  How many other people feel this way?  If you do something, and it works, how many of you want to try to do something else that might not work?  I don't know the answer to this.  But I do know that among the teachers I work with at school, about half would be ready to stop after a success and half would be willing to try something more difficult.  And that says a lot!  How do we push ourselves to overcome success and embrace challenge? Teachers are just as vulnerable as students and it's difficult to push each beyond their comfort zone.  So how do we make challenges comforting?

The creators of this course ( and coincidentally, those who run The Tinkering Studio at The Exploratorium) suggest that it all has to do with stepping in at the right moment to help further develop understanding.  The Learning Dimensions Framework that they offer up emphasizes four learning dimensions:

1. Engagement- time spent tinkering and displays of motivation
2. Initiative and Intentionality- goal setting, seeking feedback, persisting through frustration, risk taking
3. Social Scaffolding- requesting help, inspiring new ideas, physically connecting to others' work
4. Development of Understanding- expressing realizations, offering explanations for outcomes, applying knowledge, striving for understanding

I think most of us engage in this process, but when we are stymied, what do we do? What do we do when nobody specifically tells us that we are supposed to get stuck and make mistakes?  Here's what I do: I give up... at least for some time.  I don't like feeling like a failure.  I need someone to quickly get me over the frustration humps so that I can go on to the next challenge.  As an example, I used a GoPro to film the scribble machine.  Editing that video was not intuitive to me and when I couldn't get it after a few quick tries, I gave up.  For one thing, I felt like I had just expended all of my frustration capital on the machine (even though I really hadn't been frustrated) and for another thing, I am a tech person for crying out loud, I should be able to figure this out!  Anyway, my husband solved the editing problem and I was able to post.

To me, the key to helping students succeed in each of these dimensions is to build relationships with them so you know who to push and who to guide more gently.  I think most teachers understand relationships. But we need administrators and support staff who understand us and who can nurture our own learning.  This fall I plan to roll out a digital tinkering elective.  My goal is to help students find success among their frustrations and to allow for mistakes but to ultimately let them leave knowing that they have accomplished something amid those mistakes.  My second goal is to get teachers interested in tinkering.  It's not something many of us practice, but I think it's time we start.  We need more time for trial and error and we need more people telling us that this is an intentional learning objective.  That way, when we encounter frustration in other places, we can better handle it.

Making Memes is HARD! Post and reflection

This is the kind of project that I think many teachers would look at and say, "This would make a great in-class project!"  But as a Type A perfectionist, I can tell you that I agonized over this for too long!  Did I have the right picture?  Did it comply with copyright rules?  Was my caption witty?  Ugh!  I felt like there was so little room for error.  Really, just one picture and two witty lines!

Anyway, here is my attempt at it.

This is meant to be a play on I Know What You Did Last Summer and of course, it assumes that you are old enough to have either seen or heard about that movie.  The need for understanding cultural references cannot be emphasized enough when creating a meme.  It's like watching The Simpsons.  It's much funnier when you understand all of the cultural references.

Still, I really like this idea of pushing students to use vocabulary in meaningful ways because word choice means so much.  At the same time, we as teachers are promoting visual literacy too by asking students to think deeply about the images they are using. As one of our school's English teachers says, "there are no more flat words," meaning that words are now hyperlinked or connected to images and we have to think as much about those elements as the words we choose.

As a former history teacher, I think this could be a great preview and wrap up exercise for a unit.  It would give students a chance to revisit their memes based on their improved understanding of a given topic.  Likewise it would be a nice way to offer a chapter summary of a book in English class.

For me, this was an extremely difficult task, but one in which I can see immense value.

Reflecting on "How to Cook with Kale"

I'm off to a late start with one of my two MOOCS (massive open online course), Making Learning Connected. So for our first assignment, we wrote a "How to..." guide and I chose to write on how to cook with kale.  As part of our reflection process, which should probably take place a little more than two hours after posting, we have been charged with thinking about what we learned from making our guide and what did we see as the purpose of this assignment.

As I went through the process, I thought of several things:

• Writing directions is an art form.
• Use as few words as possible and choose them well.
• Good images go a long way and it's probably better to make your own rather than to search for fair use ones.
• Design and layout matter.
• Writing out directions takes longer than you think.
• I am in awe of the bloggers I follow.
• I want to practice this is skill more so that I can get better at it.

What I've been using how to guides for this summer:

• Sewing a tote bag
• Making goat cheese
• Learning to use a GoPro
• Figuring out how to fix my blog

What will I be doing for the remainder of the summer?  Take a look at my list for work.  I made it with WorkFlowy, my list tool of choice.

How to Cook with Kale

An Intro

Kale has been dubbed the healthiest vegetable in the world and I have to tell you, I find that pretty intimidating.  It makes it sound like you have to be the healthiest person in the world just to eat it! For nearly a year, I would grown every time it showed up in my CSA box (Community Supported Agriculture).  But with the help of two wonderful cookbook authors, Deborah Madison and Martha Rose Shulman, I felt empowered to start cooking with kale rather than just composting it!

I'll take you through the steps of storing, prepping and cooking kale.  At the end, I'll add some links to recipes that I have modified to include kale.

Quick Tips
Here are some quick tips to get the most out of your kale:

1. Don't wash it when you bring it home because the water will cling to the leaves and invite mold to grow on them.
2. Store your kale in a loose fitting plastic bag (like the kind in the produce section at grocery stores).*
3. Store it in the coldest part of the fridge; it'll keep for at least a week.  And, I'm sure I've pushed mine longer but I'm a risk taker.

*I am not a plastic person but I reuse these bags over and over again.  Just make sure you clean them out between uses.  I know that's common sense, but it's worth writing anyway.

Kale Prep Work

For me kale has a bitter taste and thus, I can hardly eat it raw.  This means I'm always cooking it.  Here's how to prep your kale.

1. Destem your kale by gripping it at the stem and using the other hand, make a circle with your thumb and index finger like your saying everything is A-OK. Make your circle a little tighter than the one shown here.
2. Run the kale leaves through your fingers to remove them from their stems.
3. Thoroughly wash the leaves by submerging them in a big bowl of water and wiping the dirt off of them.  Then rinse in a colander.
4. I always leave water clinging to the leaves because it helps them as they cook down.
5. Optional: Chop the leaves before cooking them.  This will make the kale easy to use right out of the pan, but it also mean the leaves will burn more easily.  Do this if you are cooking it with other veggies.  

The Actual Cooking Part

Option 1: Sauté the kale in some olive oil (1-2 TBSP) over medium high heat, regularly moving it around the pan so that the leaves don't burn.  Remove from heat once the kale has wilted and reduced in size.

Option 2: If your recipe doesn't call for onions, then I would chop up an onion and add that to the olive oil first.  Let it soften, about 5-10 minutes over medium high heat.  Then add the kale and follow the above process.

Remove the kale from the pan and chop it if you didn't already.  You'll be able to chop it much finer now that it's cooked.

Kale goes great with:
Eggs
Cheese
Sweet potatoes
Butternut squash
White beans
Bread (pizza, calzones, empanadas, etc)

Recipes!

Here are a few recipes that I love, some have kale and others I have modified by adding kale to them.  Enjoy!

The Pioneer Woman's Butternut Squash & Kale Quesadillas

No modifications needed here!

Winter Squash Souffle ~ From Epicurious

For this recipe, I add kale as cooked in Option 1 and chopped afterward.  Fold in the kale before you transfer the mixture to the bowl and put the egg yolks in.

A Fragrant Onion Tart ~ Deborah Madison's Vegetable Literacy

For this tart, I stir in the kale when I stir in the onions.  Be careful to let the kale cool, otherwise you'll cook your eggs long before you want to.

Madison also has another wonderful book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, of which she just released a new version.  In that book is a great recipe entitled something like "Empanadas with Greens and Olives".  It's a great recipe.

Greens Gratin ~ Martha Rose Shulman

I don't have a picture for this gratin, but I have made several of them from Martha Rose Shulman's Mediterranean Harvest.  What a fantastic resource!

Educational Resources & Tech Tools 06/21/2014

• PBL in Mathematics - Creating a Board Game
  tags: mathematics game pbl math

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.