Okay so it is now 10:31 am. This is important to note because it took me a full half an hour to clean up my classroom and return it to the “normal” state so it can be in order for my Photography and Film class, 2nd Period tomorrow. CPSR also meets again tomorrow, day 2 of 3 for our take apart, during 5th period. These logistics are important to note for teacher prep time. On Friday, day 3 of 3, CPSR meets during 3rd period- so there is no clean up for me between day 2 and 3. There will be a larger scale clean-up on Friday and I’ll have to manage my time well to get lunch- it is Grill Day and if you are late they run out of food- then clean-up my classroom, write my reflections and get to the theater lobby for the Photography and Film class pop-up studio class, 5th period.
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| Each group’s table had a laptop, two rolls of tape, brown paper covering the table for labeling, a See-Think-Wonder Sketching worksheet and 3 pairs of safety goggles. |
We prepared for this take apart in our first class of the week yesterday. Thankfully I did not have a first-period class today so I used that time to move the furniture in my classroom to set-up three spaces for three groups of five students each. Space is a huge consideration because my 9th/10th graders are adult sized people. I don’t know how anyone expects teachers to engage in these types of activities without adequate planning time, space for the students to move around for these activities and the appropriate tools for the students.
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| Safety google and take apart tools. I have this set of safety goggles in my classroom already for students in the Advanced Robotics class (averages 5 students), however, it was not a large enough class set for CPSR (15 students). The tools are borrowed from the Makerspace, which is located in the Middle School building and currently stays locked. Our facilities manager will not give anyone a key who does not work directly in that building so I had to wait for our MS/US Technologies to deliver them to me. I wonder what other structural challenges teachers may face when attempting this type of integration? |
Right after my students left- and I did dismiss them a few minutes early because I miscalculated how much time they would need to clean up their group’s area- I began my classroom cleanup. This included taking photographs of each students See-think-Wonder-sketching worksheet. My smartwatch has now told me I have 10 minutes until lunch. So this whole set-up, class, clean-up and reflection process has actually taken THREE class periods!
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| Example #1 |
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| Example #2 |
You can see the rest of the photos of my student’s sketches and two short videos about teacher reflection and cleanup here in my Google Photos Album from today.
We began today by reading the class blog which outlined the process for today. The students split up into their groups and then each group began their 10-minute observations using the See-think-Wonder-sketching worksheet. Once their observation time was complete I collected their worksheets and they began the take apart.
Each group had decided ahead of time who would be the documentarian for the day and that person was given one of our stabilizers to take home and learn how to use so they could use their cell phone with the stabilizer to document on video their group’s process. For two of the groups, this worked out well.
For the third group, it appeared as though their documentarian had not learned how to use their stabilizer (I did not ask as I did not want to single out or embarrass the student) so they ended up recording with their cellphone in their hand. At first, I tried to help this group get their stabilizer working, but then I decided we would lose to much time by trying to fix it and I wanted the documentarian to be free to capture as much of the process as they desired. We abandoned the stabilizer and the student used their phone alone. I wonder how the video documentation will be different for the groups with the stabilizer and the group without.
At the end of class I asked the students “On a scale of 1-10, how fun was this?” verbally responses were 10, 20, and general exuberance. The personalities that are always oppositional even expressed that they enjoyed this. Throughout my observations the students were engaged with each other and the machinery- physically changing perspectives, exploring the inner workings and tinkering to explore- trying various methods of disassembly. We will continue tomorrow. I will not forget my micro SD adapter.Throughout the class I, too, was also documenting the class, using a GoPro Hero 6 with the Karma grip. I mention my documentation tool because I think the tools can be influential into the process. Usually, I am using an iPad outfitter with an iOgrapher. This iPad/IOgrapher lives in the classroom and is used by students as needed for documentation. The iOgrapher allows us to set up the iPad on a tripod to record a process, and add an additional microphone or lighting as needed. Today, I forgot to empty the SD card in my GoPro as it was used yesterday in my Photography and Film class for documentation as well. After about 15 minutes of coverage when the SD card became full I also realized that I had left my accessories bag (cables, adapters, etc.) at home so I could not even empty my Micro SD card to review the footage.