{"id":143,"date":"2023-11-28T19:35:58","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T19:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/?p=143"},"modified":"2024-10-28T20:01:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T20:01:14","slug":"guest-post-when-the-wheels-come-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/2023\/11\/28\/guest-post-when-the-wheels-come-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: When the wheels come off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We tell lots of stories about amazing Critical Skills Challenges that rock kids\u2019 worlds and bring powerful, meaningful learning to all kinds of classrooms. What we *don\u2019t* do very often is tell the stories of the times that things go a little pear-shaped, when they go off the rails when the pedagogical wheels completely come off. The Instructional Design class at Antioch is part of our Critical Skills Classroom\/ PBL Concentration<\/a>, so we get a mix of students who are in the program and students who are just beginning their Critical Skills journeys and want a bit of guidance as they start out. As you can imagine, we have a lot of conversations about less-than-perfect outcomes because that\u2019s what learning is all about in Critical Skills Classrooms- try, reflect, learn, plan, and try again. Today I have a great guest post about an absolutely BRILLIANT F<\/strong>irst A<\/strong>ttempt I<\/strong>n L<\/strong>earning from Morag Bradford, Arts Integration Specialist at Creative City Public Charter School in Baltimore, MD. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So I\u2019ve been thinking about Challenges and, following a trip to a field of sunflowers last Sunday, decided to jump right in\u2026spot the not-so-deliberate mistake that made this challenge go down like a lead zeppelin. (This was with my most easygoing and cohesive first-grade class.)<\/p>\n\n\n

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The sunflowers were amazing- as big as your head and as tall as the kids. I had never stood in a field like this (it went to the horizon!) and wanted to share what I could with my students. So back to school with a bunch of giant sunflowers, photos of the field, a poster of (one of) Van Gogh\u2019s famous paintings and some oil pastels. The kids loved the flowers- were amazed and loved that they got to see them up close and touch all the parts. We talked about the size and the color and the shapes and the textures and we looked at and discussed projected images of the field and of Van Gogh\u2019s paintings. All was well. I told the students, \u201cWe are going to work in teams to create life-size images of the flowers with oil pastels!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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The students generated quality criteria- not a new activity as I often create process charts and have the students create the rubric for a lesson as that really solidifies what I am asking for and how the students will know if they are successful ( and if they are finished- goes some way to saving me from the \u2018I\u2019m done!\u2019 after two minutes of drawing).

Good quality criteria- all was well. I did a quick demo on the use of oil pastels (hard\/soft pressure, blending, qualities of line) and then divided up the students into groups by counting around the group 1,2,3,4.

By the time I had finished counting the first students could not remember which number they were.
Ack.

Recount, sending children to their tables (four groups of 4 or 5) as I said their number. This is the point at which the wheels came off completely. Right away there was shouting recriminations, loud crying, quiet crying and screaming! The classroom aide and I went from table to table to try and \u2018fix\u2019 the situation but there was too much dischord to be able to get anywhere. The noise level was a real problem!

After a few minutes of trying to get everyone to calm down we called all the students back to the rug and adressed what a disaster it was. I noted that the assignment was not going so well and asked how I could have better prepared the class, and what we as individuals and as a group could do differently.

This morning I was reading more of the K-3 Coaching Ki<\/a>t and came across Elizabeth Reid\u2019s statement; \u201cNever mix a new process with new content.\u201d

Right.

So back at the drawing board, I am thinking that my options are:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Read Camille and the Sunflowers<\/a> to give some more student-friendly background on Van Gogh and his sunflower paintings. ,
Have students experiment individually with oil pastels.
THEN- either ask students to work in pairs and have a conversation about how each pair would decide who would draw what- OR have each student create a sunflower and put them all together in a community vase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Morag did *exactly* what Critical Skills teachers are supposed to do. When the wheels come off (and they will<\/em>, have no doubt, it happens to everyone), she made the right call when she brought the group back together to talk about what was working, what wasn\u2019t working, and what she could have done differently to make it work better next time (way to model reflection!) She took the time to reflect individually and to take a look at the different resources (man, those books are a GOLD MINE, aren\u2019t they?) and combined that new information with what she\u2019d learned from her students in planning for the next go \u2019round.

Do you see what she did there? Morag made an Experiential Loop for herself AND her students. It wasn\u2019t the loop she expected, but it was a darn good loop nevertheless!

Well done Morag!

(And thanks for being brave enough to share your experience with us!)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the wheels come off (and they will, have no doubt, it happens to everyone), Morag brought the group back together to talk about what was working, what wasn\u2019t working, and what she could have done differently to make it work better next time (way to model reflection!) She took the time to reflect individually and to take a look at the at different resources and combined that new information with what she\u2019d learned from her students in planning for the next go \u2019round. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[10,14,7,22],"class_list":{"0":"post-143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog","7":"tag-challenges","8":"tag-collaborative-learning-community","9":"tag-critical-skills-classroom","10":"tag-little-letters-from-laura","11":"entry","12":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"lthomas","author_link":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/author\/lthomas\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/center.antioch.edu\/csc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}