Wandering through my bookshelves recalling some of my favorite books has been a trip down memory lane and a chance to see how many books I've got on my shelves that I still have to read. I didn't have a library card as a child (we lived in the country and didn't have access to a library close by) and relied on my school's library to read books. Alas, in elementary school our turn at the library only came every two weeks, but I always checked out as many books as I could each time. This was before the era of big bookstores; Iowa just wasn't flush with bookstores at all. I always knew Santa would bring me books each Christmas, and they were by far my favorite gifts. To this day, I cherish the memories of carving out my space under the tree and lying there reading my new books. It was the only time of the year that I actually received books as gifts. I treat myself to books every Christmas season and nothing makes me happier than reading a good book on Christmas Eve.
For this round of my favorite reads, I've got another eclectic mix of childhood and adult favorites that range from Laura Ingalls Wilder to the Vampire Lestat.
One of the best sci-fi books I've read.
Loved Trixie Belden as a pre-teen.
Probably one of my first "foodie" books
This cover made me love this novel before I even started reading it.
Absolutely a top favorite author of mine.
Oh yes, I had my Anne Rice phase. Loved Lestat!
My introduction to Laura Ingalls Wilder and my favorite of all her books.
A book that gets better everytime I read it.
Still love this and have my original copy
My first Sandra Dallas. Fan for life.
This book made me a fan of Sherman Alexie
So good, and heartbreaking
First in her Graveyard Queen series.
Incredible!
Seriously fantastic and heartbreaking
from Bookalicious Babe Book Reviews http://ift.tt/2ffilYX
John Spencer, a great friend and amazing thinker, has a course on “Design Thinking for Teachers”, that is happening now. I know John is very thoughtful about his work, and has helped many educators embrace “Design Thinking” in their classrooms, in a way that is easy to connect with, yet powerful for students. If you are interested in signing up for the course, please click the following link:
To get a discount for this course, please use the discount code “spencer“, when purchasing.
To learn more about John and his thoughts on innovation in education, empowering students, and how Design Thinking can unleash these things in your students and your classrooms, check out his post below, that was originally posted on his blog.
In a recent post, I wrote about why I want to see students become innovators:
Unfortunately, the system isn’t designed for innovation. For years, schools have been stuck in a one-size-fits-all factory model, where students passively consume content. Some people will point out that this model is outdated. However, I would argue that factory education was a bad idea from the start. Because here’s the thing: kids aren’t widgets.
While one-size-fits-all works great for socks, it’s not ideal for minds. Kids need to dream and wonder and imagine. They need to design and build and tinker. This is why I love design thinking. It’s a flexible framework that guides students through specific phases in the creative process.
What happens when kids become design thinkers?
The following are some of the benefits I have noticed when kids engage in design thinking.
They move from engaged to empowered. Design thinking honors student agency, because they are the ones asking the questions, doing the research, generating ideas, and creating the final product. When they own the creative process, they own their learning.
They become problem-solvers. Real problem-solvers. The kind of problem-solvers who actually create the solutions. It’s not always easy. It can take time. Sometimes they get frustrated by all the mistakes. But by the end, they view themselves as problem-solvers — and this is the kind of self-concept that continues outside of school.
They grow more empathetic. Design thinking begins with a place of humility. You aren’t just making something. You are making something that serves an audience. This requires deep empathy. It might be a service project or a product or something you are publishing. Each approach requires a different kind of empathy. If this happens in a culturally responsive way, students can also learn cultural humility.
They remain curious. Design thinking begins with this sense of wonder and curiosity. It honors this natural desire to explore and to ask tons of questions. Too often, students internalize the idea that learning is all about answering questions. However, design thinking reminds us that learning begins with inquiry.
They learn how to work collaboratively. Traditional school work requires students to be dependent on their teacher as the source of all information. Individualized learning shifts to independence. But design thinking teaches students to work interdependently, balancing the needs of the group with the need for personal expression.
They view themselves as makers. By sharing their product with the world, they participate in a global community of creativity. They can also share their creative journey in what Austin Kleon describes as “showing your work.” In the process, they are more likely to appreciate the creativity around them.
They value the diversity of creative mindsets. Here students experience a bigger definition of creativity. In design thinking, students might be hacking a system, solving a problem, engineering a solution, tinkering, tweaking a process, testing ideas, gathering data or dreaming up new ideas. In the process, they learn to value the creative mindsets of everyone around them.
They learn the power of creative constraint. For all the talk of “thinking outside the box,” this is a chance for students to learn how to “think inside the box,” working with specific limitations as they prototype. Here, they learn that limitations are often the very design features for their finished work.
They see the value of iterations. Too often, students are punished for getting the wrong answer. They are stuck in grading systems where they get an average on their scores. With design thinking, they have an entire phase devoted to refining their work. This doesn’t mean they don’t need to have any deadlines, but it does mean they have the time and the permission to keep working on a product until they are ready to send it to an authentic audience.
They become creative risk-takers. Design thinking encourages students to engage in creative risk-taking at every stage. In the research phase, students can engage in divergent thinking, learning that every question matters. In the ideation phase, they get over the fear that their ideas might be “dumb” as they generate and combine ideas. In the creating and revising phases, they realize that the only true failure is giving in to fear of failure.
In other words, when students embrace design thinking, they develop a maker mindset. They define themselves as problem-solvers.
My Journey with Design Thinking
When I first began teaching, I knew that students would thrive in a creative environment. I wanted them to embrace the maker mindset. However, I felt crippled by fear. I was afraid that I didn’t have enough resources. I was scared that their success in a creative project wouldn’t translate into higher test scores. I was concerned about classroom management issues (I had mistaken being busy with being engaged).
That’s why I needed a framework. This is ultimately why I embraced design thinking. My students needed a different way to think about creative work. They needed something that would provide structure but also respect student agency and choice.
It’s a bit of a debate where design thinking originated. Some claim that it started in the sixties with The Sciences of the Artificial. Others point to Design Thinking, which focused more on urban planning and architecture. Still others point to Robert McKim’s work in Experiences in Visual Thinking. Like all great ideas, it has been an evolution, influenced by thousands of people. My work around Design Thinking has been influenced by people like Tom and David Kelley, Tim Brown, John Maeda, Peter Rowe (as well as organizations like Stanford d.school and IDEO).
But ultimately, I found that there were tweaks and iterations I needed to make to the existing design thinking frameworks. This is ultimately why I worked with AJ Juliani on the LAUNCH Cycle, a student-friendly design thinking framework for K-12 classrooms. We added a few key elements, including a broader starting point, an explicit stage of inquiry, a media literacy component and a final phase where they launch their work to an authentic audience.
Design thinking prepares students for a creative life — whether that is in business, in the social or civic spaces, in the arts, or in engineering. But it does this by allowing them create things that matter to them right now. It’s not some far off “grown up” thing. It’s something they can engage in right now as they create things that matter to them.
So, while it’s easy to complain about standardized education, we can offer strategies like design thinking and project-based learning as alternatives that empower students to be the creative thinkers we know they can be.
Pumpkin pecan pie bars with a homemade sugar cookie crust, pumpkin filling and a pecan streusel topping. With a gluten-free option.
I’ve been wanting to combine pumpkin and pecan pie for a while now. A combination of the two just sounded more delicious than a plain pumpkin or plain pecan pie!
I originally wanted to make a pumpkin pecan pie, but the filling plus topping was just a little bit too much for a pie dish. Then I went with mini pies, and though super cute, they took forever to prepare and kind of stuck to the muffin liners. So here we have the easiest and least fussy version – pumpkin pecan pie bars!
When I was kid, my Grandpa Geurin bought me a pony. I know that sounds like the type of gift a spoiled rich kid might get. But we were definitely not rich. Grandpa owned a small farm in West Kentucky where he and my grandma worked tirelessly to make a living. And just a few miles from the family farm was Kenlake State Park. They were auctioning off some surplus items, and the pony happened to be one of the items they were selling. We named the pony Snowball for obvious reasons (see pic below). But Snowball had some bad habits. The reason the state park had her to begin with was because she was part of the pony rides. Any time she had a saddle and a rider, she was conditioned to walk in circles. She knew how to do her job very well. Simply walk in a circle all day long. I guess you could say she was literally a "one trick pony." No doubt my grandpa got a great deal on this majestic steed!
Dad, little sister, and me with Snowball. We look thrilled don't we!
Snowball didn't respond well being led in a straight line, and she certainly wasn't used to having a rider take the reins. One time when I was in the saddle, a loud truck drove by and she was startled. As I remember it, she reared up and bucked me right off. In my imagination, I was certain I could hang on like the Lone Ranger. In reality, even this little pony was more than I could handle. As I was reflecting on Snowball's limitations, I thought about how the world is changing for our students. In the past, it was possible to learn a skill or trade and remain in the same career for a lifetime. Those opportunities have mostly disappeared. Even more of these jobs will be gone in the coming years. It's not possible to be a "one-trick pony" anymore. Snowball was able to do one thing well, and that was all she needed to do.
Of students entering primary schools today, 65% will someday work in jobs that don't yet exist. That is staggering to contemplate. We can't even begin to imagine what they will need. To further explore this likelihood, you can even use this handy calculator to find out the chance your job could be automated in coming years.
In today's world, information is abundant and automation is accelerating. To possess a variety of skills that cross a multitude of disciplines is critical for success. Things are changing so quickly that it is impossible to keep up. And that is why, adaptable learners will own the future. Author and thought leader A.J. Juliani created the visual below. It illustrates the idea that we cannot predict with certainty all of the skills our students will need. Preparing students for a test, or college, or even a trade isn't enough to be future ready.
Even though the job market has improved slightly for college grads in the last couple of years, 1 in 5 college graduates will find themselves unemployed or underemployed—working in low wage fields that don't require a degree. That is why we must develop skills that are transferable to unknown situations. To quote Alvin Toffler, the ultimate 21st Century skill is the ability to "learn, unlearn, and relearn." It is a tremendous advantage to be creative, innovative, and adaptable. I listed 15 skills students need to be future ready in a previous post.
Question: How should educators be changing to help students develop the skills of adaptable learners? What can we do differently? I want to hear from you. Leave a comment below or respond on Facebook or Twitter.
This themed activity would have been the perfect professional learning event to implement during the recent Olympic games. We actually did it just a couple of weeks ago with a group of our teachers. If you find it useful, you could use it now or wait until 2020 when the next summer Olympics will happen in Tokyo.
The Digital Decathlon is a self-directed learning activity to help teachers sharpen their tech skills. We built this thing from scratch and think you could probably make it even better. Feel free to use what we've created or adapt it to fit your needs.
Several teachers in our building contributed to the final product. I will give them a personal "shout out" a little later in the post.
Here are the basic rules:
-Work in pairs or small groups to accomplish the tasks.
-Choose 10 'events' to complete the Decathlon. We had 15 challenges to choose from.
-Create a visual representation of each challenge to include in a Google Slides presentation. Since we pushed this out as an assignment on Google Classroom, every teacher automatically had a copy of the Slides presentation to work with.
We allowed a couple of hours to complete the activities, and we had a couple of our most tech savvy teachers on hand to provide support as it was needed.
We felt this was a better way to learn than simply having someone do a step-by-step training on a particular topic. There are more choices in this approach, so it has the potential to meet more needs. And it relies on an inquiry-based approach. Learners have to point and click and figure some things out on their own.
It's been my experience that people who learn tech most effectively are willing to take risks and just try different things to solve problems and figure out the tool. This activity encourages this type of learning.
If you decide to do something like this with your team, it's a good idea to spend some time on the front end explaining the process and maybe even modeling one of the tasks. At the end, have a time of sharing and reflecting on what was learned.
Thanks to Gina Green (@BHSBizDept), Ashley Clift (@MRS_CLIFT), Tania Driskill (@TaniaDriskill), and Ashley DeVore (@AshleyDeVoreFCS) for contributing to the tech challenges included in the Digital Decathlon. These teachers are some of our tech mavens at Bolivar High School.
Question: What ideas do you have for creating your own Digital Decathlon? How could this be even better? I want to hear from you. Share a comment below or respond on Facebook or Twitter.
I normally don't pay any attention to cover blurbs, but I was delighted to see Simone St. James' thumbs up for Yesternight. I've read Winters' teen novel In the Shadow of Blackbirds and started her other adult novel Uninvited so I knew what to expect--historical fiction with a paranormal twist. Yesternight appealed to me because it added another twist: children and reincarnation. Imagine my disappointment when I finished the book and couldn't figure out just what it was about the book that left me unsatisfied. Was it the main character, Alice? Was it the ending? What the heck was it?! Alice Lind is a psychologist in 1925 Oregon. She travels to Gordon Bend, Oregon to administer IQ tests to schoolchildren. Frustrated by the doors in higher education staying firmly closed to her because she's a woman, Alice travels the country for a job that mostly leaves her unsatisfied and yearning to be accepted into a PhD program for psychology. Alice is an intelligent, passionate young woman who has to walk a fine line between being a respectable young professional, and living her life in a way that makes her happy. So far, she hasn't found a perfect mix, and deep down her frustration has stoked quite a bit of resentment against men and society.
Alice arrives in Gordon Bend, Oregon to administer tests, but also because she's been asked by a local father, Michael O'Daire, to look into his daughter's claims that she once lived as a brilliant young female mathematician who tragically drowned in Kansas decades before. Alice is pretty skeptical; after all, she is a scientist, and believes she must consider all psychological possibilities before arriving at reincarnation as an explanation for Janie's odd behavior and astounding grasp of advanced mathematics. Janie O'Daire is only seven years old.
Gordon Bend is a dismal small town on the coast, with plenty of atmospheric storms, a hotel run by Michael that is empty during the off-season, and Janie's teacher (and Aunt) and mother who want to protect her from anyone who may think Janie is crazy. It's an uphill battle for Alice to get Janie to confide in her and to win the trust of Janie's mother, Rebecca. Alice's confidence that her science will explain Janie's odd behavior begins to erode away as she gets to know Janie's story, and looks for facts to support Janie's claims of a previous life. So why did this novel leave me with a vague sense of dissatisfaction? Well, I don't think I liked Alice very much. I liked her sister Bea; maybe because Bea seemed to embrace herself much more easily than Alice could accept who she was. Alice seemed at once helpless against society's strictures, yet her whole adult life was a giant push-back against those strictures. She was a confusing mess. And, to add to this, the vague attraction between Alice and Michael never seemed to be believable to me. It was a distraction, but part of the plot that made the whiz-bang of an ending possible. Janie's story was pretty interesting, and I was glad to see that play out to a satisfactory conclusion. But the added story of Alice's suspicions of having a past life herself seemed disjointed and didn't fit easily into the rest of the plot. Both stories seemed to be stitched together with a ragged seam. I think Cat Winters could have made Alice's subplot a standalone novel; it could have easily been a follow-up to Janie's story. There were many parts of Yesternight that I enjoyed. I'm always interested in a good reincarnation thriller. This book has some good bones, but just didn't quite make it for me. But, don't take this review as a "do no read" sign. Read it for yourself, and let me know what you think. I would love to discuss this book with someone else who's read it. Rating: 5/10 for a plot that has some really interesting points, but falls short in character likeability and some disjointedness in the story line. Give it a read and decide for yourself. Fans of reincarnation thrillers will be intrigued. Available in paperback and e-book.
from Bookalicious Babe Book Reviews http://ift.tt/2fCeXYA
