Category: inspiration

I might be too old for conferences: #Educon reflection

Kelly Tenkely10 Comments on I might be too old for conferences: #Educon reflection3237 views

Over the weekend, all of Team Anastasis took a little trip to Philly for Educon.  The experience was incredible, but not for the reasons you may be thinking.  In the past, education conferences have been a place to go and collect ideas to bring back to the classroom.  Educon offered this, but it isn’t what we came back talking about.  Educon is a wonderful conference put on by the great educators at Science Leadership Academy.  The conference started with a tour of SLA led by students.  I appreciated that the tour was student led…it gave us an inside look at what the culture of the school looks like and let us see the school through the eyes of a student.   It is always interesting to listen to the way that kids talk about their school, their experiences, their plans post graduation.  The school is really wonderful.  It is a one-to-one Macbook school, but the technology isn’t really what you notice when you walk through the classroom.  The technology really blends into the background just the way books, pencil and paper do.  The classes we walked through felt pretty typical of my own public high school experience.  Students were engaged in experiments, filling out rubrics for themselves on their performance in Spanish classes, exercising in health class, and putting the finishing touches on projects.

I feel blasphemous even saying this but I was a little bit…underwhelmed.  It isn’t that what we saw wasn’t “innovative” (the buzzword of the weekend), but it just wasn’t earth SHATTERING.  I guess that my take away has more to do with my expectations of what I was going to see than with what SLA is doing. Hang with me here.

In the past, I would go to education conferences and was absolutely inspired by what other schools around the world were doing.  I came back to my own classroom on fire to try some of the new ideas and thinking.  I continued conversations about what I had seen and experienced at the conference. I pushed myself to do better for the students that I teach.  Maybe I’m getting too old for conferences.  You know that point of growing up when playing make-believe doesn’t hold the same magic as it used to because you have new interests and understandings about the world?  That is kind of how I am feeling about conferences.  They used to reveal things to me that I hadn’t been challenged with in the past.  They used to inspire new ways of thinking about learning.  Lately conferences leave me feeling frustrated.  We are having the same conversations, listening to the same excuses about why something won’t work in the classroom or school that someone is in because it is ruled by Nazis.  I grow really weary of hearing the excuses. I grow really weary of educators defending practices that aren’t best for kids because they have discovered a technicality of this one time in history when the practice was useful.

I want to be inspired.  I want to be surrounded by people who will say, “I’m doing it, regardless of what policies my school will or will not change.”

Part of the “problem” is that I am surrounded by 6 of the greatest teachers on the planet every single week.  Honestly. These people are incredible.  They are willing to walk into the unknown.  They are willing to rethink everything they know about education and learning.  They are willing to change every plan they have carefully laid out because they know it is what is best for their students at that moment.  They look at their students every day with such love in their eyes, that you know they would do anything for them.  It makes going to conferences, even the “innovative” ones, feel like a step back in time.  I know that what we do is revolutionary, but sometimes I forget how revolutionary it is because I live in it every day.

After the tour of the school, we were free to wander the streets of Philly until the opening Keynote panel to really kick things off.  We bought some subway tokens from student, and transportation genius, Jeff and headed off to see the Liberty Bell.  Traveling the streets of Philly with my staff was epic.  These people make me laugh until no sound comes out.  We did touristy things together, like take pictures in the subway (because @bestmscott was a subway virgin).  We listened to Lance ooh and ahh over Independence Hall.  That guy can throw down when it comes to American history.  I’m kind of jealous that Anastasis students are the only recipients of that passion.  We exclaimed over how much smaller the Liberty Bell is in person than we had anticipated.  We made a lip sync video to Crazy Train while we waited for our tour.  We argued over the kind of trees that surrounded Independence Hall (I stand by rubber tree- that is what they look like they are made of).  We booked it to Sonny’s for a genuine Philly cheese-steak complete with cheese whiz.

This is what conferences and professional development should be.  Opportunities to build culture and community for a school body.  Opportunities to learn together and see each other’s passions.  My new goal is not to take my staff to a conference. My new goal is to start a travel agency for educators that makes it possible to travel for learning and meet with other educators who are doing the same.  It is wonderful to see all of the other amazing, passionate educators that I learn from online every day in person.  It is wonderful to sit over a glass of whiskey and talk about what we saw, what we learned and education philosophy.  I learned that the real reason I go to conferences is not for the sessions that I sit and participate in.  It is for the human contact. It is so that I can remember there are others in this fight for children.  It is so that I can rub elbows with others who care as much as I do.

Team Anastasis led one of the first sessions on Saturday.  We were humbled by the turnout we had for our “Searching for daVinci” conversation.  This conversation took the shape of a: What, So What, Now What discussion.  The point of this format is to get smaller groups discussing and then sharing out with the larger group. I enjoyed this format, it gave us the chance to do what we do with students every day at Anastasis.  Our topic came from a blog post I wrote about daVinci and some other conferences I have presented at.  You can see the website we used to guide discussion at http://searching4davinci.weebly.com.  In addition to an overview, it has my Bloom’s Taxonomy images and pictures from inside Anastasis.  I truly did enjoy the conversations that were had, and the bunny trails that they led to.  One of my favorite share outs was from a teacher who said “we need to start hiring renaissance, daVinci teachers.”  Our main focus was on creating classrooms that would foster the daVinci in students.  I really liked the teacher angle.  He was right, it is hard to create this type of learning atmosphere without teachers who are multidisciplinary and passionate about a variety of disciplines.  That is what makes our rock star teachers at Anastasis such rock stars.  They are that kind of teacher.

We enjoyed engaging in conversation in the panels and other sessions.  Sometimes we wanted to fight, and sometimes we couldn’t agree more.  The whole conference was kicked off with the panel about how to sustain innovation.  Some time was dedicated to defining what innovation was (vs just a trend) and panelist offered ideas about how innovation could be sustained in schools.  I’m not sure an answer was ever landed on and I think that part of the problem was that innovation can’t be sustained when your focus is on innovation.  Innovation is not something that you can plan out.  Often it is the result of happy accidents and hunches colliding and a willingness to do something scary.  I asked (rather uneloquently) if maybe we weren’t asking the right question.  I’m not sure there is an answer to sustaining innovation.  Maybe the real question should be, how can we make education look more like life?  How can we bring more of what it means to be human into the classroom?  How can we encourage life to happen in education?  Innovation is a natural byproduct of life.  Innovation happens where their is opportunities for failures that lead to new thinking.  Failure is also a natural byproduct of life. After the panel discussion @matthewquigley commented on how uncomfortable educators were with open ended questions.  “Did you notice that EVERY teacher in there felt the need to give a conclusive answer?”  It was true, most were not willing to leave the panel without a clear cut “this is how you do it” answer.  How sad.  Questions and inquiry make way for innovation.  When you already have the answer there is no longer a reason to innovate.

What bummed me out about this conference was the number of excuses I heard about why something would/could never work in their situation.  What I really saw: fear.  I refuse to believe there is nothing to be done.  I refuse to believe that we can’t do better for kids now.  I refuse to believe that there is no wiggle room around all of the constraints we think we have.  I refuse to accept it.  I know it can be different.  And if it can’t, my next question is: why would you accept that?  If you truly want what is best for kids (and I know you do), why would you continue down the path of can’t?  Stand up. Fight. Start over. Do something.  The excuses will get us all nowhere.  The excuses hurt the kids who don’t have time to sit and wait for us to get it right.  I know some will say that it is different for us because we decide what our school looks like. We started the school.  It wasn’t hard. Everyone could do it if they were willing to be a little bit afraid.  @matthewquigley and I started a school with zero dollars.  No joke.  We didn’t get some wonderful grant, government money, etc.  We figured out how to be uncomfortable for a little while so that we could do something amazing.  We surrounded ourselves with families who supported us emotionally and acted as our cheerleaders and challenged us.  We found other teachers who were crazy and passionate enough to journey this path with us.  We built a community.  That is what it takes, a community who is ready to change the path because it is the right thing to do.  Don’t wait for your admin to wake up and do it, or for the teacher next door to get on board, or the government to change.  Be the change you want to see and do it.

What I loved about Educon: encouraging and fostering the community and culture of our school by going on this grand adventure together.  Meeting up with friends and fellow change makers from around the world.  Making jokes, challenging each other, sharing a meal, sight seeing and singing together.  Sharing laughter, ideas, and stories.  Seeing students take ownership over their school and pride in showing it off.

As it turns out, this post is a lot longer than I had anticipated…sorry about that.  I am too old for conferences.  Sometimes we have to play make-believe with others until they too outgrow conferences.  I’m okay with that. Baby steps.  What I would like to hear less of is the excuses.  I would like to see more opportunities for those of us who have outgrown conferences to have a different kind of learning experience.  One where we travel to a common destination where we can explore, and geek out, and share.  One where we can debate over a good Philly cheese steak, sing karaoke together, and challenge each other.  Maybe what we really need are host schools around the world that can be our gathering place for grand adventures of this sort.  Any takers?

Yesterday @matthewquigley stopped me and said “You know we can’t call our teachers ‘teachers’ any more right?  They are change makers.”  He is so right!  Lance (soon to be on Twitter), @nancybabbitt, @leadingwlove, @michellek107, @bestmscott, @matthewquigley: you are my heroes.  I had the BEST time with you all and I couldn’t be more excited about what we are doing to change our corner of the world.  Onward.

Extreme Speed Booking:Using Technology to help kids love reading

Kelly Tenkely10 Comments on Extreme Speed Booking:Using Technology to help kids love reading5359 views
What it is:  What makes technology SO great is the way that it can make life (and teaching) more productive and fun.  Over the years, I have found so many ways that technology can make reading more rewarding for both kids who love to read, and kids who dread reading.  Today, I created an “Extreme Speed Booking” website for @michellek107′s class at Anastasis.  I created the site quickly using Weebly, an awesome WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website editor.  Drag and drop website building is where it is at!  The idea behind the site is to introduce students to a variety of books and form classroom book groups.  How does Extreme Speed Booking work?  A whole lot like speed dating.  🙂   Students spend a little time with each book and then rate them accordingly with “I want to read more”,  “Interesting”, “Not for me”, or “I’ve already read”.  Students can also make a note of how interested they are in reading the book (maybe a 1-10 scale)?  This process introduces students to a variety of books, genres and authors.  Students may come across titles and authors they wouldn’t otherwise find.  It also helps teachers form classroom book groups that are of high-interest and investment to students because they had input.
How to integrate Extreme Speed Booking into the classroom: Extreme Speed Booking is a fun way to build book groups/literature circles.  I love this method of exposure to a variety of books, authors, and genres.
For our purposes at Anastasis, I created the Weebly website with a link to the “look inside” on Amazon.  Because all of our students have an iPad, this was the simplest way to get the book preview into the hands of the students.  Don’t have technology?  No problem!  Just make sure that you have enough copies of books so that each student can sit with the physical book during the Extreme Speed Booking sessions.  If you have classroom computers, you can do a blend of both.
Explain to your students that they will have 2 minutes with each book.  During that time, they can choose to read the introduction or first chapter, read the book jacket, or flip through and look at chapter titles and pictures.  The goal during this time is to discover whether this is a book that they would like to read.  It is okay if it isn’t a book they would want to read…the goal is to find out which book they are most excited about.  After the two minutes is up, sound a bell that signifies it is time to switch.  Before they switch, students can quickly make a note of the Title and rate the book.  Continue on until students have had 2 minutes with each book.  Collect the notes students have made and formulate book groups based on interest in the book.
I’ve added a few extra pages to our Extreme Speed Booking website including places where students can explore other books that they may like to read (Shelfari and Book Wink).  I’ve also added a form that book groups can fill out as they are reading.  The form gets emailed directly to the teacher.  Our students will probably be blogging quite a bit of reflection about their reading.  I thought it might also be useful to have a place for groups to answer questions, make comments, or update their teacher with their progress as a group.
@michellek107 created a Google form for her students to fill out while they are speed booking.  Great idea!  She is so smart.  This will make it easy to collect all of the responses in one place to form groups.
Suggestions for books:
  • Choose books from a variety of levels, make sure you have a few book options for each reading level in your classroom.
  • Choose a variety of authors and genres, this is a great way to expose students to authors and genres they don’t normally seek out on their own.
  • Set up classroom computers with some book trailer videos from a site like Book Wink…this is a great “introduction” to a book or genre and acts much like a movie trailer.
  • Choose a variety of books from ONE author.  After students have completed reading in their smaller groups, they can come back together and do an author study as a whole class; each group contributing something a little different.
  • Choose a variety of books from ONE genre.  Students can read books in the smaller groups but discuss common features of the genre as a class.
  • Choose a variety of books on a similar topic.  Students can read books in the smaller groups and then discuss the different character perspectives, author approaches, etc.  This would be really neat to do with historical fiction, Holocaust fiction, etc.
  • Use non-fiction books that reinforce topics and themes that you are using in other academic areas.
  • Use biographies of presidents, change makers, authors, etc.   Students can learn about a specific person in the smaller reading group and share what they have learned with the larger group later.
Tips:   Extreme Speed Booking is a lot of fun with tech, but equally doable without tech!  If you have access to a 1-1 tech environment, or can reserve the computer lab for a round of speed booking, you can use my technique above.  Weebly makes it very easy to do this!
If you haven’t already, check out Shelfari and create a virtual bookshelf of book recommendations for your class or school.  You can see our Shelfari shelf for Anastasis below.  If you teach 3rd-12th grade it is worth checking out Book Wink!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Extreme Speed Booking in  your classroom!

December/January Issue of #ProjectPLN

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on December/January Issue of #ProjectPLN1537 views

This is one of my favorite issues of Project PLN yet.  This issue was particularly near and dear to my heart because it was such a revealing activity when I did the exercise with my own students.  We asked teachers to engage their students in the question: “What would your dream school look like?”  Students of all ages dreamed with us and shared their ideal school.  It has been a lot of fun to see what students have dreamed up!

This is an issue not to miss, if you haven’t done an exercise like this with your students all ready, I highly recommend it.  I found it fascinating that EVERY student in 3rd-5th grade that I did the activity with included an animal of some sort in their dream school and included something about no bullies.  (If you think about it, animals are easy. They never judge and they don’t bully.)

To education decision makers: Take note, there is something to be learned from these dreams!

An ENORMOUS thank you to @thenerdyteacher, he has totally been picking up my slack this year as I squeak in to be helpful last minute…A.K.A. it has already been taken care of.  Thank you Nick!  You are classy with a capital C.

Project PLN is moving to a bi-monthly posting schedule in 2012 to keep the editors (us) and the contributors (you) sane. So, what is first up in 2012?

We want to know what books/reading has had the most impact for you as an educator.  These could be books about education specifically, or books that have given you a new outlook on education, learning or teaching.  If you are anything like me, everything you read, see, encounter is filtered through your education lens and adds something.  We want to hear about all of those things!

When I pitched the idea of this month’s issue to Nick, his first response was “awww not a book report” in a super whiny, high-pitched voice….okay I made that part up, we were actually texting and the whining was implied.  Book report is not exactly what I had in mind (although if that jives your jets, by all means be our guest).  One of the things I have been particularly bad about is keeping track of the books and recommended readings from those in my PLN. They fly through my Twitter stream, get favorited in my Reeder or scribbled on a nearby piece of scratch paper.  The result: very few of them ever see the light of day again and I forget.  I also know that books (and blogs) have had a profound impact on me as an educator.  If not for Seth Godin encouraging me to “Ship it”, I might not have taken the leap to start a school.  If not for Sir Ken Robinson, I might not have had such conviction to help every child realize their “Element”.  For this issue, your posts can be in the form of top 10 lists of your must reads.  A bucket list of things you want to do as a result of books you have read (with reference back to the original inspiration).  A blog post you have written as a reflection on something you have read. A link to your bookshelf in Shelfari.  For those of you who are feeling really ambitious, a book trailer.  Really it can be ANYTHING, we just want to know what you are reading/have read that has impacted the way you think about or do education.

As always, feel free to email posts to ProjectPLN10@Gmail.com, check in on us at Twitter @ProjectPLN or say hello on Facebook.  Please get us your posts in February so we can work on publishing them for the March issue!

 

Learn Zillion: Learning without limits

Kelly TenkelyLeave a Comment on Learn Zillion: Learning without limits2572 views
What it is:  Today I learned about a resource called Learn Zillion in a Skype conversation with Sam Schillace, creator of Google Docs.  Learn Zillion has a tagline that resonates with me: Learning Without Limits.  This is why I love technology, it enables learning without limits.  One of the things I have dreamed about, is a world where the very best teachers around the world could be connected with the students that need them.  Learn Zillion does just that through asynchronous video lessons organized by the Common Core Standards.  Learn Zillion was started by E.L. Haynes public charter school who had a passion for sharing best practices across classrooms and to connect students with just the right lesson, at just the right time.  The site started small and grew along with the passion that every child should have access to incredible teachers and resources.  Learn Zillion is now a place where teachers can learn by “sitting in” on other teacher’s lessons, and students can get a playlist of lessons that meet their needs.  Pretty awesome!
How to integrate Learn Zillion into the classroom: It has always bothered me that I only had access to the teachers I had access to.  Let me explain that a little: I had some really incredible teachers growing up; my first, third, and fifth grade teachers were beyond exceptional.  I think about them often and model my own teaching based on what they did.  I had an incredible creative writing teacher in high school.  I had an Algebra teacher who made me believe that I was a gifted math student (I’m average at best).  I also had years with so-so teachers, teachers who didn’t really inspire the best in me.  That is not to say that another student didn’t connect with them and remember them years later.  It always irked me that I didn’t get to pick ANY teacher in the world to be my teacher.  I knew that there were amazing teachers out there, why didn’t I get to learn from them?  Would my education have been different if I was matched up with the very best teachers in the world?
Learn Zillion is the first step in this direction.  It may not be the rich experience you get from clicking with someone on a personal level AND learning from them, but does give students the ability to learn a concept in a new way from a teacher who may “click” with them educationally differently than you can.  Sometimes it is just a matter of being able to pause, rewind and repeat a concept at will that makes all the difference.  With class sizes that are growing out of control, the ability to work one on one with students is diminishing quickly.  Learn Zillion allows every child to enter their learning at the right level, it is available on demand (day or night), it utilized fantastic educators from around the world, and it helps teachers create custom playlists of learning for students.  Using this technology, students can get the extra support they need with foundational concepts.
Learn Zillion would make a fantastic support center in the classroom.  Students can visit the center to find out where they are in their personal learning journey, watch videos and practice new skills and concepts.  Because the videos are based on Common Core Standards, your students will get extra support for the foundational skills that support additional learning.
Learn Zillion is a nice resource in a “flipped” classroom where homework looks a lot more like preparation for practice that happens in the classroom.  Students can watch the preparation video at home and come to class prepared to practice and explore using the new knowledge.  The great thing about a flipped classroom is the ability to offer students support where and when they need it-in the practice and honing of skills.

Tips: I’m impressed with the quality and organization of Learn Zillion.  Be sure to take some time to explore some lessons and dream up how you might use it with your students or even as a learning tool for yourself.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Learn Zillion in  your classroom!

Friday Recap: poems, painting and an app

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Friday Recap: poems, painting and an app1706 views

It has been a while since I have done a Friday Recap post; honestly, most weeks I’m just lucky I’ve made it to Friday!

This week I have some fun things that I couldn’t wait to share!  This is what I was up to when I wasn’t blogging:

The first share is an INCREDIBLE poem written by 5th grader, Emma at Anastasis Academy.  The kids were writing poems ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas style, Emma wrote the brilliant poem below about the night before braces. 🙂  Clever!

Twas The Night Before Braces

Twas the night before braces, my teeth were all clear,
not a spot of silver, or a rubber band near

I knew it would be painful and bring on a tear,
but I knew someday they would come off, and I would
celebrate and cheer

I stopped and smiled and looked in the mirror,
my teeth are all crooked and need to be cured

Tomorrow is a bad day and I wish it would pass,
I wish it would happen super duper fast,
Which nearly wouldn’t happen like I have heard in the past,
now I need to pick my colors and make sure they don’t clash

Now Pink! Now Purple! Now White and maybe Red!
Maybe after my appointment, I’ll be happy instead

I shouldn’t be complaining, I sound like a drag,
My dad works so hard for me, I don’t want to make him mad

So I’ll go in with a smile, it might take all my might, so….

Happy Smiles to all and to all a straight bite.

What did I tell you?  We have the MOST brilliant, creative kids at Anastasis! (I’m sure every teacher reading this could say the same!)

 

At Anastasis Academy, each Friday we have a learning excursion.  Sometimes these are field trips out of the building, but this week we had a local artist, Scott Beckley, come to us.

Scott taught the kids how to paint in acrylic using palette knives.  The results were fantastic!  Some students made curvy cartoony pencils.  I wish I had caught more of them to take pictures of as they were heading out the door!

      

Thank you Scott!

 

Did you know Flat Stanley has his own app? Very cool!  You can check it out on my other blog iPadCurriculum.

Wishing you joy this weekend!

Dreaming: A look at Anastasis Academy

Kelly Tenkely13 Comments on Dreaming: A look at Anastasis Academy4051 views

You may be wondering (or not) where the daily posts have been lately.  Believe me, it isn’t for lack of tools to share!  The slowness here is directly related to the time I am spending starting a school…as it turns out it is quite a bit of work! 😉  If you are a reader of all of my blogs, you have already seen this one, but for those of you who only follow me here, I thought I would give you a peek into the school I started this year.

Below, I share a picture of an incredible morning we had at Anastasis Academy where we welcomed singer/song writer Matthew West to join us for our morning devotion…we had NO idea it would result in the incredible private concert that it did.  What an enormous blessing to have Matthew share his time, creativity and passion with us.  Check out video of the morning on our school blog Stand Again.

|Kelly Tenkely|

It’s a pretty incredible thing to see dreams come to fruition.

For me it started with an obsession and passion for creating rich learning environments where every student was recognized as an individual. In that first post I wrote:

“I have a dreams of education. I have dreams of the way that schools should look. I have dreams of kids who find their passions. I have dreams of schools as rich learning centers.”

I had dreams of stripping the “vanilla” away so that passions could emerge.

Dreams of ditching that boxed curriculum that we call an education and watching the factory model fade into the rear-view mirror.

Dreams of ending the practice of viewing teachers (and students) as expendables.

I had dreams of schools that were beautiful, that were designed with students in mind.

Dreams that education would stop looking so much like the McRib.

Dreams of breaking free of the box, of valuing students and teachers,  of using the right tools, of a school where a student’s inner da Vinci can break through, of a school that customizes learning.

I shared dreams of more fabulous failures.

The dreams started trickling into reality in March of this year (2011).  In March I started getting some hints that these dreams weren’t really all that far-fetched.  By May I had officially started a school.  In August we opened the doors to Anastasis Academy with our first 50 students in 1st through 8th grade and had hired a dream team of 5 truly incredible teachers to lead them.  In four short months we went from dreams to reality.

At Anastasis Academy, we lease space from a church building throughout the week.  We have our own wing with classrooms, a playground, a gym and a kitchen.  All of our furniture is on wheels.  This makes it easy to adjust space daily based on needs, it is also a necessity since we use shared space.  Twice a week we move all of our belongings across the hall into a storage room (if I’m honest, this is the part we could do without!).  We can’t complain about the space.  It is pretty incredible!

You will notice that we don’t have rows of desks.  No teacher’s desk either.  We have space that kids can move in. Corners to hide in, stages to act on, floors to spread out on, cars to read in.  We are learning how to learn together, learning how to respect other children’s space and needs, learning how to discipline ourselves when we need to, learning how to work collaboratively, we are learning to be the best us.


You won’t see a worksheet at Anastasis. We use iPads.  That isn’t to say that we ONLY use iPads, in fact, you’ll often see us building, cutting, pasting, writing on a whiteboard/chalkboard and even paper.  We do a lot of blogging, a lot of reflecting, a lot of Evernotting, a lot of cinematography, a lot of discussing.

Every morning we start with a 15 minute walk outside together…as a community.  We invite parents and siblings to be a part of our morning walk. Occasionally we have the dogs join in on the fun.  After the walk we come inside as a whole-school for a time of devotions. Again, this is a time for us to build community, to foster the culture we want for our school.  Families are invited to join us every morning.  We always have at least one family and, many times, multiples.  We pray with each other and for each other. We have hard conversations and funny conversations. We think together and challenge each other.

Matthew West joining us for devotions!

Our inquiry block is a time for hands-on transdisciplinary learning.  This is my VERY favorite time to walk through classrooms.  It is incredible to see the joy in discovery.  It is incredible to have a second grade student with dyslexia discover an app to make stop motion animations, teach himself how to use it and proceed to stand up before 7th and 8th grade students to explain how stop motion works.  I wish I could bring you all through the building during this time.  Every time we have a visitor the students pause long enough to describe what they are doing, the learning that is happening. I often have to pick my jaw up off the floor. These kids are amazing.


We have no curriculum. At all. Zip. What did we do instead? We hired the very BEST teachers we could find.  We gave them a base level of skills that we wanted students to have- an outline if you will.  We used the Common Core Standards as our baseline.  We don’t use the standards like most schools do. We use them to make sure that our students have the building blocks and foundations of learning in place.  And then we let our students and teachers GO. The standards are not a weight we are tied to, they are the underpinnings that make it possible for us to soar and take our learning anywhere.  When you look at the Common Core standards they are pretty underwhelming.  I’m glad they are! They provide us with just enough momentum to propel us forward and then off we go on a journey of learning!  We also have our big inquiry questions in place.  From there, we go where the learning takes us, bunny trails and all.  It is pretty fantastic.  Today one of our primary students came out to see me and said, “Look at this boat I found in this new library book. Can I try to make it?”  My answer: “Absolutely! What materials do we need?”  Together we made a list of all the materials I needed to pull together for him.  Tomorrow he will build that boat he is fascinated with and find out if it works the way he has planned.  That is learning!  Tell me what boxed curriculum allows time for that to happen? None. That is why we don’t have it.

In the afternoons we have more “content” area subjects (i.e. math and language arts).  In the primary grades this means students building the skills they need to support their inquiry.  In the intermediate grades this means honing those skills for better communication and more thorough inquiry.  Again, we don’t work from a boxed curriculum. We find the lessons, approaches, and materials that work for the individual student.  Sometimes this means working with manipulatives, sometimes it means exploring measurement outside, and sometimes it means using an app.  It changes daily based on the needs of the students.

We have mixed age level classrooms.  We do this for a lot of reasons.  Most importantly, it is good for older and younger students to work together and learn from each other; it is vital that a child be able to work at their developmental level and progress as they are ready to; and it deepens inquiry when students with different perspectives work together.

Once every five weeks we invite the parents to join us for Parent University.  This is a time for us to help parents understand this new way to do school.  Detox, if you will.  It is a time for us to show parents what best practices in education look like, why grades aren’t all they are cracked up to be, why play is important.  It is a time for us to think and laugh together. It is a time to get questions answered.

Also every five weeks, we hold a “Meeting of the Minds”.  This is a parent/teacher/student conference where we all get together and set our road map for the next 5 weeks.  Students write goals with the help of their teacher. They have ownership over what they have done the last 5 weeks and tell mom and dad what they have planned for upcoming 5 weeks.

Every Friday we have a learning excursion or an opportunity for an “Anastasis Serves”.  Learning excursions are field trips all over the place that help students start to recognize that learning doesn’t just happen when we are at school.  Learning happens everywhere we are and, if we are paying attention, all the time.  Anastasis Serves is a time for our students to give back to the global community.  Sometimes this is a door-to-door scavenger hunt for donations, sometimes this is learning about orphans around the world, or packaging cookies and letters to send to our troops.

We don’t do grades, we do assessment all day every day while we learn.  We don’t do homework, we pursue our families and passions at home.  We don’t do worksheets, we do interesting (sometimes frustrating) work. We don’t do boxed curriculum, we do on-demand learning.

We do mistakes. We do community. We do collaboration. We do messy. We do play. We do fun. We do technology. We do learning.

How do we do all this? We have a 12 to 1 student teacher ratio (or less).  We have incredible students, parents and teachers.  We have stinking smart board members who are invested in our success and trust our judgement calls.  We set our tuition at $8,000 (per pupil spending in our district) to show that even though we are private, this can be done in the public schools.  We started with nothing…well almost nothing, we had dreams.  There was no capital raised, no fund-raisers, no huge donation. We started the beginning of the year at $0 and put blood, sweat and tears into it.

This is not to say that we have it all figured out, that all of our students are perfect, that all of our staff or families are perfect. We are perfectly imperfect as every school is. We have days when the kids are BOUNCING off the walls, we have disagreements, tired teachers, stressed parents, a founder who has occasional melt downs (that would be me), students who need extra love and support, tight budgets, parents who demand different, scuffles, sniffles and band-aids…lots of band-aids.  There is nowhere else I would rather be. No other group of people I would rather work with. No other students whose germs I would rather share. This is my dream.

There are moments throughout the day when I am stopped in my tracks by the realization-this is my dream.

Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems?

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems?2859 views

My Twitter friend Ewan McIntosh recently shared an incredible opportunity for involving students in solving real world problems.  I love putting kids creative minds to problems that keep us all wondering. I’m always so impressed with the unique approach that children take to problems.  Kids don’t have the same life filters that we do.  Some assumptions we make about the way things have to be done don’t exist for kids. They are free of those.

Ewan explains how your students can be involved wonderfully so I won’t reinvent the wheel:

“At TEDxLondon, BLC, Naace and a few other events this summer I asked if people wanted to join me in trying to encourage more curricula that were based less on students solving the irrelevant, contrived pseudo problems given to them in textbooks, and based more on finding great, real world problems that need solved.

A superb opportunity for action has come along.

Ever wondered what 10,000 young people could do to solve some of the world’s greatest problems? We want to know for the world’s most important ICT event, ITU Telecom World 11, by gathering young people’s vision for the future on world2011.us.

The October 24-27 event is the flagship meeting of the world’s telecoms industries, brought together by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialised United Nations agency responsible for information and communication technologies. In the run up to the event, and during it, we’ll be showcasing the ideas of young people, aged 8-18, alongside the debates, panels and corridor discussions of these influential delegates.

I’ve been at so many events recently that have either totally lacked the student voice, or made third party reference to it through second-hand reportag from their teachers. This is a real chance for your students to make a global impact on problems that matter, wherever they are.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime real world project-based learning opportunity, that ties into most teachers’ curriculum at any given point in the year.

We’re providing some brief points of inspiration to get you started, over the seven key themes, and will open up a wiki space today where teachers can collaborate and add to each other’s resources on the areas.

By October 24, we hope to have videos, photos, blogs and examples or prototypes of what young people believe might help solve challenges on their own doorstep. Sign up your class, school or district to begin sharing the ideas of your students. We want you to tell us how technology could be harnessed to:

To take part, you just have to sign up your interest, and from there you’re able to submit posts to the project.”  -via http://edu.blogs.com

 

Way cool!  Thanks for sharing Ewan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Presenting Learning with Stop Motion Animation

Kelly Tenkely16 Comments on Presenting Learning with Stop Motion Animation6714 views

What it is:  At Anastasis Academy, we have some Stop Motion Animation PROS in the form of an eight year and ten-year old boy.  These brothers taught themselves how to use stop motion animation, proceeded to create several learning videos (without assistance from a teacher) and, if that wasn’t enough, went on to teach the rest of our students how to do it!  Incredible.  Nothing like starting the day with a little viral learning!  Today these two young boys stood before our junior high students (twelve to fourteen year olds) and taught them how to make a stop motion animation video.  The young boys are SO proud of their accomplishment and were incredibly articulate as they taught the older kids about stop motion, the programs that can be used for stop motion and talked about technique.  The older students followed along as the boys led them step-by-step through creating their own short stop motion video with a pencil or shoe.  The ten-year old then issued the jr. high a challenge: Create a stop motion video before the end of the school day to show me, I’ll give you tips on what you can improve on.  Above is one of the jr. high created videos that was presented.  It was incredible to stand back and watch kids teaching and leading kids this way.  The age difference was no barrier today!

Today, our students used the iMotion HD app on the iPad to create their stop motion animations.  This FREE app is powerful in the hands of creative kids!  The brothers have been using stop motion regularly to reflect on, or display learning.

The older of the two brother’s started learning stop motion using SMA (Stop Motion Animator) this is a free program that works using a PC, webcam and a whole-lotta (technical term) imagination.

For the Linux crowd, there is the free Stop Motion.

For the Mac crowd (cheers), there is the free Jelly Cam.

How to integrate Stop Motion into the classroom:  Stop Motion is a great way for students to create their own animated videos.  Students can use stop motion to display learning, as a way to reflect on learning, to tell a story, to demonstrate a time-lapse of a scientific process or just as a creative outlet.  Stop motion requires students to do some pre-planning.  First students have to decide what story they are trying to tell, next they have to decide how they are going to demonstrate that story visually, finally they need to move an “actor” frame by frame through the scene.  The results are pretty incredible (as you can see above).

Tips:Some tips from our Stop Motion PROS: Make sure not to move your actor too far each time or the end result will be choppy, make sure to move your hand out of the shot before snapping the picture, plan through your story BEFORE you start.

Check out our YouTube channel for more stop motion animation from our students.  The Bones, Gnome.Eaten.By.Jaws, and Anastasis Academy videos were all created by the 8-year-old! (P.S. The kids LOVE comments on their videos!)

This, my friends, is what happens when you give kids room to learn!  Onward.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Stop Motion Animation in  your classroom!

Lessons learned from Stanford, Google, IDEO and Pixar

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on Lessons learned from Stanford, Google, IDEO and Pixar2766 views

This weekend I spent some time with incredible innovators at Stanford University to talk about innovation in education.  All walks of life gathered at d.school to discuss problems in education and to propose solutions.

My biggest takeaway: Education needs more design thinking and collaborative concepting at all levels.

Throughout the day we shared stories, created concept maps, brainstormed collaboratively, identified problems in education and prototyped possible solutions.  I love that we didn’t just give answers. We prototyped possible solutions in the prototype lab where we had access to all kinds of great building materials.  We came up with some pretty impressive solutions.  What if schools operated more like this?  If teachers and students worked together as designers.  This is the drive behind Anastasis Academy’s morning inquiry block.  We look at big questions and work on interdisciplinary projects that incorporate a range of subjects and disciplines of learning.

“What if the process of education were as intentionally crafted as the products of education (i.e., we always think about the book report or the final project, but not the path to get there).” (Fast Company)

Schools have a lot to learn from Google, IDEO and Pixar.  These are companies that have created a culture of creativity, play and collaboration.  IDEO mirrors this culture in their physical space.  The space lends itself to creativity and new ideas because the space isn’t overly prescriptive.  Stanford’s d.school was very similar.  Tracks run all over the building where walls of whiteboards can be clipped in and moved around easily.  A writing space wherever and whenever you need one.  Brilliant.  All of the furniture is on wheels, it is easily moved and rearranged based on current needs.  Large wooden Lego-type blocks can be easily moved, arranged and built with for any situation.

I love the philosophies of Pixar, the layout is designed to foster “forced collisions of people”.  Students with different backgrounds, passions and understandings collided in new understandings.  Would forced collisions of people encourage a whole new population of da Vinci thinking?

At Google play is not only encouraged, it is deeply engrained in the culture.  Spaces are flexible and constantly changing and being built.  This is was the case in Stanford’s d.school and I have to say, the instant ability to edit our workspace impacted our thinking.  “Imagine what might happen if students had this same power to edit and make their own spaces within the school environment.” (Fast Company)

I highly recommend the following article from Fast Company “What Schools Can Learn From Google, IDEO, and Pixar.”

The article mentions High Tech High, a collection of charter schools in Southern California led by Larry Rosenstock.  Please take the 14 minutes to watch this great video about High Tech High!  Innovation is education is emerging in pockets all over the world. Anastasis Academy is a part of this innovation!


 

A New Year of #Project PLN!!

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on A New Year of #Project PLN!!1751 views

A new year of Project PLN is here!  Over the summer we (read: @thenerdyteacher) spiffed up the look of Project PLN and gave it it’s very own home.  You can now find a new Issue of Project PLN each month at http://projectpln.com.   I am LOVING the new look and feel this year!  Project PLN looks like a bookshelf and each post contributed by the PLN is a separate item on the shelf.  So cool.

Nick and I started Project PLN last year as a way to get to know the members of our PLN better and to connect and spread ideas.  Many of you have contributed over the past year and I hope that you will continue to contribute this year!  We have some fun topics coming up that I think will spur some great thinking.

We are dubbing the October issue”The Best” issue. We want people to share something that they think is the very best. It could be a lesson plan they really love, it could be a mobile app, it could be a web tool or anything else that you think is the very best and you want to share it with the rest of the PLN.

In November, we are having a #SchoolDidAGoodThing issue. We want people to share the stories of how school did a good thing for them. These stories serve as an inspiration to teachers and the community. It is a nice reminder why we all do what we do. We really hope you will share a story with us on how school did a good thing.

December is going to be EPIC. We have an idea for the December issue that we really love. We have declared December, “The Student Voice Issue”. We want to encourage teachers to have students write about, film, draw, etc. what they want their dream school to look like. Our goal is to have 13 posts with 1 post representing each grade of K-12. We still have some logistics to work out, but we want to get the idea out there now so interested teachers can think about working with their students on this exciting project.

We hope you like this month’s issue of ProjectPLN and we want to hear from you about what we can do to make it better.

As always, feel free to email posts to ProjectPLN10@Gmail.com, check in on us at Twitter @ProjectPLN or say hello on Facebook.

This month’s Project PLN was all about advice on starting the school year. We have a wide variety of advice from amazing educators from all over the world that might be what you are looking for or might be perfect for teachers in your building.

This month you can find the following:

  • Believing in Our Students
  • First Day of School Activities
  • Reflecting Back to Forge Ahead
  • I’m Ready
  • Back To School
  • Ready or Not
  • Personalizing Learning
  • Starting the New Year
  • Classroom Management Stuff for New Teachers

I am always humbled by all of you in my PLN, you are incredible!

Thank you to all who contributed to this issue and please join in by contributing to the next issue!