Tag: Creativity

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DBQ Lesson Plan: Shopping with Historic Documents

Upchurch Family 1896While exploring my Twitter feed I came across a very inventive 8th grade history lesson created by John Fladd ~ twitter@woodenmask. 

At the core of this lesson are some rich historic source material – the 1900 federal census, 1897 Sears Catalogue historic portraits and biographies.  John agreed to this cross post from his his blog Teacher Toys: Christmas Shopping Without a Flux Capacitor. I urge to visit his blog – he’s a great writer with many ideas to share. Readers should access his site to see additional resources for this lesson and correlation with standards. Note: John gathers student feedback via his GoogleVoice account, though students could submit their choices using other means.

1897 Christmas Shopping Project

  1. Each student chooses a photograph of an American taken in (or around) 1897 and reads a small secondary source statement about him or her.
  2. The student transcribes information from that person’s 1900 Federal Census form.
  3. The student chooses three Christmas presents from the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalog – one for $1.00, one for $3.00 and one for $5.00.
  4. The student takes a picture of each of his or her choices, then calls my voicemail and records a message, describing one of his or her items.

 

Tom Tate,

Step 1 – The Photos

After trying several different approaches, I discovered that the easiest way to find photographs of Americans in 1897, was to type “1897” in Google Images and Flicker. As it turns out, there are a lot of people out there who like to share their antique photographs.

Almost every antique photo I found included some background information – “This is my Great Uncle Cyrus, who lived in Possum Flats, Arizona, who later went on to invent the electric pogo-stick…”

It is this secondary source information that allowed me to find census data for some of these people. I included a copy of this information to students in their document packets.

1900 United States Federal Census

Step 2 – Census Information

As it turns out, finding photos of people in 1897 isn’t as hard as finding information about them. I was able to find a 1900 Census form for about one picture in three using Ancestry.com. I downloaded the highest quality image of each that I could.

I had students transcribe the original forms onto a blank census form, provided by Ancestry. The idea behind this was to get students used to dealing with primary source information – reading the handwriting, thinking historically, etc… Having them copy the information also made it more likely that they would actually read it.

I discovered that the best way for them to read the original census forms was on a computer screen, so they could magnify sections as necessary. (As students chose their people, I downloaded all relevant documents onto their individual USB drives, for use at school or home.) We did the transcriptions in the Computer Lab.

One interesting lesson for the students was that bigger magnification doesn’t necessarily mean more legibility. Students invariably magnified difficult-to-read sections as much as possible, which tended to pixilate the writing and actually make it harder to read. I had to remind them several times to back off on their magnification to read entries better. They were deeply suspicious at first – this seems counter-intuitive – but eventually MOST of them decided I might know what I was talking about.

sears bikes 1897

Step 3 – Shopping

This step was probably the most fun for my students. By the time they had read primary and secondary source material about their particular person, they knew enough about them to do some thoughtful shopping.

In most cases. (Fourteen year-old boys, though, given a choice, will buy anybody a gun, under any pretext whatsoever.) I had them fill out this worksheet, which kept them organized and gave them a script for when they needed to make their recording.

 

Step 4 – Photographing and Recording

On the advice of a much-smarter and experienced colleague, I bought several goose-neck lamps to provide enough light for students to take pictures of their entries. (The students complained about a burning-insulation smell. I later discovered that there was a plastic warning-label inside each lamp that needed to be removed.)

I tried to come up with a graceful and elegant way for students to submit their photographs electronically, but in the end, the easiest solution was to have students bring the camera to me as they finished taking their pictures and I downloaded the images directly from the memory card in the camera. I borrowed digital cameras from two other classrooms and set up three stations. This worked pretty well.

At this point, my students had turned in two other projects via messages on my GoogleVoice account, so they had the mechanics of that down pretty well.

The End Product:

Christmas Shopping for 1897 from John Fladd on Vimeo.

Image Credits:
Upchurch Family 1896 flickr/Pioneer Library System

1900 Federal Census showing Harry Truman as 16 year old Ancestry.com

Tom Tate, son of Captain Tate’s half-brother Daniel Tate, posing with a drum fish in front of 1900 Wright glider Library of Congress  LC-W851-86

Sears Bike 1897 flicker/Slowe

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PBL in Action: Students Write, Market and Publish

Where the Roses Smell the Best

Portland’s own Roosevelt High School will celebrate the culmination of a year of hard work from students and volunteers in the Writing and Publishing Center and its first publication with a month of readings throughout Portland. Student-led Unique Ink has published Where the Roses Smell the Best, a literary companion to Portland filled with short stories, vignettes, and poems about the places, people, and activities that make Portland unique.

The book includes work from Roosevelt students alongside local authors such as Brian Doyle, Kim Stafford, Steve Duin, Renee Mitchell and Paulann Petersen. Where the Roses Smell the Best is available for purchase at local bookstores and online at Powells.com and Annie Bloom’s Books.

  • The month of readings will kick off at Powell’s on Hawthorne on Thursday, July 11th at 7:30. Oregon State Poet Laureate Paulann Petersen and Renee Mitchell will be accompanied by featured authors reading their pieces from Where the Roses Smell the Best.
  • The Oregonian columnist and author Steve Duin will join authors and student writers at St. Johns Booksellers at 7:00 on Saturday, July 13th for the second reading.
  • On Wednesday, July 17th at 5:00 students, families, and community members will gather at Roosevelt High School for more readings and a celebration of Unique Ink’s first year.
  • The fourth reading, featuring poet Laura Winter and author Emma Oliver, will take place at 7:00 on Wednesday July 24th at Broadway Books.
  • The fifth and final reading, scheduled on Monday July 29th at 7:00 at Annie Bloom’s Books, will bring back Paulann Petersen as well as more student authors and author Sybilla Cook.

Unique Ink is a student-staffed publisher based out of Roosevelt High School’s Writing and Publishing Center that was established in 2012. It’s a great example of project-based learning in action. Volunteers at the center teach publishing to high school students to improve their skills in business, editing, and marketing. Through the center’s unique hands-on approach, students learn about the publishing industry by publishing and selling their own books. Proceeds from the sales of Where the Roses Smell the Best will help the Writing and Publishing Center stay self-sustaining and continue to be a valuable resource to the students at Roosevelt High School. 

Web Marketing team

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Why Do Teachers Ask Questions They Know the Answers To?

The Future will not be multiple choice
The Future will not be multiple choice

A while back I posed 13 Subversive Questions for the Classroom. Here’s the first five:

  1. If a question has a correct answer, is it worth asking?
  2. If something is “Googleable” why would we spend precious class time teaching it?
  3. When we ask students to summarize, do we actually want to know what’s important to them?
  4. What do you suppose students think they are supposed to be doing when we ask them to analyze?
  5. Do you ever ask your students questions you don’t know the answer to? Why not?

Here’s a TEDxCreativeCoast video – The Future Will Not Be Multiple Choice – that answers those questions and showcases the power of a PBL / design-based approach to learning. Turn curricula into design challenges, classrooms into workshops and teach students to think like designers.

While you watch it, try to think of a meaningful career that looks like filling out a worksheet.

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Self-Publishing: A How-To For Students and Teachers

Publishing with PowerPoint is a new book that guides teachers and students through the process of creating and publishing their own books. It’s written by three dear friends and former colleagues – Patricia Martin, MaryAnn McAlpin and Suzanne Meyer. For a few years I had the chance to collaborate with them on some student publishing projects. They’ve continued to hone their skills on broad array of innovative projects. Recently they compiled all they’ve learned into an easy to use guide to using PowerPoint as a book design tool and how to team PPT with the exciting new technology of on-demand printing. Publishing with PowerPoint – available at Amazon

Here’s their guest post detailing the book:

Publishing is an effective tool for getting students engaged and writing. The new book, Publishing with PowerPoint, walks the reader through a process of self-publishing that can be used in any classroom. PowerPoint is an effective book design software – it’s already on your computer and everyone know how to use it. Students find it easy to use PowerPoint templates and position a wide range of text and images on a PPT slide. Powerpoint slides can be quickly grouped and rearranged into book pages. Finally, converting PowerPoint slides into pdfs for publishing can be done with the “Save As” function. Visit Amazon Books / Publishing with PowerPoint to see the use of templates and layouts on the sample pages.

The teacher with a limited budget can print just one copy for the classroom. Parents can order their own copies online.

Publishing with PowerPoint was published through Createspace, an Amazon company, using the process detailed in the book. Once the slides were created, the authors merely converted the slides to PDF’s and sent the result to Createspace. For example, a 32 page, 8.5”X11” color book would cost its authors about $4.00 a copy plus $3.59 shipping and handling. (The shipping and handling costs are calculated at $3.00 per order and $.59 per item). Lulu, another popular on-demand publisher, would price a similar book at $13.42 plus shipping and handling.

The magic of on-demand printing is that the teacher with a limited budget can print just a single copy for the classroom. Both Createspace and Lulu offer options for easy distribution. PTAs or families who want copies can log in and order their own. No need for teachers to take book orders.

The thought of publishing with students might seem daunting - I’ve got too much on my plate as it is! But if you believe in the power of PBL and motivation of writing for an authentic audience, you’ll appreciate this detailed guide book.  It offers an overview of the resources necessary for successful publishing. Readers learn how to use PowerPoint’s built-in tools for template design, layout or page design, creating facing pages, and inserting images. The book is organized to walk the reader through the process, detail-by-detail, in the exact order in which the publishing process happens.



The second half of the book is devoted to content. Teachers will realize that content is actually the initial consideration whether looking at writing process or traits of writing. But, it seemed important to the authors that the book present the techniques of publishing (the new information) before reviewing the writing and organization of content for publishing (the prior learning). Using examples from our publishing experiences, the book includes a wide range of samples representing different grade levels, fiction or non-fiction, single-author or anthology that the teachers can use as models.

The book exemplifies the ease with which students can complete the writing process by publishing their work to a wide audience with tools available in a classroom. Hopefully the book will illustrate to its readers the versatility and creativity that PowerPoint can bring to the self-, or on-demand, publishing process. For the teacher who wants to publish electronically the book is an equally invaluable resource to enable students to produce a quality final product. Formatting pages through PowerPoint and creating pdfs work equally well for that application.

Teachers inexperienced with publishing and limited resources do not have to eliminate student publishing options. Publishing with PowerPoint and the use of economical self-publishing can bring this opportunity to any classroom.

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Innovation Challenge – 22 PBL Mind Workouts for Teams

There’s a great new iBook that I highly recommend as a source for project based learning and team building activities for middle school students through adults. “Innovation Challenges – Mind Workouts for Teams” is available free at iTunes. 

It tells the story of a great program at Saint Louis University, designed to promote creativity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial mindset through novel challenges. The book is a detailed how to for 22 challenges – team supplies, facilitator supplies, tips, learning outcomes and variations. It’s a treasure trove lavishly illustrated with photos and videos. Challenges run the gamut from STEM to marketing and sustainability. The iBook also details how to replicate the competition at your institution.

The books notes :

The goal of the innovation challenges is to promote the entrepreneurial mindset through multiple exposures to innovation process in a competitive, multidisciplinary, team-based, creative environment. Just as everyone is encouraged to exercise everyday to keep the body fit, innovation challenges are designed to keep the mind fit. It’s a mind workout. The Innovation Challenges help participants to exercise their creative side, work in multidisciplinary teams, and experience the team dynamics. They learn to tackle a novel situation under intense competitive time pressure, while networking with others outside their disciplines, and most importantly, fine-tuning their entrepreneurial skills.

Here’s more about the Weekly Innovation Challenge at Saint Louis University from their website:

Every Wednesday, Saint Louis University students have a chance to compete in the Weekly Innovation Challenge from 12-1pm in the Rotunda at Parks College. Students must form teams of three—these teams must include at least one engineering student and up to one faculty member. Most importantly, all participants must be from different majors/disciplines. The students are given an impromptu challenge and have one hour to compete. Whichever team completes the challenge successfully first wins $300 ($100 per teammate). Additionally, participants are asked to submit a weekly reflection on the challenge and one winner will be rewarded an additional $100.

The events are sponsored by the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network, the Coleman Foundation and Saint Louis University. The goal of the competitions is for students to exercise their minds and creativity, just as they would their bodies. Challenges have included a wide variety of topics—from designing the tallest free-standing structure using spaghetti sticks to creating a “green” toaster box design. Winning teams have been from all sorts of disciplines. The first team to win was three female sophomores, including an aerospace engineering, political science and investigative medicine major.

Image credits: iBook / Innovation Challenges – Mind Workouts for Teams