Learning from students by shadowing a student

When I return to school next week I will lead a second session on Design Thinking.
Last month we got to experience and overview of DT by playing the extraordinaires game. I thought it was a great way to experience the phases of design thinking. I also presented at our leadership meeting a road map to transforming a lesson connected to teaching in a 1:1enviroment. I’ve been thinking about how to connect the two elements and basically arrived at the process should start from a student perspective.

As I went to my go to PD, twitter I found the following post
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2018/02/shadow-a-student-reinventing-school/
A quick summary  “The global Shadow a Student Challenge (designed by School Retool, IDEO, and Stanford’s d.school) can be particularly helpful and enlightening as it provides methods (including a free toolkit) and a network. The Shadow a Student Challenge is a journey that starts with seeing school through a student’s eyes, identifying opportunities to improve the school experience for students, and then taking action to create change. The Shadow a Student website provides resources that help to ensure that the shadowing experience will be meaningful, including email templates and permission slips. There are tips for creating learning goals for the shadow day, choosing a student, and coordinating with the student, parents, and staff.” 

There is an open invitation to join the 2018 challenge, which will run from February 19th to March 2nd. Spread the word to your networks, and remember to share about your experience on Twitter and Instagram with #shadowastudent!

Should this challenge start with building leadership and department chairs? What an interesting way to start a conversation! Or maybe it’s a group option for my PLC/PLT next week!

Transforming Lessons with Technology - Models for Designing Lessons that Utilize Digital Tools

At our leadership meeting this month we discussed several technology topics.

• Chromebook Survey (Grade 9 & 10) will take this month for updated and relevant information.
• 1:1 Initiative (grades 9-10) and moving forward

A Roadmap to discussing Transforming Lessons with Technology using a Hyperdoc model presented here https://goo.gl/UcH7oD

Other options discussed was to “Shadow a Student” and start with empathy to truly understand our students and the way we teach and technology being one of the components. This connects back to design thinking and a topic that we should explore more deeply to address school culture.

Other ways we are using technology can be found using Twitter with the #nashobalearns

Digital Hall Passes? Research

During a staff meeting a few months ago teachers were very frustrated with students not returning passes (wood blocks) to their classroom.

I knew there had to be better way to track students in the building when leaving your classroom and going to another location in the building.  My first thought is student ID cards and the ability to scan your card exiting the room. I inquired last spring with our yearbook vendor and reached out again today.  I would tend to think the student ID and our SIM system should be able to talk to each other.  I am still investigating.

In the meantime, I remember view posts on using Google Forms and QR codes to track in a spreadsheet.  I did a little research today and found a few posts and examples to try out.

I actually found a company e-hall pass talking about the wood block example.
I also found a few twitter posts with a sample1 and sample 2. I ended up creating my own example to test with a business teacher next week. I was looking for a way to sign the student out of the class but also record their return time.

Stay tuned!