Tips for hands-on, minds-on learning experiences

Think about things that you remember best from when you were growing up. What made those experiences stay with you for all these years so that they continue to make up your schema about what learning looks like? Chances are, those things you still remember engaged you or challenged you much more than worksheets or lectures. We call that level of engagement hands-on, minds-on.

Planning and implementing hands-on, minds-on learning experiences is different from opening a teacher's manual and writing down the page numbers. It takes a deep understanding of both the standards and your students. Creativity needs structure - and hands-on, minds-on learning experiences need structure in order to have a sense of freedom. Giving the freedom for your students to explore, create, question, and fail can be scary and it requires a classroom community that values risk-taking and a growth mindset.

Are you thinking about incorporating more hands-on, minds-on learning experiences in your classroom? Here are some tips to help you get started:

1. Plan tasks with multiple entry points. Having multiple ways to solve a problem or having tasks that build on solving problems allows students to see connections in what they are learning and explore possibilities rather than just solve for right answers. 
2. Assign roles. Giving students roles helps them to engage and provides structures for the problem solving.
3. Start with the end in mind. Know what skills students will need in order to solve the problem in order to build those skills into the instruction and practice that you provide. 
4. Teach kids how to fail. Teaching kids to have a growth mindset helps them understand that problem solving isn't just about finding the right answers - it's about learning and growing. 
5. Use the real world. Multi-digit addition and subtraction is far more interesting to students when they have a real world problem to solve. Below, students are determining what they would eat if they had 800 calories and had to have a healthy diet. Multiple solutions, real world problem, and excitement about math!
   

Focus on the Early Wins

I have spent some time with the Turnaround Leader Competencies - I have even written about them in my blog. This week, I spent some time with some amazing leaders in my district, reviewing these Turnaround Leader Competencies, and I was brought back to "Focusing on the Early Wins." I will admit that I had thought I was past this stage, since I am entering in to year three as a turnaround leader. I was brought back to thinking about the early wins as a way to frame the positive things that are happening in my building - thinking about the early wins as a measurement of our current goals, rather than just as a point on the original path that we started out on.

Here is an outline of what it means to "Focus on a Few Early Wins:" (taken from http://publicimpact.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Turnaround_Leader_Actions-Public_Impact.pdf )

Focus on a Few Early Wins; Use the Momentum 

• Collect and analyze data: Successful turnaround leaders are focused, fearless data hounds. Initially, turnaround leaders personally analyze data about the organization’s performance to identify highpriority problems that can be fixed quickly. 
• Make action plan based on data: Turnaround leaders make an action plan that includes annual goals and major steps, with enough detail that each group in the school community knows specifically what they need to do differently. This allows people to focus on changing what they do, rather than worrying about impending change. Plan should cover years 1 – 3, with more detail for year 1. 
• Focus on a few early wins in year 1: Successful turnaround leaders choose a few high-priority goals with visible payoffs and use early success to gain momentum. Although limited in scope, these “wins” are high-priority, not peripheral, elements of organization performance, and they are bold in speed and magnitude of change. Early wins are critical for motivating staff and disempowering naysayers.

I thought that we were "past this" point in our turnaround, but when I was challenged to think about the early wins for right now, or for year three, I was suddenly able to see how important it is to frame the early wins in terms of where we are right now. 

With that in mind, I will celebrate a few of the early wins in our turnaround. We are currently implementing a thematic, project-based summer program for our students. Students were able to select their theme (from options like I, Robot, Outdoor Explorers, Designing the Future, or CSI: Classroom Science Investigators). We are working with our enrichment partner so that everything we are doing is aligned to the theme. Our students are having so much fun learning! One student actually said to her teacher "When are we going to do math?" after they had finished a hands on activity where they were measuring perimeter and area. This is what we want for our children! To be so engaged in learning activities that they are not even aware that they are learning! I am so proud to be leading a team of teachers who believe in the power of hands-on and minds-on learning for our students. 

Students creating their own blogs

Principles of engineering in mathematics - hands on and brains on!

Working together to solve problems - that's what real engineers do!

Making passports to go Around the World!

Robots!!!!

Making the robots move!