What We Are Reading

Keri Smith is a bestselling author, illustrator, and thinker. Her books demonstrate a 'learn by doing approach', and are being used in school curriculums all over the world as a way of fostering non-traditional methods of exploration. She also teaches and conducts workshops based on her non-traditional techniques across North America. Her books include: Wreck This Journal, How to Be an Explorer of the World, This is Not a Book, Mess - A Manual of Accidents and Mistakes, Finish This Book, and Pocket Scavenger.  We have been using her books at GA as a way to get students to think outside of the box, to brainstorm, and to engage in creative play as a warm up to design Thinking exercises and applications.

Lower School Art Teacher Launches Website

Say Things With Color is the art site recently launched by Lower School art teacher Alia Tahvildaran where she blogs about projects, materials, inspirations, and good reads to help empower parents to create with their kids at home.  Educators agree that creative thinking and problem solving are critical to a student's success in school and life.  This is just one way to increase the amount of time students can practice creative play by bringing  the classroom studio home to anyone's playroom or kitchen table. When asked about the inspiration for the site, Tahvildaran reports, "I started my blog to visually archive curriculum and classroom goings-on, suggest art games and applications for kids, connect with fellow educators, and above all to empower parents to feel confident creating and discussing art with their kids at home. When you visit saythingswithcolor.com you can find a great art book to read with your children, an online art game to play, inspiration for a project, and links for my favorite art tools and materials to use in your home or classroom.

Flipped Learning in MS Mathematics

Middle School math teacher Matt Notary uses ItsLearning, our virtual learning environment to flip lessons to allow for more individual and small group work during class time.  Using SMART technology, he records 10-15 minute lessons, introducing a topic and showing sample problems. The students then watch the video at home prior to class on any device so that in class they can work through practice problems and/or extension and application problems at their own pace, with help. 

"I wouldn’t exactly say it has transformed the way I teach, but I think it has changed my perspective somewhat on how learning time can be structured both inside and outside the classroom.  I am able to be more flexible in the ways I communicate new material to students, as well as in the ways I use class time."  Notary continues, "I think the students have benefited from more interactive class time since on days when I “flip” the classroom less time is spent lecturing.  They have also benefited from having 24-7 access to the videos, so that if they want to review a topic at home or even during a study hall, they can watch the video."

College Guidance One Tweet at a Time

GA's class of 2014 has had some college application help from Twitter in the form of Tweets posted by college counselors Susan Merrill and Kendra Grinnage who have been using the social networking tool to remind students about key points in their application process. Grinnage reports having a lot of fun with Twitter noting that it's a light hearted way to keep students on task at a time when their concerns about the process are at an all time high.  Below are a few of the Tweets Grinnage and Merrill have posted this fall.

The new tropical storm is named Karen. Coincidence? We think not. Better get on those apps & essays b4 Mason comes for you #totaldestruction

That time when we had 100 followers and we were all like "Everyone wants this. Everyone wants to be us." #collegecounselingwearsprada

Test scores don't get to colleges via carrier pigeons or your counselor #collegeboard.com #sendthem #doitnow #besidespigeonssmell

#truthbomb:We had more fun at counselor school than Schellhas at morning meeting on Oktoberfest day #whatevergummiebears #wemetFiske

"But Ms.Kennedy I was just checking to see when @WakeForest1834 @HamiltonCollege @colgateuniv will be here" -GA student #phonetaken #bummer

"There is nothing I would rather be doing on this beautiful Sunday than working on my college essays." - GA Senior #truthbomb #planahead

Why We Collaborate: Dispatch from TED's Radio Hour

"The world has over a trillion hours a year of free time to commit to shared projects," says professor Clay Shirky, professor of Social and Economic Effects of Internet Technologies at New York University. But what motivates dozens, thousands, even millions of people to come together on the Internet and commit their time to a project for free? What is the key to making a successful collaboration work? In this hour, TED speakers unravel ideas behind the mystery of mass collaborations that build a better world." Over the last year, TED has launched a weekly radio hour modeled after their highly successful TED Talks. This collection of interviews, archived on the web, Clay Shirley asks: What motivates us to collaborate? And Jason Fried asks: Is too much collaboration a bad thing? , 

Stephens-Petrochko Geography App

When Tyler Pterochko GA class of 2014 was a freshman, he had a conversation with middle school history teach Mark Stephens that became the focus of his Academy Scholars Project developed over the last three years.  What began as frustration over finding good software to support middle school geography became Stephens-Petrochko An open-source project, designed to provide user-friendly and dynamic software for geography curricula.  Designed "to allow developers to create their own map packs without needing to know programming.  The software also allows teachers to customize their own quizzes, in support of a more collaborative, technology-empowered teaching community."  Petrochko is a self taught programmer and game designer who plans on pursuing a career in computer science.  He las already prototyped a Binary Array Linked - Data structure, and and an External Server Verification Method to Prevent Against SSL-Stripping.  And he reports that he regularly uses Design Thinking as his idea generation and development process.  As a Challenge GA Trainer in the Upper School, he became aware that the process he followed had a name in the design and engineering worlds.  To hear him tell it, "I was using Design Thinking the whole time I was developing the software even though I didn't know it.  I began this project because I empathized with Stephen's need for a better teaching tool.  Once I understood that need, I defined, ideated, prototyped, and tested. "

What We Are Watching

As a part of the TEDGlobal program novelist, Abha Dawesar adresses "Life in the Digital Now". She takes an interesting look at technology by talking about the self, immersive experiences, and our sense of time.  Her thoughts on this came out of her experience of living in Manhattan, post Hurricane Sandy where she lived without water and electricity for some time. Click here to see the TED talk where she she considers: "Have our lives become fixated on the drive to digitally connect, that we miss out on what is real?"

Fourth Grade Tinkers!

If you find yourself on the second floor of the lower school midday each Friday you are apt to hear the rustling of tools and the tapping of hammers in the fourth grade classrooms. In two, six week sessions, Lower School Assistant Teacher, Zach Posnan will be working with 4th graders in the newly formed Tinkering Club where students have the opportunity to take apart devices and appliances large and small, to see how they work.  Getting tools in the hands of children is a powerful way of teaching them how things work and builds confidence at the same time.  Girls and boys make up equal membership ing the club. According to Posnan, so many students wanted to participate, that he needed to run two sections of the club suggesting that interest in mechanical thinking, engineering, and experimentation in the age of hand held devices and screens is alive and well.

Got Code: Middle School Begins Coding Club

Ken Rogers, Head of the Middle School recently announced the addition of a new Coding Club in the Middle School following a self paced curriculum online through Codeacademy.  As club sponsor, Rogers will guide students on independent projects from webpages to gaming.  You can hear more about Codeacademy by its founder, Mitch Resnick, by clicking here to connect to his Ted Talk, titled Let's Teach Kids to Code".

Challenge GA: Design Thinking in Action

Upper school students have been busy these last weeks thinking about what makes a house a home. In particular, how to translate that feeling to McNeil Hall, their home away from home. Challenge GA, a year long design thinking competition got underway in late September and for the next seven month, students will wrestle with new of creative problem solving. Using a technique developed at Stanford Design School, by David Kelley, called Design Thinking, students will solve for the question by employing a process where they will:  Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.  Beginning with interviews of their peers, the first phase of the year long project is to understand and define what people need for a building space to feels like home. Working in advisories with solutions evaluated  by way of a house competition, the winning idea will be implemented in 2014-15.

Sir Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paragdigms

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

Technomancer: Student Tech Support in the Middle School

"Technomancer" is a term a number of my students adopted during their 6th grade year that combines technology and necromancer (magician, sorcerer) and reflects their comfort with and ability to manipulate technology and apply it in new, transformative ways in education." reports David Baroody, teacher in the middle school. 

It is a fitting term for the new student technology group that was assembled just prior to the Back To School Night in late September.  The group's first task? Helping during the evening event to get the parents wired and connected to two new information initiatives - The Middle Matters, a blog written by MS head, Ken Rogers and The Middle School Lobby the go to place on our virtual learning environment where parents can access everything from divisional news and calendars, to athletics and grade level pages.   And their next tasks? Helping the rest of us to get wired and connected.  Baroody is especially excited about this team because it  offers students comfortable with technology a way to share their expertise and practice leadership roles in technology while benefiting the whole MS community.

What We Are Reading

"From the bestselling author of How We Decide comes a sparkling and revelatory look at the new science of creativity Imagine. Shattering the myth of muses, higher powers, even creative “types,” Jonah Lehrer demonstrates that creativity is not a single “gift” possessed by the lucky few. It’s a variety of distinct thought processes that we can all learn to use more effectively. Lehrer reveals the importance of embracing the rut, thinking like a child, and daydreaming productively, then he takes us out of our own heads to show how we can make our neighborhoods more vibrant, our companies more productive, and our schools more effective. We’ll learn about Bob Dylan’s writing habits and the drug addiction of poets. We’ll meet a bartender who thinks like a chemist, and an autistic surfer who invented an entirely new surfing move. We’ll see why Elizabethan England experienced a creative explosion, and how Pixar designed its office space to get the most out of its talent. Collapsing the layers separating the neuron from the finished symphony, Imagine reveals the deep inventiveness of the human mind, and its essential role in our increasingly complex world." from, www.jonahlehrer.com.

Envision: Math Online in the Lower School

Having realized that online resources for teaching math have come a long way since a CD was taped to the back of a text in the early 2000's, GA's First grade team piloted a fully online math curriculum called EnVision, based off the Scott-Foresman text currently being used by students. The success of the Envision Pilot in engaging students was impressive. The Lower School's Math Think Tank then recommended the EnVision program to be adapted by the Lower School in 2013-14.

 When asked about how Envision has impacted his teaching, Dan Stahl reports "I have found that through the online resources and text, I am able to better differentiate my teaching to reach all the needs of my students. I can decide, based on the lesson results, what kind of independent practice each individual student should work on!  The resources are easy and plentiful, and really help to enrich our math curriculum in First grade. I also really like how visually stimulating the lessons are and how they introduce topics using stories about everyday occurrences. It really helps the students concretely understand more abstract math concepts. Students in older grades will be able to access their text and workbooks from any computer; all they need is internet access."  He continues saying, "EnVision enables the students to interact with digital technology everyday. They no longer have to “lug” heavy textbooks or workbooks to their tables. Most importantly, should students need a challenge on a particular concept, I have the resources to quickly and easily meet their needs."

What We are Watching

This is why the folks at TED thinks you should be listening too (and watching) this talk by their own Lisa Bu.

"At TED's annual staff retreat, everyone has to get up and talk about something -- either about work, or about something interesting from their own lives. In fall 2012, our own Lisa Bu prepared a talk about her love of reading. And our quiet, funny and efficient Content Distribution Manager simply brought down the house, with a story that's too good not to share. We are thrilled and proud that Lisa is the first TED staffer ever to be invited to speak on the mainstage at the TED Conference.

Born and raised in Hunan, China, Lisa Bu has been with TED since 2011. Before that, she spent seven years as a talk show producer and a digital media content director at Wisconsin Public Radio. She's also a computer programmer, with a PhD in journalism and an MBA in information systems from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a BA in Chinese from Nanjing University in China."

Counterfeit Coins and Hiking in the Desert? Welcome to the MS Problem Solving Project

Math teacher Matt Notary, along with his department colleagues, has devised and implemented The Problem Solving Project for all students in the middle school. Designed to help students become more persistent in their solving abilities as well as shifting focus from getting the right answer to the process of doing mathematics, students have been gleaning the benefits of this innovative approach to teaching since it was introduced into the curriculum last year.  Assigned once each semester, all students in a particular grade level choose one of three problems to work on for two weeks.  Then they submitted their process answer packets to their teachers that included not only their work on the problem but a summary and reflection about their process.

To quote Notary, "Mathematicians often work hours, days, or even years on a single problem. The purpose of this project is to give students an opportunity to investigate a problem at length. The goal is not to solve the problem quickly; it is not even necessary to successfully solve the problem." He instructs students to "try to come up with a different strategy for working on the problem." Urging them not to use resources such as books or websites, but to work with their teachers on the process when they get stuck. Patience, resilience, persistence, and self advocacy are developed in students and they delve into the project, so is a new understanding of what constitutes mathematics.

Sample questions from the 8th grade project 2012-13

Counterfeit Coin

You have a pile of 24 coins. Twenty-three of the coins have exactly the same weight, but one, which is counterfeit, is heavier than the others (though it looks exactly the same). Your task is to determine which coin is heavier, and therefore counterfeit. You are given a balance scale, which will compare the weights of any two coins or sets of coins. What is the minimum number of weighings that you will need to do to find the counterfeit coin?  Extension: a) What if there are 64 coins and one is counterfeit? b) What if you don't know if the counterfeit coin is lighter or heavier? Does it change the solution?

Mathville Middle School

Mathville’s roads are designed as a grid of horizontal and vertical lines.  The horizontal streets are numbered with consecutive integers from 1 to 10, while the vertical avenues are labeled with consecutive letters of the alphabet from A to J.  A student, who lives at the corner of 1st street and Avenue A, attends Mathville Middle School, located at the corner of 5th street and Avenue E.  If the student always walks toward the school, but never diagonally, how many different routes are there from home to school?  Extension:  Try changing the location of the school and finding the number of different routes again.  Do you notice any pattern in your answers?

Hiking in the Desert

Three hikers head from home camp to an oasis.  They can carry only 10 days supply of food and water in each of their packs.  Since the oasis is more than 10 days away, they agree to try to get only hiker #1 to the oasis.  After walking together for a spell, hiker #3 refills the packs of hiker #1 and hiker #2 and returns home.  Hiker #1 and hiker #2 continue, and later hiker #2 refills the pack of hiker #1 and returns home.  Find the maximum distance from home to oasis such that hiker #1 can get there with hiker #2 and hiker #3 both safely home.  Extension:  If the oasis is 18 days from home and two hikers are expected to reach the oasis while the others return one at a time after refilling the packs of the others, find the least number of hikers needed.

Design Thinking Simulation for Upper School Faculty

In preparation for Challenge GA, an Upper School initiative that gives all students and faculty an opportunity to learn how to apply Design Thinking methods to a unique problem at the school, the US faculty engaged in a simulation where they were charged with designing a wallet for their partner. Employing empathic interviewing followed by the development of a needs statement, each pair sketched ideas, and prototyped solutions for each other.  They will continue this work in advisories and house meetings throughout the year. Earlier in August a small group of lower school faculty engaged in the simulation as well to begin introducing Design Thinking to the lower school. Their handiwork is seen below, donning a table in the McVeigh Community Room.

Richard Culatta at TEDx Beacon Street

Richard Culatta is the Director of the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education. His recent TED Talk on Re-imagining Learning distills his thoughts on a changing learning landscape culled from his work in k-12, higher ed, and work environments. His work focuses on leveraging technology to create personalized learning and using social media to create efffective large-scale distributed learning.

Garden to Market: Entrepreneurs in Action

Last week, Green Ambassador Finn Lukens, 5th grade, helped Dr Sue Johnston pick and sell vegetables and flowers from the GA garden at the GA veggie stand, located in front of the Pavilion.  The Green Ambassadors tend to gardens and a green house on campus throughout the school year. As the bounty grew over the summer months, so did the need for a farm to market model that encourages entrepreneurship in students. 

The GA garden is a ShuMei garden (natural agriculture) which means no chemical use, with continuous crop and seed harvesting.  Proceeds from the market help to offset the cost of the program.  Last week the market consisted of  tomatoes (Roma and cherry), peppers, carrots, cabbage, zinnias, onions, swiss chard, kale and zucchini.  

Design Thinking at The Nueva School

Each summer in the hills above Silicon Valley, The Nueva School hosts the Design Thinking Institute for an international cadre of teachers and administrators who are interested in in depth instruction in human centered design. Grace Judge and Gabrielle Russomagno attended the institute last week where they were able to work with education pioneer Kim Saxe, founder of IDEO David Kelly, and business guru Patrick Van der Pijl.  The lessons learned at the institute will radiate through the Academy in the fall in ED21 initiatives in each division as well as Challenge GA, and Upper School initiative designed to introduce the students and faculty to the culture, language, and process of human centered design.

Middle School Green Ambassadors Honoring Graduates One Sapling at a Time

Some of the most impressive features of Germantown Academy's LEED (Leading in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certified campus are the outdoor spaces that connect directly to curriculum across the school. The  Academic Courtyard, Green Roof, Apiary, Greenhouse, and Preserve are veritable classrooms, driving curriculum in science and art alike. They provide rich extracurricular opportunities for students as well.  The Green Ambassadors club, organized by faculty in each division of the school has a fairly simple mission, make the Germantown Academy campus environment healthier. Science teachers, Maura Saurman and Rollie Wakemen, coordinate the club in the middle school. This year, they launched The Acorn Project that helps students have a voice in the direction of the green spaces while honoring our graduating seniors. According to Wakeman, "The goal of The Acorn Project is to raise oak tree seedlings from acorns found on campus to gift them to the seniors during graduation practice.  The hope is that some of the graduates will plant their oak tree as a remembrance of the life they started at GA that continues to grow once they leave.  By doing this project students learned the difficulty in collecting and growing oak trees from acorns.  We are waiting with baited breath to see if we end up with enough for every senior to have one."  When students aren't spending their Tuesday lunch period in the science lab with Wakeman and Saurman, they are typically found designing pamphlets and writing scripts for the tours they give of the green spaces on campus. 

What We Are Watching

Salman Khan, hedge fund analyst turned education innovator founded the Khan Academy, an online source of over 2,200 streaming educational videos in a range of disciplines, comments on transforming education in this TED Talk.

What We Are Reading

Paul Tough, contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, former Senior Editor of This American Life, and author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America, looks at character as the most important asset to a child's success in  How Children Succeed.  From his website:


"The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control."