Introducing The New Community Project

Founded and directed by Chidi Asoluka, this Upper School project-based team-taught course employs the concepts of design thinking (empathic problem solving), and the disciplines of History, English, and Arts to explore challenges related to community in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs.  Working in tandem with students from a variety of schools, this course seeks to have a parallel online space for communication and problem solving.The New Community Project refers to how we define community, how we know a community, how we build community through collaboration, and how online teaching and gathering spaces form their own unique new communities challenging our assumptions about the construct itself.

Making Art with Math

Students in , Matt Notary's math class use their calculators to make art. “I called it the Graphing Design Project,” said Mr. Notary. “ Students created original compositions using the online graphing calculator at Desmos.com. They have been using this calculator in class all year in place of traditional hand-held graphing calculators, so they were already familiar with how to enter equations and view the graphs of the equations. The project was open-ended. I didn't tell them what to create. I just gave them some basic guidelines on the minimum requirements for the number and types of equations they needed to use. I wanted to make sure that in addition to creating a piece of artwork, they demonstrated knowledge of the mathematical concepts they have been learning this year.”

Creating a piece of art typically involves a pencil, a paintbrush or a blob of clay, but Middle School Math Teacher and GA Registrar Matt Notary’s Algebra B Honors Class created artwork, which are currently hanging in the Middle School Art Gallery, using good old fashioned math.

That’s right, math.

“I called it the Graphing Design Project,” said Mr. Notary. “​Students created original compositions using the online graphing calculator at Desmos.com. They have been using this calculator in class all year in place of traditional hand-held graphing calculators, so they were already familiar with how to enter equations and view the graphs of the equations. The project was open-ended. I didn't tell them what to create. I just gave them some basic guidelines on the minimum requirements for the number and types of equations they needed to use. I wanted to make sure that in addition to creating a piece of artwork, they demonstrated knowledge of the mathematical concepts they have been learning this year.”

In order to complete the project, students had to create a composition by entering equations into the online calculator that in turn graphed the equations and created the lines, curves, and shapes in the composition. They then saved their projects in their accounts on Desmos.com and emailed them to Mr. Notary.

The equations the students used came primarily from Algebra 1, which they have been studying all year. The requirements were to write at least 20 equations, including at least 10 equations with restricted domain and/or range, at least one linear equation, at least one quadratic equation, and at least one inequality.

“All of those topics are part of different units we have worked on during the year,” said Mr. Notary. “Most students went well over the minimum number of equations, and some used equations from Algebra 2 and Trigonometry, although we did not discuss those in class; they just explored them on their own because they wanted to create more complex shapes.”

The idea to create formula-based graphic design compositions stemmed from the Middle School faculty’s exploration of project based learning and it’s iPad pilot program.

“The Middle School Mathematics Department was discussing ways we might incorporate these things into our curriculum,” said Mr. Notary. “As a result of these discussions, the idea gradually started to take shape in my mind. We decided to try it with some eighth grade classes this year, with the hope that based on the results we could refine it and perhaps do it with more classes next year. Dion Lehman helped me with some of the planning, and I did the project with my two honors-level eighth grade classes in January.”

In the end, students created a wide variety of designs, including Rachael V.’s ’18 composition of Pac Man, which took a whopping 176 formulas to complete.

“I liked the challenge of it,” said Rachael. “It was hard trying to figure out the equations so each line matched up and each dot went in the right place, but overall it was a fun project.”

Classmate Quinton R. ’18 echoed Rachael’s sentiments.

“I enjoyed working on it at separate times,” said Quinton. “I would work on it once a day for about 20 minutes at a time just thinking about new ideas. I’m not too particular about what it is; I just like throwing designs on and see how it comes out. We had to use different forms of math to figure out how to make a certain circle and square. It was really interesting. I’ve never done it before.”

TARC Rocketry Team

Coordinator of the Young Engineers Program and Upper School Physics teacher, Diane Goldstein along with Middle School Science Coordinator, Rollie Wakemen work with student teams from both divisions on designing and building rockets for Team America Rocketry Challenge Competition. The group has several competition launches planned this spring.

Social Emotional Learning in the Middle School

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has become a very important part of classrooms and school environments across the country. SEL teaches students to become aware of their own emotions and those of others and to communicate more effectively. Mindfulness teaches students to recognize their emotions in the present moment.

What is Mindfulness, you may ask. Diane Reibel, PhD, founder of Mindfulness and More and one of the leading practitioners of Mindfulness, defines it as:
“Mindfulness is about paying attention and living your life in the richness of the present moment. Being here now, rather than being lost in memories of the past or overwhelmed by worries about the future. It's a simple practice that strengthens the mind's ability to stay focused on what is happening right now and to be open to experience — meeting the present moment with care, curiosity and kindness.”
1 in 5 adolescents experience emotional problems that interfere with their functioning. Anxiety is the most common problem for this age group.

Learning to recognize emotions as they arise and the accompanying bodily sensations, can help teenagers develop the capacity to regulate their behaviors and control their impulses, which can be difficult for many adolescents. Research has shown that when practiced on a regular basis, Mindfulness has helped adolescents regulate their emotions, improve attention and concentration, develop stress management skills, and improve health and wellbeing. Accordingly, anxiety and depression are also reduced.

Learning to Breathe: A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents to Cultivate Emotion Regulation, Attention, and Performance (L2B) by Patricia Broderick, is a program that teaches teens the practice of mindfulness in their everyday lives. “The Learning to BREATHE” curriculum provides a precious opportunity to develop greater awareness and self- compassion at a crucial phase of life, and the ability to make wiser choices and to respond more appropriately in difficulty situations, rather than to react in habitual and often harmful ways.” (Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn)

After attending a professional development workshop last April, and learning about the many positive effects of Mindfulness, I took the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course to allow me the opportunity to experience firsthand the practice of Mindfulness so that I could possibly bring it to the Middle School community. At the end of the first class, when the teacher assigned us homework to do a 25 minute Mindfulness practice every day, I got completely stressed out! Who has 25 minutes to sit and just do nothing? I certainly didn’t. And therein lie the problem. We do not take time to just be. We are all constantly running, doing, working, multitasking – all the time. I find that I sometimes forget to just breathe. And that was when I decided to make the time to do my homework - that maybe it was what I really needed to do for my own mental health – to slow down, to notice, to breathe, to be more in the moment.

Since this class, we have been slowly introducing the concept of Mindfulness to Middle School students. Lessons and practices have been introduced to students in PE classes, advisory, and Health and Wellness classes, across the 3 grades. The response from students has been amazing. After class, students have said that they would like a club on Mindfulness, more opportunities to practice, and that they have been trying to incorporate some of the strategies into their everyday lives. Some have reported that they take 3 mindful breaths before taking a test and they are better able to focus. Others have said that they practice the Body Scan before bed so that they can relax and clear their minds of the “thoughts swirling around in their heads.” Whatever it is that they are doing, they are looking for ways to manage their stress and calm their minds and bodies.

The Middle School faculty was also fortunate enough to have Patricia Broderick conduct a workshop on Mindfulness last month. She provided an overview of what Mindfulness is, the research to support the practice and guided teachers in a Mindfulness practice. The response from faculty has also been very positive.  The bottom line is that stress is inevitable. We experience it throughout our lives, in varying degrees. To learn healthy ways to manage that stress at an early age, is a gift, a life skill that can have dramatic positive effects. Teaching adolescents this skill will undoubtedly help them throughout their lives. We can all benefit from taking a moment, breathing, and just being.

Guest Blogger Rebecca Liu: Using WeChat for Teaching Chinese

WeChat is currently one of the most popular text and voice messaging communication services developed by Tencent, one of the largest Internet service providers in China. It’s similar to most social media, but its voice message function makes it outstanding. Because texting in Chinese characters is quite slow, WeChat allows users to send voice messages. To send a voice message, the user simply holds the button, talks, and releases the button to send the message. Even if the recipient of that message is not online, he/she can still listen to it when checking messages.

Both voice message and texting inspired me to use WeChat for Chinese teaching. Voice message is a real-life way to practice speaking, and texting is good for practicing pinyin (a phonetic system to pronounce and type Chinese characters) and recognizing Chinese characters (since the students will select the characters from an option bar that has all these characters with the same pronunciation). 

In my class, many Chinese dialogues are completed by using the phone. A simulated dialogue task is always assigned to students when they finish learning certain sentence patterns and vocabulary, and they work in pairs or groups using WeChat to create the dialogue. For instance, in one task, students work in pairs to create a “Mom, I forgot my stuff at home and please bring it to school” dialogue. In the dialogue, the “child” is required to text his/her mom what school materials he/she left at home, where he/she put it, and the color of it. And the child should make an appointment with the mom to bring the stuff to school, in which they will use certain sentence patterns to ask the location and time to meet at school. The students first text each other to practice typing Chinese, and they send voice messages to each other to practice speaking. These two activities function the same with writing a dialogue and practicing it orally with a partner, but using WeChat on the cellphone makes the two activities more fun for the students, and they are more motivated to complete the exercise. When they finish their dialogue, they send me a screen shot of the dialogue page, which is easy for me to grade. Using WeChat is also a cultural learning, since this App is widely used in China in the recent years, and it still enjoys a rising popularity. I am sure my students who are going to visit China this summer would not feel unfamiliar using WeChat to communicate with Chinese people. A simple practice in class may help them prepare better for a completely different culture that they will see in summer.

Further use of this App is to make it an oral assignment platform. I have been using this App after school recently with my two students who are going to take part in an oral proficiency contest. We practice dialogues by leaving each other voice messages. I send them a question, and they send me an answer. They told me they like the way of practice, because by clicking on my voice message, they can listen to my question over and over, which helps them understand the question and answer it. And they are glad that they can still practice Chinese with me after school. In the near future, I will use it for more students. I will leave them voice messages, which will be questions we practice in class, and the students answer the question by leaving me a voice message. I can listen to their answers and grade them easily. Similar question-and-answer systems are online, but WeChat is free of charge to use.

Another possible use of this App is to make it a skype tool between students at GA who learn Chinese and my former students from CNU High School in Beijing. Students can do video call with Chinese students from Beijing practicing Chinese with them once a week.

References:

1. http://world.time.com/2014/02/21/whats-all-the-fuss-about-whatsapp-chinas-wechat-is-a-worthy-rival/

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeChat

3. http://www.wechat.com/en/features.html#live_chat

Planning for Design Days in the Lower School

On April 25 the Lower School will celebrate Design Days a collaborative and age appropriate design thinking program meant to introduce students and faculty to empathic problem solving, process thinking and collaborative learning.  Faculty from the division have been meeting since the start of second term to plan the full day event.

What We Are Reading

"In Focus, Psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman, author of the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, offers a groundbreaking look at today’s scarcest resource and the secret to high performance and fulfillment: attention.

Combining cutting-edge research with practical findings, Focus delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset. In an era of unstoppable distractions, Goleman persuasively argues that now more than ever we must learn to sharpen focus if we are to survive in a complex world.

Goleman boils down attention research into a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. Drawing on rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and business, he shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, and explains how those who rely on Smart Practices—mindfulness meditation, focused preparation and recovery, positive emotions and connections, and mental “prosthetics” that help them improve habits, add new skills, and sustain greatness—excel while others do not."  from the author page at Amazon.