Experiment 2: Learning (Skills) Labs

All this mind blowing reading I am doing this summer has me willing to walk the plank and jump into a new ocean of opportunity. Flexible seating was an opportunity that came my way with a new classroom filled with broken furniture. The idea of the skills labs came to me from either a FB or Twitter post.

Of course I cannot find the original post but it went a little something like this...

It had a picture of a button with needle and thread (or at least that is how I picture it). The headline was something about how students no longer have everyday life skills like simply sewing a button. I would like to think I could, but I have no idea if I could sew a button. I do remember my mom sewing my soccer patches right through my jacket and onto her comforter. Hehe! 

My intention is to teach students how to learn skills and to actually pick up a few good skills along the way. 

What is a Skills Lab?

I plan on running 1 skill lab a week. The lab will entail the students learning a skill. I will have a webpage or #HyperDoc filled with resources such as videos, articles, links...that the students can access at their skill levels. At the beginning of the week each student can set a goal based on where they are at with that particular skill. For instance, if the skill of the lab was to sew a button beginner students may have the goal of actually sewing a button onto a pillow by the end of the week. Where someone who already has some sewing skills may have a goal of teaching someone else to sew a button on a pillow. An expert might even choose to sew the pillow for us! 

At the end of the week students would rate their effort, share their creations, and reflect on their learning. It would be a quick Google Form where they would give themselves a grade. The sharing would be a part of the Form but more time would be spent with them sharing to others in or outside of our classroom walls.

What Skills?

I have a few ideas already but I am hoping for more. I am also planning on having students create the labs after the first couple months or so and take it over for the rest of the year. (Those who do the work do the learning.)  I would like to eventually become just a student in the lab and not the teacher. 

Side Note: I just came up with that thought of the student take over as I typed it. I like this blogging thing.

I would like to have the students work on life skills, tech skills, communication skills, and more.

Skill Ideas:

• Sewing
• Knitting
• Song Writing
• Code Cracking
• SketchNoting
• Tech: Learn a new app 
• Drawing
• Origami

I need more skill ideas. Maybe I don't because I would like this to become student led sooner than later. My husband said 'change a tire'. Good skill to know, but not to learn in my classroom. 

I will be posting the labs and their outcomes. Check out my other experiments like Flexible Seating for Middle School and soon to come automatic group making with Google Forms/Sheets, multiple types of #HyperDocs...

Thank you!

Sunday Setup

After spending Saturday night with my daughter's gymnastics team on their holiday sleepover I decided to spend all day Sunday setting up my week with all of the technology I learned over break.

It took about two pots of coffee but I am happy to say that I was able to set up lots and lots of neat stuff. I hope I remember it all come Monday.

I set up daily do now questions in a Sheets Discussions. The Discussions Tab from Alice Keeler was great for this. I am nervous to have all my classes on 1 spreadsheet so it was still tedious to create the same sheets for my 4 8th grade classes and then having to go back and update the sheets 4 times each of need be. Plus I have a 7th grade class that is on a completely separate Sheet as well. So I will just have to figure out a system as I go. 

I was also able to make a deeper discussion Sheet where the students would be reading a doc, answering questions, and copy and pasting their evidence. I have not made a copy for each class yet as my brain is technically throbbing. 

In between the discussion Sheets (hehe) I also created an interactive Form where I was able to insert a video and a diagram where the students could learn/review Point of View. The resources were followed up with excerpts from books where they had to choose the POV. At first I created this as a Doc, but thought it would be much easier to check as in Sheets. I will make charts of the results for the students to review thier answers. 

Links to all this stuff coming soon! 

Happy returns!!