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Incubator
​Ideas. Exchange. Remix.

Project 41

8/24/2016

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The Incubator exists because of ideas that are half-baked. I have a lot of those. Lightning strikes of creativity that hit me when I’m driving, when I’m in the shower, ones that wake me up in the middle of the night. I’m on the end of the teacher spectrum that jumps in headfirst to a project or assignments without worrying about all the little details. When those creative jolts jar loose a basic idea, I take it in its incomplete form and immediately unleash it on my students. But, as I’ve learned over the last decade in the classroom, those little details that I’ve skipped can make a big difference. They can add purpose and clarity, taking something that will be merely novel and fun and turn it into something that can be a significant learning experience for my students that we can build upon. I’ve learned that I need people who have a different skill set than I do to help me finish these ideas. The Incubator is a place to think through the details. Develop the concepts. Collaborate with others who have different ideas and perspectives.

I’ve had an idea for a project rattling around my end-of-summer brain that is half-baked. For now, I’m going to call it Project 41. The plan would be to have four different groups of students in four different places and/or at four different levels (elementary, middle school, high school, college) reading and responding to one poem (that’s where the 4 and 1 come from). I’ve noticed that interpretation of poems is often based on life experience, and so it would be great to have people in different geographic locations and stages in life interpreting the same thing and having some dialogue about it.

Ideally, each of the four groups would read the poem and discuss amongst themselves. Together they could come up with a general interpretation of the poem. The next step would be a forum for the different groups to share their thoughts with the other groups of students.

The lingering questions that need to be answered:

-Is there an actual benefit to this or does it just seem cool to me?
-What would be the best way for the students to share their thoughts on the poem with the students in the other three groups?
-Which poems would work well for this kind of assignment?
-What guidelines or guided questions should the groups be given?
-What questions or logistical issues have I not thought about yet that would affect this assignment/learning experience?

If you have any answers or further questions, please comment.
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Evolution of a caveman

8/12/2016

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A friend of mine, Barry Rodges, is an artist. He’s extremely talented, but the other day he posted some pictures on his Facebook page of his process. It showed rough sketches of characters, a caveman and his son, that were clearly works in progress. There were notes he had written to himself on the page. Suggestions for how to improve the characters. Critical evaluations of his own work. It struck me that this would fit nicely into my classroom. I want to hammer home the idea of a growth mindset vs a fixed mindset. Even extremely talented people have to work at their craft. Things don’t just magically come out of us fully formed. We have to revise, critique, edit, evaluate. It takes hard work and grit to learn new concepts and produce quality work of any kind. I want to use Barry’s work in my classroom. My initial thought is to have a series of short presentations to show that reinforce this concept. I want to find a way to use Barry’s work effectively, but also find other examples that I could use in class.

​I emailed Barry to tell him my idea and ask if he’d be willing to share some images of characters at different stages of development with me. Below are some of the pictures that he sent. (And here is a link to Barry’s website: http://www.barryrodges.com/)

Here are some totally non-rhetorical questions I'm seeking input on from other teachers:
Is there a better way to use these pictures than in a presentation with a discussion about growth mindset? What else would work to make this point? If this were one example in an ongoing series of examples, what other kinds of people/jobs/things could be there? If you have any answers to these questions, please leave a comment. Let's start a conversation.

​Nathan Garvin
6th Grade English
Picture
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    The incubator

    Sometimes as educators, we get hit with an idea that we know would make a good learning experience for our students, but we’re not quite sure about the best way to utilize it. It’s always helpful to run the idea by other like-minded teachers to get their input on how the idea could grow into a fully formed, purposeful assignment. The Incubator exists to help those idea eggs hatch. This is a place to share the lightning strikes of inspiration that need to be developed before unleashing them on students. It’s a place to read, share, comment, suggest, collaborate, create, and design. If you would like to post an idea of your own to the incubator, click here. 
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