“We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience.”― John Dewey

Reflection is a key part of processing and allowing ourselves the pause to think about what just happened. This Think, Make, Innovate focuses on the often overlooked piece of reflection.

Start by offering a focused reflection question to students to have them narrow their thoughts around skills and experiences that they had. So instead of, "What did you like about what you created?" Try out "What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them?" 

Also, consider the mode that students will use to process and the audience that students will share this reflection with. It could be a personal reflection in a notebook, just for themselves or it could be a video reflection that is shared with the rest of the class of a Flipgrid. It could be reflection circle with just a few students or it could be a 1:1 conference with the teacher. Are there some digital tools that you currently use that could help students to share their reflections outside of the classroom?

​The opportunities are endless, just consider how you scaffold students for this different types of sharing opportunities to help prepare them for success. 

A journey map is a technique used in Design Thinking to visualize the process that a person goes through to accomplish a goal. If we twist this to our maker experience, you can have students record highs and lows of their process of creating.

To use with students, like suggested earlier, have students focus on three memorable moments in their making process and have them reflect what they learned from those moments. Was it a moment that they didn't think their project would ever come together? Was a it moment that they collaborated with someone else that helped them to realize a break through? 
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Curious to learn more about Journey Maps? Click Here

We'd love to see how you reflect!

We'd love to see the questions and prompts or you share with your students or the experiences that you create to help them reflect! Please share them with us @DLGWAEA on social media or email us at makerspace@gwaea.org

And as always...

#HaveFunMaking
~Amber & Mindy

Red Light, Yellow Light is a powerful thinking routine when students encounter ‘puzzles of truth.’ Students are provided with tools to navigate through editorials, biased news sources, and other informational outlets. By identifying key components of a story, whether found in the news or on the playground, students engage in conversations about where the truth could be misconstrued.

As always, when introducing a new thinking routine it is important to model for your students. As you are modeling marking up a text for students, make sure to verbalize your thinking in why you are marking zones red, yellow, or green (i.e. “Here the author is making a sweeping generalization of all teenagers, I am going to mark this as yellow.”)

This strategy translates well into a digital learning environment and could begin as an asynchronous activity. Students can use an online annotation tool, such as Edji, Diigo, or Actively Learn, to mark up their texts. For younger students, consider grabbing a snippet of text and bringing it into Seesaw as an image. The initial annotation of text could occur asynchronously, with students returning to synchronous learning to discuss.

Explore some resources to help you get started with the different problem solving frameworks we described in the video.

Engineering Design Cycle
Stages: Ask, Research, Imagine, Plan, Create, Test & Evaluate, Improve

Here are a few resources for each stage
Ask: QFT Process to encourage student questioning. 🎥Check out this short video of the different stages of the QFT Process.
Imagine: Brainstorming with a group goes much more smoothly if you check out these rules 🎥in this video from the d.school
Plan & Create: These two stages go hand-in-hand and it's a great way to get students to think about their plan on paper first before they start building. Consider their plan as the first stage of prototyping as explained 🎥in this video from the Whittlesea Tech School.
Test & Evaluate & Improve: Students will need feedback on their creation. They'll need feedback not only from the product itself and how it works, but also from others to help them to help them to clarify their ideas. Consider this 💻Ladder Feedback protocol to give feedback in a way that helps the creators see the value in their designs and ways they can make it stronger.

💻Explore Teach Engineering for more support and classroom ideas to get started.

Design Thinking
Stages: Empathy, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test & Share

​Here are a few resources for each stage
Empathy: Empathy is such a strong stage of the design thinking process. Consider having students connect with who they are creating for by a creating an empathy map. Learn more about the process from the 📄Interaction Design Foundation.
Define: After connecting with who you are creating for, it's important to simplify and focus exactly what problem you are connecting with and how it will supports the user's needs by considering the empathy map. A POV statement does just that! Read more about the process from the 📄Interaction Design Foundation.
Ideate: Here's the reciprocal video from the Imagine Stage above, 🎥How Not to Brainstorm from the d.school. Sometimes students really need to see how not to, before they can realize how to do something.
Prototype: Building a small-scale model of what you'd envisioned is a great step for students. With design thinking, it really truly is about connecting, considering, and reminding yourself all the time about who you are creating for. Learn more about 📄Prototyping for Empathy from Interaction Design Foundation.
Test & Share: Trying out your prototype and getting feedback from the intended audience is key with design thinking. In a classroom situation, you may be having students create for each other or for an outside audience. We like the 💻I Like/I Wish feedback protocol from IDEO to get feedback to students about their designs.

Ready to Learn More? Check out 💻the d.School 

​Whatever you try, we'd love to know how it goes! Send us your photos or videos through social media and tag @dlgwaea or send an email to makerspace@gwaea.org and we will post them on our website, www.dlgwaea.org. And as always...

#HaveFunMaking
​
~Amber & Mindy

+1 Routine is very similar to the Take Note Routine that we highlighted in a previous post. This routine is used immediately following new learning or content. It requires students to recall and record key points from memory. Just like the Take Note Routine, students can focus on the in-the-moment learning instead of trying to decipher what the key points are during the learning. But this routine doesn’t stop there. These notes then become collaborative as students engage in a silent conversation in the following step. Students pass on their key points to be added to by other classmates and are then passed back to the original owner to be reviewed. Students can add additional notes from the notes of others if needed.

Anytime a new routine is introduced, it is best used synchronously as students become comfortable with the process. This strategy is easily modified for asynchronous environments. For example, students may read an online text or watch a video. Immediately following this learning, students recall and record the key points with a digital tool, like Jamboard. During a synchronous meeting, students can then review their frame in Jamboard and move to the next frame for the Add (+)1 step. This is a very flexible strategy with the ability to use synchronous and asynchronous learning within the different steps. Our suggestion would be to make sure due dates are very clear for students to make sure the silent conversation is timely.

​To help you get started implementing this thinking routine in your classroom, we have created a Jamboard template. To use this template:

• You will be forced to make a copy of this template. Make sure to rename for your purposes.
• On the first frame, we added the recall prompt for initial thinking and the three prompts for Add (+)1 and a few additional instructions.
• We duplicated this frame for 5 students. You can duplicate more frames if needed.
  • We also added template frames for classes with over 19 students (Jamboards are limited to 20 frames) that divides each frame into two sections, if needed.
• You will want to set the editing rights to ‘anyone with the link can edit’ when you share with your students.

Take Note is not the traditional note-taking or outlining of a lecture you may initially connect with. Instead, it promotes students to actively engage in the learning with the opportunity to reflect, take notes, and engage with discussion after the learning. This thinking routine helps students develop their memory and focus during learning by NOT worrying about capturing all of the details in traditional lecture notes. It supports students in learning to use their brains more efficiently by inviting them to distill out the key points of the learning they are presented with. 

This strategy will be best used synchronously when first being introduced and for a fair amount of time following the introduction. However, as students become more familiar with the routine, the learning could be done asynchronously. For example, students might watch a video prior to meeting for class, take note following the viewing, and come with notes to be shared in a class discussion. This independence is the goal and requires student understanding of the importance of the routine.

If using this strategy from a distance, a great tool for students to digitally record their notes could be Jamboard. We’ve created a template that could be used for students to share their notes and discuss the ideas of others.

To create and use this template:

• We added the four questions to each frame for easy reference. 
• Each frame has 5 numbered squares that will be used by a different student in that group. If needed you can add more squares for your groups.  
• Frames were given different identifying colors to distinguish different groups
• When students move to discuss the notes of their classmates, they will be assigned a different color frame (group) to discuss. 
• Each student will read aloud and respond to the square that matches the square number on which they recorded their notes.​

Below you will find a table with suggestions of how to tweak the Take Note Thinking Routine to be more effective in alternative learning environments.

Click here to learn more about COVID Cohorts.

We would love to hear how you have used Take Note with your students! Share your story in the comments!

​~Mindy and Gina