Dive Into Reading-2019

This past month I have had the pleasure of working on a nationally recognized program Dive Into Reading. This program was designed to promote grade-level reading and combat any "summer reading slide" that may occur. It was launched in 2017 by Anna Maria Oyster Bar owners, John and Amanda Horne, and has been expanded quickly throughout Manatee and Sarasota Counties. Dive Into Reading has been designed to bring mentors and students together for a couple of hours each week at a restaurant or another appropriate location for a meal to practice their table manners and to work on their literacy skills.

 I believe someone said once, "It takes a village to raise a child," and the organizers of this program have taken that to heart. From the restaurants providing both food and wait staff to the hundreds of mentor volunteers that give of their time to work with students each week. However, there are those behind the scenes working to make sure that each site has what they needed, students are exposed to quality grade level text, and organizations that have donated books and school supplies for each student. Huge shout outs go to: Anna Maria Oyster Bar, Geckos, Pier 22, The Bishop Museum of Science and Nature, Manatee County's Library Services, Patterson Foundation,  Suncoast Campaign for Grade-Level Reading, Elks Club of Manatee, and of course our volunteers.  I feel it was an honor each week to witness each mentor and a student floursih and most importatly an apprecitation of literature being fostered. 

3M Young Scientist -The Power of Student Challenges 2

How often do you provide students with opportunities to solve real world problems?  I believe this is one of our most important roles as educators today.  You can learn more about my process by reading my prior post The Power of Student Challenges.   Every year, 3M and Discovery Education make it easy for me to continue fostering these types of  learning experiences through the 3M Young Scientist Challenge.  Here are some of my learnings from participating.

The first year we attempted The 3M Young Scientist. I threw out the challenge to my students with limited time to work on what I would call "real" STEM activities.  It was a bit bumpy, because though I felt I had a clear understanding STEM, I was not completely sure what guidelines to set, how to assess, or even where to start. It was a bit overwhelming.  The resources from the 3M Young Scientist site were able to provide me a scaffolded approach.

There are a lot of resources available with the "STEM" label on them, but it is often difficult to decide which activities are best suited for my students. I evaluated the STEM materials with our Gifted Laboratory's motto and principles in mind, "We are a laboratory, NOT a factory." We believe it is super important that students are given materials, task, and guidelines, but not a complete layout on how to complete the task. This means there will be more than one way to complete a task and students will have to think critically. Thanks to Discovery Education and 3M, I have been able to access a substantial amount of wonderful STEM Activities that not only serve as a great springboard for The 3M Young Scientist challenge, but also as problem solving activities.

We have utilized many of the Student Activities found on the actual 3M Young Scientist website  and the STEM Career Challenges found within Discovery Education.It's challenging to know what the future holds for our students, but allowing them to explore STEM careers with these resources will give them a critical look into their future.

I'm thankful that 3M and Discovery Education have partnered together to help promote problem solving with their challenge and STEM Activities to expand my students' ideas for their future careers.

It's not too late.  Learn how to challenge your students by visiting the 3M Young Scientist Challenge site

Higher Order Thinking Skills and Discovery Education's- Educational Partner's Challenges

I had originally posted this within in the Discovery Education's Online Community, but thought I would share it here too.

The thing I love most about the many Discovery Education Corporate Partners are the contests they hold. The beauty of many of these contests is their focus on solving real world problems. If students are encouraged to focus on the process of solving a real world problem, rather than just focusing on a solution, exponentially higher order thinking skills can be honed. Though the end result is what is ultimately judged, I am convinced that by solely focusing on outcomes, valuable learning and growth will go unrealized.  

In solving any problem, it is always important to dig deep, explore and thoroughly define the issue at hand. In my experience, this is an area most of my students and, quite frankly, some adults would rather skip right over. For whatever reason, students seem to prefer having problems defined for them, but defining the problem is a valuable step that is chalked full of higher order thinking skills. By giving time for students to process and completely define problems they are required to question and analyze deep with a topic by using Spotlight on Strategies (CDN).  For example, if I were starting a challenge with students, a modified version of the S.O.S. "Think-Puzzle-Explore" (CDN) could be used to open up students' thinking and put them in the driver seat. This S.O.S allows students to record what they already know, record any questions they might have and create a plan as to how they will explore a specific topic.


Another way to ensure students are honing their higher order thinking skills is by guiding students to utilize each contest rubric and/or checklist which will help guide and refine their work. I am a firm believer that I should not do anything for students that they can do for themselves; this includes reading and analyzing contest guidelines. In my experience, introducing these tools to students early allows them the opportunity to refer back to them on a regular basis and helps guide their projects. The number of times my students ask if things are good enough or if projects contain enough details have greatly reduced. It has been nice to watch as these topics have become conversations students are having amongst themselves. This has also meant the process of revision is slowly becoming a student endeavor and proves rubrics and checklists should not be utilized as simple tools in a very real and purposeful way.

   

Finally, I am a firm believer the best way to teach problem solving is by giving students the opportunities to attempt to solve actual problems we find in the world today. Thanks to Discovery Education and their Educational Partners we have been given several opportunities to do just that across just about every subject area.