7th grade started the Rescue Mission Sprint after setting up the websites for their design journals. Walking them thru the setup step by step was super helpful and made sure everyone had the same format and was ready to go. Now I just need to check the links to see if they really work.
The tough class started out with some serious talk and it seem like it helped. It was better today but we’ll see what happens next time. I definitely need to make sure that I keep things active and keep a select few fully engaged. I’m hoping that building relationships with them will help some as well.
8th grade was ok too. I feel like I probably talked too much, but I haven’t figured out how to get the design cycle introduced without talking thru it or showing videos which feel less engaging. Trying to incorporate turn and talks and opportunities to move around but also feel a need to just get them information. It’s definitely something I can work on.
While talking about my design of the day intro with Robyn, she suggested I do away with the good or bad design and just ask how it makes students feel or questions they have about it. She referred me back to the article from the tweet below that I had shared with her but hadn’t finished reading, oops. It mentions the idea that either/or thinking is an example of white supremacy culture. Makes sense and will help me to think on how to improve this exercise.
Also thoughts today about pronouns as I used a student as an example that I’m really not certain about their gender. Found myself trying to use a name instead of pronouns and realized not only would it possibly be more accepting it would also help me learn names better.
Finally and on the same train of thought, students asked me why I didn’t include the pronouns on the characters I created for a design challenge this week. My honest answer was because I just finished creating them about 15 minutes before class. But I’ll be adding those pronouns for next time…
Ryan Harwood 