The Means Principle

I had a hard time writing my design document last week. I kept confusing Authentic Activities and Real Learning Problems and Structures and Process (oh my!) Everything that we’ve learned so far in class makes complete sense when we’re talking about it, but for me it’s difficult to keep track of the names for each thing. When we reviewed again Thursday night the differences between Structures and Processes, I left feeling more confident about the differences, but now I’m wondering what the purpose of separating those two things are? It’s useful to think of both, but I’m wondering where Dr. Norton got the idea to separate them.

I am excited to work on developing my design plan, though! Division can be tricky to apply to real world contexts (I feel like multiplication comes up more often), but I’m gonna go with a situation where someone who works for a Meals on Wheels organization is planning the next meal-making event and has to organize the foods for packaging and the vans for delivering the meals. How cool would it be if we were actually able to volunteer at a meal-making event?!?! I’ll try not to get too ahead of myself--got to focus on the design first!

I loved getting to play with the technology “toys”! I know we decided that Osmos wasn’t as meaningful as Ozbots, but I think it would be incredibly helpful for newcomers. We have a lot of newcomers at my school, and Osmos would be great for them because it combines images, audio, and letters--that’s all three types of English exposure at once in a low-risk setting. If Osmos allows you to create your own vocab sets, I know the teachers at my school would use it for teaching essential vocabulary in those first few weeks they’re at school. I’m also betting there’s a math fact app out there somewhere for Osmos that would really help with basic facts and number sense for the new babies as well.

Ozbots was seriously cool. I was imagining how it could be used alongside the upcoming geometry unit. I wonder if there’s a way to program the Ozbot to make a specified-degree turn! Our first instinct is to think about how the technology can be used to teach our curriculum, but I wish we could just use it as-is! It would be so meaningful to have a regular math center be with the Ozbot because that thing can teach some serious problem solving--talk about productive struggle! Jose and I were very much struggling with it at the beginning, so I can only imagine how great it would be for the students. They could probably do some things with the Ozbot that I can’t even imagine! I think I’ve said this in every blog I’ve written so far but I need more time in the day!!!

In peeking ahead to the final design principle we’ll talk about next week, Students as Designers, I’m glad to see the “comprehensively scaffolding” phrase in there. I have two very different classes--one “high” and one “low”--but they both need serious scaffolding. The first class because they’re too excited and too ready to go that they miss the simple but necessary steps, and the second class because they can’t get to Google Classroom without repeated step by step guidance (eeeek). I can use all the advice and practice I can get when it comes to scaffolding!