Category Archives: Uncategorized

posted on October 21, 2023

Developing personal processes is a way we can increase effectiveness and efficiency in our lives. A process serves to support our decision making, and can be seen as a repetitive procedure we can use to solve a challenge or take advantage of an opportunity.

In personal coaching, we use a specific line of clarification and questioning to precisely target what the client needs to solve for themselves in each coaching session.

In Mathematics, developing a process frees up brain processing power to focus on the problem at hand. A mathematical process may be: read the question, understand the wording and what is needing to be solved, estimating the answer, doing the math, checking calculations, and comparing results to estimates. We can internalize this process to establish a framework for solving many math problems.

Process offers a framework and foundation for approaching and solving so many daily tasks and challenging situations, and for availing ourselves of amazing opportunities which may come our way.

posted on August 13, 2022

Some of the most successful elementary and middle school classrooms are those where students learn as much from each other as they do from their teachers. Such structures truly value student input and participation. 

Using manipulatives in math enriches the student experience by allowing students to experience their peers’ iterative processes first hand. These interactions, in turn, enrich the group experience. 

We designed intooba construction kits to offer a wide range of learning experiences in creativity, math, engineering, and budgeting. Teachers set their own values for the inputs thus enabling math interactions for a wide range of ages and abilities!

Here sixth graders build helicopters on a budget.

posted on May 22, 2022

I have the very good fortune to work with colleagues I both like and respect in a K-12 environment that espouses experiential education as a cornerstone of our programming. Within this approach to education is an understanding that we purposefully provide space for children to make mistakes and learn from them. This is fundamental to fostering the development of strong, independent thinkers and learners.

It has been my experience that at about fifth grade students cognitively realize that they are indeed independent people. With this comes the understanding of the responsibility for one’s own performance in the world, charging the individual and student with challenge, opportunity, welcome success, and certain failure. If we build into our education system the caring support to strive with determination through personal and academic challenges, then we empower students to accept the vicissitudes of process in their development. Successful people, using any definition of our choosing, are so because they have developed the resilience to forge on through the process of learning and adaptation toward a defined set of goals.

I accompanied students on a field trip. At this facility, my role was merely to support the teaching activities of the facility’s instructors. Facility administrators, it turns out, knew little of our education philosophy, and they were unwilling to adapt themselves to it. They laid out very traditional, strict, and outmoded practices which thoroughly disappointed me. At the beginning of each activity, a very rigid outline was presented, including sanctions for deviations. When students deviated in any way from the facility’s expectations, they were scolded.

My fascination with teaching middle school children is that they are personally developing concurrently with the delivery of a school curriculum throughout the school year. Effective educators need an extraordinary amount of insight and compassion to interact successfully with children. We are working with young people whose job it is to experiment with, and test the limits of, acceptable behavior as they experience their interests, capacities, and limitations first hand. To establish a space that encourages the individual to ‘intentionally grow themselves’ as opposed to having them exist within strictly prescribed boundaries stunts their potential. The practice of explicitly presenting sanctions upfront presupposes unacceptable failure, and the consequences thereof.

Not all practices work for, or in, all environments. Ideally, however, we are looking to create an environment where children develop their best selves both socially and academically. Thankfully, educators are not merely conduits of information. Rather, we add, through cogent argument and guidance, to a child’s self esteem and nurture their journey in finding their own way.

posted on February 10, 2021

Why do we not teach decision making skills in K-12 education? Our entire lives revolve, in a practical sense, around making decisions both large and small. We certainly, for example, ask students to make sound decisions by “making wise choices” about their behavior! Do we ever explicitly instruct students in the process and skill of how to actually make a wise decision from a series of presented alternatives? Do we further instruct them in ways to locate, investigate, and evaluate plausible alternatives?

As an instructive example, if you are teaching middle or high school students about personal finance, one might approach the evaluative and decision making process as follows:

PERSONAL FINANCE: the overall picture

Lesson objective: to be able to see your financial situation as integral to your life. This helps with setting goals, objectives, and forward planning. We will learn to think about maximizing opportunities, and minimizing risks.

Consider your “financial self” as an avatar that you are responsible for. It has inputs and outputs, and you are responsible for its well-being. The inputs and outputs are very closely tied to one another; they feed and nourish each other in a continuous circle. Mentally, this gives you an opportunity to look at your life objectively from a distance.

Inputs: what does your financial avatar need to survive and thrive?

Circle of support

Education

Health

Insurance

Money

Motivation

Opportunity

Time

Outputs: what does your avatar produce as output?

Community

Energy

Interaction

Learning

Money

Production 

Socialization

Questions:

  1. What are some ways you can work towards making a positive impact on your financial future?
  2. What are some ways you can assess and minimize risk?
  3. Why is it important to set goals, and measure achievement?
posted on April 15, 2020

ONLINE RESOURCES FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

– Beast Academy (Math) (https://beastacademy.com/)
– BrainPop (https://www.brainpop.com/)
– Creative Bug (https://www.creativebug.com/)
– Curiosity Stream (https://curiositystream.com/)
– Khan Academy (https://www.khanacademy.org/)
– Outschool (https://outschool.com/)
– Tynker (https://www.tynker.com/)

YOUTUBE CHANNELS:

– Crash Course Kids 
– Free School
– Geek Gurl Diaries
– Geography Focus
– Kids Learning Tube
– National Geographic Kids
– SciShow Kids
– Science Channel
– Science Max
– SciShow
– TheBrainScoop

posted on March 3, 2020

NOAA SOS Explorer is an amazing visual interactive tool to help teachers explore and explain topics of scientific interest to the K-12 community. Adding a powerful and vibrant visual component to student learning brings such topics as the oceans, bird migration, marine sanctuaries, coral reefs, and transportation to life. This offering could well complement the movement within K-12 schools to convert traditional libraries into media learning centers.

The Boulder Center for Interactive Learning at Dawson (BCILD) has, in collaboration with the educator team at NOAA SOS Explorer, developed a set of questions and internet resources for educators to complement the visual datasets:

https://sos.noaa.gov/sos-explorer/sosx-resources/?fbclid=IwAR2FOJHJGKDdsm3KWdOFrw1zj1HavlmN0Ix0Z6BsbLQjRdr9LoymWt10jAo

posted on August 10, 2019

As elementary school teachers, we developed an entrepreneurial after-school program for grades 3-5.

We felt that it was important for younger students to develop a solid understanding of business and the economy. Our program consisted of three components:
(a) visiting local businesses, noting physical positioning, product, and range of service;
(b) playing a virtual stock market game: GAME HERE;and
(c) creating a product from concept to design to packaging and marketing.

I have not seen many programs on this topic. Recently, however, I met an elementary educator who has developed an extensive curriculum in business development ideas for elementary and middle school students. Eva Foxwell’s materials include curriculum material on entrepreneurship, business skills, and career development: CLICK HERE

We do not know where students’ interests and passions will lead them later in life, but it is certainly advantageous to offer early insight in careers, entrepreneurship, business, and economics.

posted on April 22, 2019

For K- 8 Colorado schools considering bringing in an education program in STEM, consider STEMpunk. Here is their program catalog: PROGRAMS HERE

It is not easy to find an extremely well researched and presented roll-in STEM experience.

One truly never knows where that spark of inspiration comes from engendering a passion for learning!

Engaging students in programs brought to schools enriches students’ experiences and interests.

posted on January 28, 2019

All institutions, by their very nature, contain a finite amount of knowledge representing the communal skills and learning of their employees. Well funded institutions who find skills or knowledge lacking hire more employees or outside consultants. Many K-12 entities lack the financial resources to exercise this option. That is why it is vitally important for local communities to participate in K-12 education either through on-campus interactions, or by offering opportunities in their own spaces.

Universities, with an abundance of professional educators, students, and meeting spaces, are perfectly positioned to offer enrichment to the K-12 community. Two examples that come to mind are the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) Wizards program: HERE and The Rockefeller University Science Saturday: HERE

Both offer incredible learning opportunities to young learners by carefully crafting how to present complicated topics to this audience.

The Boulder Center for Interactive Learning at Dawson (BCILD) hopes to learn about, and share, information on other such opportunities within K-12 communities.

Photos taken at CU Wizard event Boulder,CO, Saturday 01/26/2019
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