Part 10: Good Ideas are Taking Root!
This is part of a series that chronicles the ongoing collaboration between Tufts CEEO and Little Singer Community School in the Navajo Nation. Click here to view the whole series.
This week, I’m excited to report that Learning Through Play with Technology (LTPwT) is growing and spreading into new spaces at Little Singer. This is a school that is primed and ready for enriching all parts of their school day with learning through play, and we’re thrilled to see it happening.
Tom noticed right away that once they were back in the school building, the spreading of good ideas was a natural result of being back in an in-person environment. When his students were having fun playing around with robots and Scratch in his classroom, teachers and students walking past began to take notice. As he kept talking to fellow teachers and administrators about the amazing things his students were up to, they were able to start to see firsthand what he was talking about. Collaboration, joy, a willingness to try new things and make mistakes… These are telltale signs of LTPwT that teachers and students can easily recognize.
One way that these ideas are spreading is through a peer mentorship activity that Tom initiated during his students’ “Genius Time” — a free period where students can work on whatever inspires them. Lately, most of the class has been independently choosing to work on robotics during their Genius Time — which is exciting in its own right. So he decided to invite some of the younger kids to join his class and have his 5th and 6th grade students mentor these younger (3rd and 4th grade) peers in an introduction to the SPIKE Prime robotics kits. Tom and I had multiple discussions about the best practices of peer mentorship; things like making sure the younger kids actually have the equipment and materials in their hands, asking the older students to guide and explain without explicitly giving direct instructions, and pairing multiple learners with one mentor to increase the chances of learners working on things independently. Tom reports that everyone involved is having a great time, and now the teacher of the 3rd and 4th grade students is interested in pursuing robotics in their classroom too!
Beyond the mentoring system that Tom is building, the teachers themselves are becoming increasingly curious about what’s going on in his classroom. Teachers of every grade level and subject matter are taking an interest in how he’s bringing engineering into his daily instruction. We are currently in talks about having me and my teaching assistants visit other classrooms to engage their students in LTPwT. Preliminary meetings will be key, so that we can co-develop activities and ideas that are meaningful to both educators and students alike. I have also offered to meet with whole groups of teachers to conduct some PD training on best engineering education practices. While the scheduling end of things may be challenging to wrangle, it would be so exciting to have a whole cohort of teachers at the same school all learning and practicing together with the same common ideas, values, and methods.
In other good news, many of the tech concerns I reported about in Part 9 are getting sorted out. Tom has been working hard at setting up the tech in his classroom such that it optimizes our (my and the TAs’) online presence without being a distraction. Each student as their own computer station, is logged into zoom with us, and stays on mute except for when we go to breakout rooms. In breakout rooms, we can chat with individual students and give them personalized aid in troubleshooting and brainstorming. We’ve been moving along quickly through our skills building activities in both Scratch and SPIKE Prime. I like to think of the beginning of the school year as a time when you want to help students “equip their mental toolkit” with all the necessary skills and practices they’ll need to be successful, and we’re laying a solid foundation for a whole school year of great engineering projects. I’m really looking forward to how the next few weeks progress.
