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Collab Labs

Collab Lab 54: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Collab Lab 54 explored issues around youth mental health and violence. One of our largest groups to date, which included middle and high school student leaders, focused on factors that impact the degree to which students and teachers feel safe and affirmed at school.  Matt Nink and Vanessa Rodriguez from SKY Schools kicked things off for us with a mindfulness exercise, after which we dove into the discussion.

The output of those conservations was a long list of interrelated factors, and some initial thoughts on how those influence each other. We pulled those factors into the first draft of a system map. If you’re not familiar with a system map, each of the factors identified in the Collab Lab is represented as a node. Solid arrows connecting two nodes indicate that an increase in the factor represented by the first node leads to an increase in the factor represented by the second node. A dashed line indicates a negative relationship between nodes. 

As an example, zooming in on one area of the map, we indicate that Students’ feeling of affirmation are driven by level of student voice and leadership, and in turn an increase in the degree to which students feel affirmed at school leads to higher levels of respect for teachers and greater levels of engagement. Conversely, we suspect that an increase in the frequency of policing interventions will lead to a decrease in students’ feeling of affirmation.

We invite you to explore the map in greater detail here. Again, this is a first draft, we haven’t been able to connect all of the factors raised in the session, so we know we are either missing nodes, or don’t understand how those do connect. It’s also likely that the connections we show between nodes might be off, and the phrasing used for some of the factors is unclear. Your feedback and ideas are more than welcome. Let us know what you see, or join us for Collab Lab 55 on May 11th, where we’ll use the discussion to get to an improved version, identify nodes where community partners are already focused, where some of the projects we’re looking at for the 2023-24 intersect and how this mapping might inform how we approach those.

A special thanks to Kyle Ashley, Lawrence Battle, Nate Deans, Clintel Hasan, Maria Hamidu, and Sharlen Moore who got us started on this path, helped us plan the session, and recruit participants.  A big thanks to the students from Glen Hills Middle School, Pathways and Reagan High Schools, and Youth Forward MKE sharing your voices and experience, and keeping the discussion focused on issues that matter most to youth!

Collab Lab 53 Recap & Notes

Joost Allard Collab Labs

What if students could see their work and stories impact the community?

Collab Lab 53 attendees explored new or unexplored ways in which educators might enable students to share their voice and practice advocating for a cause they believe in. They explored:

  • What experience(s) can we offer to give students a story worth telling?
  • What do students need from those experiences to have a story worth telling?
  • What are the assets we can draw upon to help students tell effective stories/share their work?

Experiences we can give

We surfaced 4 major themes as we introduced examples of impressionable storytelling to each other at our tables

Creating an inventory of experiences
Our attendees this evening first discussed an often overlooked aspect of storytelling: In order to be able to tell a story with conviction, passion etc. you need to have experienced it or something like it. How do you create space in your approach to teaching to start building that inventory of experiences? What experiences should you prioritize on, because they are new or unique and not part of the reference context that students bring to your classroom?

Discovery and Identity
Many teachers may have students in their groups that do have a lot of personal experience with certain issues, such as food insecurity or housing instability. Those experiences have certainly contributed to identity development of the individual student. That offers the opportunity to explore what that identity is and how the identity of the narrator influences the telling of the story. What are the biases that the storyteller may bring with her that may present a certain perspective. How do I as a teacher create opportunities to explore identity and bias in story telling and enable students to practice?

Using animals as proxy to tell the story
What would happen to the strength, color, impact of the story one narrates if we put ourselves in the place of an animal proxy? Will the story become more interesting to our audience because we take the human identity out of the equation? How can we as teachers encourage students to step outside their identity and tell the story from a (neutral) point of view?

Talking WITH the person, not ABOUT the person
And lastly, we can make our story more engaging and impactful if we engage our audience in the process. That means learning how to consider the audience, the perspectives that the individuals in that audience bring to the room, and how we can be respectful towards them while we also have a position that may differ from theirs, at least at the start of the story.


What students need

Before we get to the technicalities of developing a great story, we need to understand what many of our students need in order to get to a place where they feel safe and trusted enough to want to explore that. Many have been ‘burned’ by people in their environment (including sometimes teachers) in their interactions to the extent that they are confused and distrusting of intentions. Layer on top of that the many voices that are generated through access to technology, and by technology (Bots, AI, etc.)


If we want to create space for student practice in storytelling and advocating for their interest (or that of their community or group), how do we as teachers recognize our students’ needs? How do we create our own space to learn and practice, knowing that the pacing guide dictates what we should be teaching, when?

  • Authenticity of exposure
  • Trust
  • Safety – safe spaces
  • Passion for an issue – connection to an interest, their world
  • Opportunity and time to reflect


Assets

All humans have a need to share through storytelling

What students bring:

  • Rapidly building life experiences
  • Developing identity (with a lot of uncertainty)
  • A curiosity about the world they are experiencing

What we can provide them:

  • Interest in hearing them individually
  • Ability to assemble resources, create experiences
  • Structure through Process:
  • Engineering and scientific process

Are you actively experimenting with ways in which you can guide your students into deeper learning about the various stories they might consume and how they need ‘listen’ to them?

We’d love to hear about your experiences!

Need some support and guidance as you start to explore what you can do for your students? Let’s explore some experiments that you can try without a lot of planning time.

Consider sharing your experience so far by joining the Collab Lab space on our Collaborative Learning Community ‘inspirEd’. Check it out, we’d love to welcome you into the inspirEd Community

Thanks go out to
Our featured guests:

  • Katie Felten – CEO and Brand Strategist, Strategy House
  • Marissa Jablonski – Executive Director, Freshwater Collaborative of Wisconsin

Supporting organizations:

  • MSOE for use of their space at WE Energies STEM Center
  • Northwestern Mutual for sponsoring the NM classroom at MSOE STEM Center

Our next Collab Lab

Join a diverse group of Milwaukee community members who share a concern about the rising number of Milwaukee youth struggling with mental health challenges preventing them from successfully participating in their education.

Collab Lab 54: Student Led Collaboration to Address Youth Mental Health

Collab Lab 51: Recap and Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs ,

Collab Lab 51 attendees explored the hopes and fears attendees commonly express having when it comes to letting students drive the issues that are the focus of their learning. 

What do we hope for when we offer students the opportunity to pursue issues they are passionate about?

What fears might hold us back from doing so? 

Hopes

Across the discussion groups we heard a number of common themes among the hopes that were expressed — that students feel heard, they are motivated and engaged in work that is meaningful to them, they have the opportunity to discover what it is that they do care about, that the work allows them to build the skills, confidence, and empathy to take on more complex challenges. 

We also heard hopes for what that process could look like — that students have a chance to iterate and learn from missteps along the way, that we are able to design and support project based learning experience effectively, with scaffolding in place that allows students to take on the work, that teachers are equipped and supported as they do this work with students.  The overarching paradigm for participants is that student driven issues would drive the process of project based learning: allowing students to discover their passions and to let those passions drive their education.

Fears

Moving forward to create opportunities for student driven work won’t happen if we don’t recognize and address the fears that hold us back as teachers. 

Chief among those is that a lack of structure on an open ended project could lead to chaos, with some students left behind. Our participants also worry school or district leadership won’t recognize what’s going on in the classroom as productive learning, that it deviates from curriculum, that we won’t hit standards, and don’t have the right tools to evaluate student learning progress. Other fears center on the challenges we might offer students — what if the topic fails to engage them, we don’t have the time or support to pull it off, or are blocked by competing curriculum demands.

Participants also noted fears students themselves might have — how they will know if they are making progress, that they won’t get “the right answer”, that it feels weird to take on work that is by nature open-ended.

Next Steps

Our final question of the evening focused on what one might do in the next 30 days to push things forward.  For our participants, the key to moving forward is building the support to take some risks and align resources that can both support and inspire students in their work. That’s the hard work that teachers find difficult to navigate individually. 

The inspirEd Community recently established a Collab Lab group to explore these and other topics in a community setting. Consider joining the Community if this sounds like something that could help you in your teaching. 

Acknowledgements

We are especially grateful to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

  • Leslie Fee – Talent Manager – Development, J.W. Speaker
  • Clintel Hasan – Strategic Initiatives Manager, Milwaukee Succeeds, GMF
  • Maria Hamidu – High School Success Project Coordinator, Milwaukee Succeeds, GMF
  • Adam Hengel – Coordinator of Instructional Services, West Allis/West Milwaukee School District
  • Chad Johnson – CEO and Founder of Tip-a-Script, Milwaukee

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting our Collab Lab series this season.

Collab Lab 50: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

We hit a milestone with last Thursday’s Collab Lab — our 50th session since we started in the summer of 2016!  Thanks to all the attendees who were there to celebrate with us in person.

The focus for the evening was Community Engaged Science for K12 students (AKA community engaged research or citizen science) — what do we hope students might gain, what assets we can bring to bear to support the work, and what we can do in the short term to move towards those goals.

We started the conversation by asking participants what community engaged science means to them.

Beyond goals such as “the chance to see what professionals are working on and how they approach their research”, beyond “opportunities to engage in or contribute to research efforts that extend beyond the classroom”, and even beyond “:giving students a chance to connect with scientists in industry, higher education or government agencies”, was the idea that the community is engaged in deciding the issues to focus community research and science on. 

That set us up nicely to talk about our goals for students.

Goals for students

Participants had a broad range of goals for student involvement with community engaged science.  From those several common themes emerged:

  • We want students to see that they can make contributions, that science is something they can participate in, and that scientific understanding can empower them to be more effective citizens who can take on issues in their community and become stewards of the environment,
  • We want students to see that they can be lifelong learners, that there are broad opportunities to apply scientific knowledge and skills, and that they can make connections with working scientists in the community who might serve as role models or mentors.
  • We want this work to bring diverse voices, perspectives, and ways of knowing into conversations within science and and the focus areas for that work.
  • Finally, we want students to experience the joy that can come from scientific investigation, discovery, and understanding.

The question then becomes: “where are the scientists, the voices and perspectives, that we as educators may include in student inquiry projects?”

Assets we know

We took advantage of the broad mix of folks in the room to inventory the assets available to Milwaukee students and teachers. It turns out, there are a lot of resources and programs to explore ideas and connect with partners who can support community engaged science.

Just consider this (not curated) list:

  • Business/Professionals
  • Higher-ed, nonprofits
  • Badger State Science & Engineering Fair
  • natural world
    • school yard
    • rivers, trails, & parks
  • community partners
    • multi-visit
    • relationship follow-up
  • curriculum (training and capacity needed)
    • Project Lead The Way
  • school Leadership teams, teachers, admin & district staff
  • teacher experts
  • extracurricular & interest groups
  • local science projects (water inquiry project) SIFTR
  • Other schools’ older & younger students
  • media/news
  • local science experts
    • academia
    • local government
    • nonprofits
  • Parks
  • museums
  • nature centers
  • field experiences
  • Green Schools Consortium
  • Funding
    • United way
    • Donors choose
    • ESSER Funds
    • NSF
    • MMSD (funds for green schools projects)
    • Wisconsin DNR
    • WSST
    • NRF
  • Partners/Physical Resources

How do we move forward?

Just knowing (or just now learning about) assets that are available, is nice but not very useful. We wrapped up the conversation by asking “What can we do in the next 30 days to get closer to your vision for community engaged science for K-12 students?” All of our discussion identified some version of “Continue the conversation with the folks I met here” as a key next step. This could be to: learn more about what another school or teacher(s) is doing, availability of programming or expertise offered by community partners, or for those partners, ways to better understand the needs and goals of educators.

Acknowledgements

We are especially grateful to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Jessica Knackert – Volunteer Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Peter Lenaker – Physical Scientist, USGS
Christopher Simenz – Practicum Coordinator, Clinical Professor, Marquette University
Bernardo Traversari – Director of Science Outreach, Edgewood College
Adriana Vázquez – Director of Education & Public Programs, Milwaukee Public Museum

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting our Collab Lab series this season.

Be part of the Conversation

If you like the topics we select every month and would like to be part of the conversation, we invite you to join us next time for Collab Lab 51 (RSVP). We’ll explore how we can let students drive issues that are the focus of their work (essential component of inquiry based learning, student voice, project based learning). Come share your experience if you are practicing student inquiry with your students, or join the conversation by asking your questions to expand your thinking about how your peers do this and why they believe in this approach. 

Join us by RSVPing here

Collab Lab 49: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Community Engaged Learning starts with a conversation

Our vision of Community Engaged Learning, an evolution of Project Based Learning for K-12, recognizes a role for both near-peer mentors and industry mentors. This essential role supports and coaches students over the course of the projects they take on. We believe that there’s a big difference between simply having folks show up at a school, and inviting them to play an effective role in the process for students and teachers. It is so important in our view that we decided to kick off our 7th season of Collab Labs at MSOE’s STEM Center last Thursday with a discussion focused on the roles of mentors, what successful mentoring looks like, and what it takes to get there.

Participants included K-12 educators, professionals engaged in mentoring, or working with organizations that provide or support mentors, or engage with schools in other ways. We were also glad to welcome additional community members in a joint effort with Foureva Media’s to use the Collab Lab as their Foureva Movement’s October meetup. By chance or circumstance, the group included several mentor/mentee pairs, who were able to provide additional meaning for the discussion.

Personal experience

We began the evening with a discussion of participants’ own experiences with, or as a mentor, and what they took away from that involvement. We’re not surprised anymore that our ‘kitchen table format’ consistently enables attendees to ‘go deep’ within 15 minutes of sitting down with complete strangers. Our participants observed:

  • There’s a gatekeeping role in terms of who has access to support students
  • Systemic racism impacts who has access to mentors, who mentors are willing to serve, and expectations about how those relationships should occur
  • The role of the teacher is different than that of mentors, and an outside mentors can often motivate students in ways a teacher cannot
  • The continuity of mentor/mentee relationships can anchor students who might otherwise have disconnected relationships with family
  • Mentors can provide the confidence students need to push through challenges
  • Time is a limited resource, so we need to look for relationships that can offer the maximum impact within those constraints
  • Stats show: People who’ve had mentors are more likely to take leadership roles
  • Definitions of mentoring vary, but what is key is the mentor/mentee relationship
  • A young person needs to trust a mentor as a friend
  • Mentors need to be able to listen
  • Mentors can empower students by giving them a voice
  • Mentors need to be open to “accepting the call” from a student
  • Barriers between the community and school get in the way of mentorship opportunities

Goals for Mentors and Students

With this as context, we asked participants to capture what they see as the goals behind building mentor/mentee relationships with students. We ask this not just from the perspective of what we want for students, but what we hope mentors gain from the experience.

For students, we hope for:

Support

  • I want students to see how to be there for yourself
  • I want students to feel heard, empowered
  • I want students to see “professional interaction, and learn to function as a group to build each other up, solve problems, and change the world
  • I want students to feel like they are not alone, that they are supported and wanted
  • I want students to feel loved and that people care about them
  • I want students to have access to supports they may not have at home

Acceptance/Validation

  • I want students to feel freedom of exploration
  • I want students to see its ok to be a little different
  • I want them to experience their own ideas in real life
  • I want students to feel included
  • I want students to feel comfortable
  •  I want students to feel that they matter and they can create a future beyond where they may be now

Variety

  • I want students to experience different opportunities that spark their curiosity
  • I want students to see other role models, learn STEM and life skills
  • Diversity in thought
  • I want students to experience life outside of central Milwaukee
  • I want students to experience representation for all/diversity

Perspective

  • I want students to experience a different viewpoint
  • I want students to see someone close in age
  • I want students to see other avenues to be successful
  • I want students to see personality

Inspiration/Resilience

  • I want students to see what’s possible, that they can do anything
  • I want students to see the opportunities available to them to be successful
  • I want students to feel excited, encouraged, heard
  • I want students to experience success
  • Bring something different out of them
  • I want students to experience opportunities for curiosity
  • I want students to see a path forward without telling them explicitly– questions and guidance
  • I want students to be curious, to experience opportunities that challenge, and push themselves to think critically and learn new perspectives
  • I want students to experience what they can be outside of what they typically experience

Real Life

  • I want students to see people/adults with similar backgrounds and experiences doing what they’ve dreamed (or just thought) of doing
  • I want students to experience every day living
  • I want students and mentors to see the humanness/the light in each other
  • I want students to experience real life/hands on personal growth/learning
  • I want students to learn social responsibility and critical thinking
  • I want mentors to feel an emotional rush/connection

For mentors, we hope for:

Fulfillment

  • I want mentors to feel they are making a difference
  • I want mentors to feel a connection
  • I want mentors to experience the joy of young people, to see their success and personal growth, to learn from students
  • I want mentors to feel that their time invested in you makes a difference
  • I want mentors to view mentorship as part of their legacy
  • I want mentors to feel capable, confident, energized, that they grow through the experience
  • I want mentors to experience the confidence that they have helped build.
  • I want mentors to see transformation in a mentee, to experience the feeling of impacting some else’s life, to feel like they made a difference
  • I want mentors to see the civic and social potential of their professional lives
  • I want mentors to see that they are part of how to change the community in a positive way
  • I want mentors to experience their impact, to feel empowered, to see how excited students are

Perspective

  • I want mentors to overcome the perception of the characteristics of a mentor
  • I want mentors to understand the purpose of mentoring
  • I want mentors to understand that mentorship is for all
  • I want mentors to understand what these relationships do for society
  • I want mentors to be in students lives as a way to show them things they may not always see
  • I want mentors to ask questions
  • I want mentors to see the advantages/disadvantages young people bring with them
  • I want mentors to see the path that a student didn’t see, to look beyond behavior and learn from each other
  • I want mentors to see difference as a positive
  • I want mentors to experience the day of student, and how they function with the peer pressure of today’s students

Understanding

  • I want mentors to understand the greatness of kids
  • I want mentors to see how awesome our kids are, what students can do, and that students are people, not stereotypes
  • I want mentors to see that it is not always about instruction, but helping students see a path forward
  • I want mentors to share their own experiences
  • I want mentors to see that students can do better, they can be taught, they do listen, they do want more
  • I want mentors to broaden their own understanding
  • I want mentors to continue their own learning about other cultures/experiences
  • I want mentors to build empathy for what children are going through today
  • I want mentors to increase their global competency and cultural awareness

Visions for mentoring

From this broad set of goals for students and mentors we asked each discussion group to pick a couple of key goals and create a vision for what a successful mentoring relationship looks like.  Here’s what they came up with:

Table 1

Key goals: To have the experience be authentic for both sides

We know we’re on the right track when we see: Vulnerability, empathy, discourse, engagement

For that we need: A safe environment and clarity on expectations and outcomes

We’ve seen this done well within: Higher Ed programs, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Wehr Nature Center, Owen’s Place

Table 2

Key goals: Relationship building, showing up, asking questions, relatable

We know we’re on the right track when we see: Balanced interaction, students start conversations

For that we need: Delivery expectations, time to build relationships, trust, and understand diverse ideas

We’ve seen this done well within: Milwaukee Robotics Academy

Table 3

Key goals: Ensuring proper support for mentors; Mentors as a learning support for students

We know we’re on the right track when we see: Mentors are confident with their group and able to interact well; Students are able to use what they learn to drive their success

For that we need: Pathways to connect mentors with schools or a plant to make connections through workshops or conferences; There must be someone in the school who is dedicated to networking– parent coordinator or Assistant Principal; Connect to higher-ed or just one company

Table 4

Key goals: Get to know the students, feeling of safety, shared goals from mentor/mentee

We know we’re on the right track when we see: Everyone feels heard/valued “I see you”; building trust, especially at the beginning

For that we need: Mentors understand boundaries (do’s and don’ts); knowledge; training; a willingness to let go of control; authentically want to be a mentor

Table 5

Key goals: Connections

We know we’re on the right track when we see: Through communications, networking, commitment

For that we need: To build trust, connect mentors & mentees, have a common goal, commitment, networking

We’ve seen this done well within: Glenn Hills Middle School/other public schools; Engineers without Borders; Habitat for Humanity; Peace Corps.

What’s next?

After reading the insightful contributions from the Collab Lab participants above, you might ask yourself: So where does this go from here?

Join us Thursday, October 27th from 4:30 to 5:30 on Zoom for a follow up conversation.  We want to talk through what you heard, what you’d like to act on, and explore how we can lay the groundwork to do so. RSVP

Acknowledgements

We are especially grateful to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting our Collab Lab series this season.

Be part of the Conversation

If you like the topics we select every month and would like to be part of the conversation, we invite you to join us next time for Collab Lab 50 (RSVP) when we explore how we can incorporate the notion of Community Engaged Science into the student learning experience.

 

Collab Lab 47: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs, Learn Deep Fellows

Our focus for the Collab Lab 47 was a reflection on what we’ve learned over the first year of our Fellows Program. Prior to the Collab Lab we sat down with a our Fellows for a conversation about what they wanted to get out of the discussion.  The first two questions we settled on are a reflection of where the Fellows see value in the program and partners. 

Too often teachers are offered programming or resources without the recognition of what else might need to be in place, or the additional work required of a teacher to take advantage of  them. Nothing interesting happens in a classroom without a teacher willing to say “yes”, and that comes when we solve problems for teachers.  That lead us to our first question for the evening:

What makes an offering of support for teachers a gift rather than just one more thing to take on?

  • Collaboration
    • share the workload
    • cross pollinate ideas
  • It’s real
    • service learning
    • connected to community
    • multidisciplinary
    • PBL
    • Engages students
    • students work to develop solutions
  • It fills a known gap for the teacher
  • A curriculum framework that:
    • is completed
    • is documented
    • integrates outside expertise that know how to work with students
    • is updated
    • provides a prescription for how to execute with room to flex
  • Provides resources for both students and teachers to execute
  • Helps students develop 21st century skills
  • Builds career connection
  • Field experiences (free is good)
  • Provides access to mentors
  • Kids are engaged and motivated
  • Aligns with standards
  • Provides opportunities for problem solving/authentic learning
  • Can be extension projects
  • Multiple points of alignment/integration with curriculum
  • Provides a chance to showcase the work of students
  • Streamlined partnerships/easily accessed resources
  • Listen first, keep listening
    • find openings
    • point out success teachers have
  • Create Joy
  • Be transparent
  • Extend gratitude
  • Ask for feedback
  • Don’t be scary
    • Goals that differ from teacher
    • time consuming
    • unaware of pacing guide, constraints, or not connected to standards
    • offering doesn’t complement curriculum
    • Too scripted and prescriptive
  • Focus on kids’ learning

Through the Collab Labs and work with program partners over the course of the year, the Fellows see a lot of value in understanding how those outside of education approach parallel problems.  Collaboration is important to the fellows, both in terms of providing a richer set of experiences for their students, and also to share the load with colleagues and to learn from what peers may have tried.  That led us to our second discussion point for the evening:

How do you form a relationship with colleagues conducive to creating a collaborative culture focused on learning?

  • Share successes
  • Create opportunities for shared learning experiences
  • Focus on kids motivation and engagement
  • Provide opportunities for casual, open-ended conversations
  • Make it a regular practice
  • Practice collaboration across different content areas
  • Use student presentations as a chance to collaborate/share with colleagues.
  • Foster trust
  • Be supportive
  • Model collaboration/continuous learning during the school day
  • Build diversity into the process with a range of levels of 
    • expertise
    • knowledge
    • experience
  • Establish norms for 
    • sharing
    • listening
    • encouraging all to share
    • process and project management approaches
  • Establish accountability
    • universal
    • commitment
  • Recognize that preferred modes of communication will vary between colleagues

The third question for the evening came from our shared goal of ensuring that all Milwaukee students have the chance to participate in the kind of community engaged, real world, learning experiences that can help them both uncover what they are passionate about, and see paths forward to pursue those passions.

How do we make these opportunities equitable and accessible to all students?

  • Engage all students from the outset and provide
    • choice – enable students to approach and pursue the challenge from the points where they are most engaged
    • flexibility – be creative/flexible about how the learning experience might evolve, and where it might lead
    • anticipate and address barriers that may limit participation or engagement for some students
  • Maintain a growth mindset
  • Provide a safe place, where it is ok to be vulnerable
  • Focus on others strengths
  • Connect to what learners love

 

 

We we’re glad to see a high level of engagement around the questions, and, as usual, very different approaches to documenting each group’s conversation. That the conversations continued well after we wrapped things up is a measure of success for the process.

 

Thanks again to our Fellows for guiding the discussion and MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting us!

Collab Lab 45 Recap – The student experience on real world projects

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

What do we want students to get out of real world projects?

Introduction

Engaging students in real world projects creates opportunities to connect with students’ passions, build connections to the broader community, and for students to see that they can have an impact. Our discussion at February 2022’s Collab Lab focused what we want students to experience on these types of projects, what students, teachers, and partners bring that can help create these experiences, and what stands in the way. Joining the discussion were students from MSOE’s Create Institute and Software Development Lab, and Engineers Without Borders at Marquette University who are involved in real world projects of their own.

Start with the end in mind

To start our exploration we asked ourselves:  “What do we want students to experience as part of their learning?”

  • Exciting challenges
  • Feel comfortable to ask questions
  • Supportive setting
  • Fail forward
  • Open result
  • Experience variety
  • they can have the opportunity to get excited about the learning
    • they can become the expert
      • they can teach the teacher
        • they can become effective collaborators
  • Bring their ideas to life– makes everything more relevant, to feel a sense of empowerment (voice, make/change decisions)
  • experience success from mistakes– students should learn from their answers
  • take classroom knowledge in the abstract to practical application — make everything relevant
  • have a voice in shaping the project — problems don’t have a single answer (broaden scope)
  • listen to other people’s ideas and provide feedback– builds both community and communication skills
  • find something for them to be passionate about and run with it — motivation to advance
  • Understand the “why” behind concepts — knowledge can be transferred, retained
  • Self awareness
  • Provide opportunities
    • new experience
    • further exploration
  • Connect to future experiences
  • Enlightenment/fun/joy
  • Problem solve
  • Build skills
  • Communication – seeing themself in the position
  • Finding purpose
  • Build confidence in their ability (wins)
  • empathetic
  • Have fun
  • feel empowered and inspired
  • to know they can make a difference/real world
  • to feel included, (culturally/gender)
  • to see what they can be
  • to feel safe & heard
  • to feel connected to their community
  • they can learn from failures
  • Engaging “tricky” students
    • ask a lot of questions
    • some are afraid of failure
    • confidence building
    • it’s ok to take a risk

For our participants, the big “whys” behind all of this are for students who feel inspired, valued, and heard; to see that they can make a difference in the their community and contribute to the happiness of others.

The Assets we bring to learning

We continued our discussion by asking about the assets the students, teachers, and community partners bring to the table to support student engagement in real world projects.  For students, the key assets noted across our discussion groups are their curiosity, excitement, and perspective.  Other assets include their:

  • ideas
  • background knowledge
  • culture/cultural perspective (language and norms)

In the case of educators, it is their own passions, ability to facilitate inquiry based work and create the space and structure for this work to happen that are key assets that support student engagement in real world projects. Others include:

  • connections
  • resources
  • justification
  • expectations
  • community partners
  • culture
  • growth mindset
  • dedication
  • empathy
  • communication

For community partners, the most noted assets are the expertise, relevance, and perspective they can bring.  It’s their view of the world from beyond school which helps make the work relevant to students and gives them an incentive beyond grades to dive deep.  Other assets noted in our discussions include:

  • expertise
  • resources
  • awareness
  • different lens
  • support for students/teachers for experiences
  • Role models/mentors

Finally, it was noted that all three groups bring their own cultural intersectionalities, which create the opportunity for much richer collaboration and learning.

Barriers. A familiar list

We wrapped up the discussion with a quick inventory of barriers to engaging students in real world projects. The list should look familiar:

  • too much internet?
  • loss of community/hands on opportunities
  • Switch from micro (classroom) to macro (real world)
  • not enough trust of teachers
  • not enough time/prep
  • Focus on standardized testing
  • Time
  • Inequities/Disadvantage
  • Lack of access to resources & support
  • Money
  • Balance of commitments
  • Out-of-touch leadership
  • Overworked teachers
  • No opportunity to collaborate
  • Student, school, community misalignment
  • Teachers
    • almost anything out of the classroom
    • legislation
  • Community Partners
    • understanding connections to curriculum
    • time for meaningful engagement
  • Students
    • need to balance effort across classes to prevent burnout
    • jobs
    • home responsibilities (cleaning, cooking, siblings, etc.)

 

Acknowledgements

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting Collab Labs this season and to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Chris Beimborn – UW-Milwaukee EnQuest Coordinator and STEM Outreach Manager

Abby McGill – Marquette University, Engineers without Borders

Anne-Marie Warren, Laura Pizano, Pelumi Ajayi – Student Fellows with MSOE’s Create Institute

Hunter Turcin & Amish Verma – Students working with Learn Deep in MSOE’s Software Development Lab

Continue the Conversation

If you like the topics we select every month and would like to continue the conversation, we invite you to join ‘inspirEd‘, an online Collaborative Learning Community. We focus on growing our innovative teaching practice together by sharing what works and what hasn’t. 

Working with Community Partners for student success – Recap & Notes

Joost Allard Blog, Collab Labs , , , ,

How can organizations and educators effectively collaborate for greater student success?

Our December Collab Lab conversations explored the benefits, needs and hurdles of collaboration on student learning experiences. One of the major hurdles for teachers to be able to create truly engaging real world experiences with students is the challenge of involving the appropriate outside expertise at the appropriate time in a student’s project. And if the student is encouraged to determine when that additional expertise would be helpful, things get even more messy. But since we all recognize the value of bringing in that outside perspective, what are some (proven) approaches that teachers could adopt as they venture in the world of student driven learning experiences?

Our December 2021 Collab Lab  (what’s a Collab Lab?) provided an opportunity to explore how we might leverage outside resources and begin establishing relationships to shift the use of ‘mentors’ from a 30 minute ‘song and dance’ to a meaningful semester long mentor relationship that draws out the best in each student?

After taking some time to to explore the participant’s own experience with collaboration, either as an educator or as a community partner, we asked the starting question to some great conversations: How can we create the circumstance for effective collaboration amongst teachers and (supportive individuals at) community organizations?

Common themes highlighted by all groups were:

  1. Communication, including feedback, is a major factor in successful collaboration when it comes to blending learning inside and outside the classroom;
  2. Commitment to the relationship and a plan for ongoing involvement;
  3. Flexibility of participation on a week by week basis (‘school’ is a messy workplace);
  4. Clarity around who is available as a partner and what kind of input and commitment is offered;

Nothing too stunning, and in fact these are core aspects of any successful and sustaining collaboration in the business world and public-private partnerships. What is unique is that these conversations provided an opportunity for educators and community members in non-profit and corporate settings to hear from each other what makes (common) sense to pursue if we are serious about working together for the greater benefit of the students in Milwaukee. What makes this more challenging? The complex environment we’ve created that we call ‘school’.

This list is not claiming to be complete, but it does provide several worthwhile entry points for further exploration if we want to come together in an (STEM) ecosystem to gradually implement the type of learning that we know 21st century students need exposure to if we want to develop the talent our communities are in desperate need of. A great starting point for further exploration of ‘what’s possible’! 

 

Interested in this type of conversation and being part of creating the shift in education we need?

Join our Collaborative Learning Community ‘inspirEd‘ and become part of creating the future of education.

 

What should effective partnerships offer teacher, students and partners? 

Here is what the attendees uncovered:

Teachers Partners Students
setting expectations of what’s possible setting expectations of what’s possible continuous learning made possible
involving partners enriches the curriculum enables partner to better meet funder standards getting out of the classroom in a meaningful way
It addresses the need for funds for activities (and PD) offer culturally responsive practices

opportunity for hands on activities, leading to exposure to careers
having a list of partners to pull from exposure for educators and students stimulating creativity and curiosity
Receive feedback from partner receive feedback from educators active engagement in the learning: “I wonder….?”
continuity & longitudinal experiences flexibility to work with school/grade needs

accountability to learning outcomes
sustaining relationships through transitions plan of action for building ongoing relationships more than one-time experiences
willingness to try Connect with the greater community – schools, families open-ended-ness of learning and exploring
pre-planning events open, collaborative communication engagement with people and community
ideas for what to include in teaching through learning experiences who are the partners and when are they available? opportunity to explore the Why?
community involvement in learning experiences clear idea of the goal of partnering with teachers STEM and business careers exposure
sharing experience with ‘being involved’ sharing experience with ‘being involved’ sharing experience with ‘being involved’
exposure to work, careers, etc. exposure needs and challenge of teaching exposure to mentors, work and concepts
  meaningful volunteer opportunities builds hope and ability to dream about their place in the community
  hearing from others what an organization might do for the community  
  talent recruiting  

 

What is needed to develop an effective collaboration for student success?

There are a lot of good intentions among those early to recognize that collaboration with teachers in real world focused student projects present great benefit and opportunity. But how do we practically get to a place where we can start realizing those benefits?

The attendees have the following suggestions:

Teacher Partner Student
access to partners access to teachers Access to mentors ‘from the real world’
budget available budget for interaction at middle/high school level learning takes time
curriculum alignment available time to volunteer training 
available time to devote experience with mentoring (middle school) students set behavior goals (accountability)
Training (pbl, technology, management) individual commitment to engage for the duration of a student project how to drive their full engagement
management support  administration/upper management support and involvement commitment to learn
transportation and other logistical resources time  co-teaching
commitment to support  alignment to learning standards alignment to learning standards
motivation a coordinators cross curricular / interdisciplinary activities
energy growth mindset growth mindset
set of goals for collaboration patience class visits
a list of ‘what’s possible’    
willingness to take risks    
Patience    
growth mindset    

 

What gets in the way of successful collaboration ?

We all can imagine the sorts of things that get in the way of teachers doing their best teaching and community partners staying committed over time. What stood out for me was 

A lack of advocating for the benefits of hands-on learning experiences through stories of student success, both in the school context and in the community partner organization.

 

Here is the list our conversation participants developed

Teacher Partner Student
understanding of different learning styles understand (student) learning styles learning styles
experience with different teaching strategies funding in support of real world learning and your employee participation in it available time (none!)
funding do you have an overall engagement strategy motivation to learn
time how much time can you afford to dedicate? learning to get and receive feedback
understanding the audience understanding your audience (teachers) and their familiarity level with modern business language/disability
getting feedback giving and getting feedback about what works background knowledge
limited network / contact list matchmaking of relevant expertise need of deeper processing (time to process and follow through)
awareness of available resources and opportunities logistics Reflection
miscommunication miscommunication hierarchy of needs
logistics lack of knowledge  relatability
Creating the stories of ‘why’ one-sided decision making  
unwilling to showcase opportunity willingness to make involvement mutually beneficial  
Professional Development (related to pbl/domain/tech) admin involvement  
expectations for students and partners corporate structure  
  restrictive funds  

 

Would you like to join these conversations with teachers and community partners?

Consider participating in upcoming Collab Labs. Every 2nd Thursday of the month during the school year. RSVP on our Collab Lab page

Not a member of inspirEd yet? Join the Collaborative Learning Community ‘inspirEd‘ and continue this and other conversations with your peers from across Milwaukee and beyond who are experimenting with and sharing what works for our students.

 

Acknowledgements

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting Collab Labs this season and to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Bev Bryant – Park Naturalist at Wehr Nature Center

Catrina Crane – Director of Workforce & Business Solutions, Menomenee Valley Partners

Elizabeth Taylor – Director of STEM, MSOE

Graciela Hernandez  – Senior Universal Banker with Summit Credit Union

Natalia Hernandez – Outreach Specialist, the Harbor District

Collab Lab 43: Prototyping with K-12 students – Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

How should we introduce modern prototyping with K-12 students?


We’ve heard from engineering instructors in both K-12 and higher-ed that students too often focus on “getting the right solution”.  This leaves the students reluctant to experiment with alternative concepts that may not pan out.  This ‘solution focus’ also leads to disengagement from the problem– students seek what they perceive to be the safest path to the “correct” solution, and fail to devote the time and energy to build a deep understanding of the problem at hand. 

Our November 2021 Collab Lab provided an opportunity to explore how we might leverage prototyping and testing to shift students’ focus from perfecting a solution to perfecting their understanding of the problem (and how it might be solved).

Photo of Collab Lab attendees
Teachers and product designers discuss iterative design and prototyping with K-12 students during Learn Deep’s monthly Collab Lab workshop

 

The Student experience

After exploring the participants’ own experience with when something that didn’t go as expected and the assumptions behind that, we asked “How/where can we give students the opportunity to recognize and test the assumptions behind their design decisions?

Here’s what we heard

What they need

  • Problem solving skills
  • Opportunities for voice/sharing
  • How to work effectively within a team
    • Learning styles
    • Shared responsibilities
  • Space needed
    • Get out of the building
  • Natural connections
    • Real world application
  • To know the “why” behind the challenge
  • A purpose/project that can grow with them
    • they can carry on their work on the issue as they advance in school
  • Multiple Paths
  • Varied timelines
  • Varied instructions
  • Safe environment for hands-on experimentation 
  • Models and examples for inspiration
  • Education on both content and process
  • Comfort with design thinking process
    • Empathy
    • Design
    • Ideate
    • Prototype/Test
    • Iterate
  • The opportunity to test understanding/assumptions throughout that process– in particular at the earliest stage– their understanding of the problem.

When should this happen

Teachers following the school or district’s curriculum to ensure that essential concepts and topics are introduced during the school year. This leaves them little time to deviate from the main path. Knowing this, the teachers identified 4 opportunities to introduce these concepts to students. 

  • Continuous, at every step of learning
  • Integrated into lessons during the school year
  • After school programs
  • During student exchanges

Adjustments we can make

How and where are the opportunities to experiment so you as a teacher can gain experience. Here are the variety of options our attendees developed to could consider trying:

  • Integrate STEAM into all lessons
  • Participation in competitions
    • State science fair, etc.
  • Pride in school/team
  • Invite former students back as mentors
  • Revised grading system
    • Evaluate students on process, re-work, soft skills
  • Student self-assessment
  • Peer reviews
  • Frequent check-ins
  • Evaluation of the process
  • Explain relevance
  • Wonder (genius time)
  • Develop an iterative mindset

For more information…

New Milwaukee initiative

We were delighted to have Katie Schober from STEAM Milwaukee share some of the materials available through the organization’s Lend A Lab Program host a pop-up pre-session.  For more information on that program, reach out to Katie at info@steammilwaukee.com.

Engineering life

Will Gorecki has documented his adventures building a jet suit and has captured a few life lessons on his blog.

Design Thinking

Design thinking came up at several points in the conversation.  The Stanford D School has a handy primer on the subject here. As the session wrapped up Dr. Shalamova stressed that while the design thinking process typically places prototyping and testing after ideation, the most critical assumption to test is that one actually understands what the problem is. This means looking for ways to validate that understanding before students start looking at potential ways a problem might be solved.

Michael Hohl has a great piece on the value of prototyping early and often here.

Help Milwaukee students with their Water Stories project

Our Learn Deep Fellows are currently working on ‘Our Water, Our Stories’ projects with their students.  Theresa Johnson mentioned that as part of the water projects at Wedgewood Middle School (MPS) students in Advanced Science are collecting data about water availability and cleanliness. They hope to understand the issues that impact Milwaukee in regards to water and to develop a sustainable way to improve the issues. The students have produced a survey to understand community member perspective on clean water availability. They invite you and your friends and neighbors to participate by filling out their survey here.

……

Continue the conversation on inspirEd.

Thanks again to MSOE’s STEM Center for hosting Collab Labs this season and to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Ian Corrao, Michael Klug, Brandon Bakken — Northwestern Mutual

Will Gorecki— Milwaukee Tool

Dr. Nadya Shalamova— MSOE

Collab Labs Return for Season Six!

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Season six of our Collab Lab Series kicks off on October 14th. This year we’ll be back in-person at a new location– MSOE’s STEM Center.  The center was host to our STEM Studio sessions with the Learn Deep Fellows in August. The ample whiteboard space and standing tables of the Center’s Lab work well for collaborative efforts, and on-street parking should be much simpler.

Collab Lab 42, our first session of the season will focus on the series of water related projects the Learn Deep Fellows developed over the course of the STEM Studio sessions that they will run over the course of the 2021-22 school year.  Subsequent sessions will provide further occasions to explore with the Fellows the challenges and opportunities that come with engaging students in hands-on collaborative work focused on real-world challenges.

November – Prototyping/testing ideas
December – Working with community partners
February – Student experience
March – Connecting projects across grade levels
April – Fellows experience (what have we learned/how do we want to adjust)
May – Welcome Cohort II

Collab Labs will run from 5:30 to 8:00 pm on the 2nd Thursday of each month from October to May, with the exception of January.  They are free to attend, but space is limited, so we’ll ask you to register ahead of time.

We’ll be following MSOE’s Covid protocols for on campus meetings. At this point, that includes masks for all attendees, regardless of vaccination status.  As that policy changes, we’ll provide updated information in the details for each session.