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Collab Labs

Collab Lab 29 – Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Our 4th season of Collab Labs kicked off on October 10th with a focus on building skilled trades talent.  We began the discussion by building an inventory of the skills we’d like to see students develop. These fell into two broad categories:

Technical Skills

  • Design Skills
  • Read blueprints & technical drawings
  • Fine motor skills/hand-eye coordination
  • Math and measurement
  • Budgeting/Understanding job costs
  • General understanding of construction trades
  • Equipment/resource planning

Soft Skills

  • Creativity/Innovation/Problem solving
  • Fail Fast
  • Safety
  • Ability to take constructive criticism
  • Ability to take direction
  • Self Advocacy
  • Self discipline/integrity/follow through/show up ready to work
  • Self confidence
  • Determination/grit
  • Collaboration/Interpersonal skills within a team
  • Communication skills
  • Ability to listen
  • Willingness to learn/ask thoughtful question

From there we asked each discussion group to talk through experiences that do or could provide opportunities to build those skills. Here’s what they came up with:

  • Build2Learn Camp $500 stipend for summer workshop
  • European model – apprentices
  • Engage employers – job shadow
  • Inspire/Awe – Makerspace Home Depot creative space
  • Intentionally incorporate soft skills into lessons
  • Provide high interest projects
  • Bring industry speakers into the classroom
  • Real world applications with purpose – e.g. 3D prosthetics
  • Mentorships
  • Teamwork: moving a project to completion
  • Presenting/exhibiting craft work
  • Building confidence with no or low risk simulations.
  • Leverage connections and take them to scale
  • Address skills gaps with “it takes a village” perspective
  • Get professionals into classrooms
    • They can learn from students
    • Talk with students, not down to them

Our final step was to have each group take those ideas, talk through what a program might look like, and share that out with the entire group. Here’s where they landed:

Project Start to finish real world application

  • Build a house
  • Bring in industry
  • Have mentors
  • Engage employers
  • Build soft skills
  • Build technical skills

Goal is to have job ready workers, provide apprenticeships, job opportunities.

Identify industry partner/employer

  • Ask “What do you need from us?”
  • Identify what workforce needs exist
  • Identify training/skills needed

Company sponsored projects

  • Materials or time
  • Interviews of
    • the company
    • the student
  • Interdisciplinary/project based learning
  • Working with other schools/districts
  • Protocols
  • Feedback models – Hard on content/soft on person
  • Leverage technology
    • Skype team meetings
    • Drone/webcams of projects progressing
    • Build excitement about upcoming technologies

Early Hands-on Exposure

  • Youth apprenticeships
  • Out of comfort zone
  • Peer mentorship
  • Self-realization/mediation
  • Options (electives)

Students: Littles – early exposure

Education Workplace: Welcoming anti-racist, data-driven, performance based

What’s needed to move forward: Looking past personal bias, equal access to opportunities, a cultural shift

 

Industry-owned Youth Apprenticeships

  • IDing under-served population
  • Mapped to skilled trades values and skills
  • Bringing the industry straight to the families

Thanks to CG Schmidt for sponsoring our food and beverages for the evening, The Commons for providing the space, and to our featured participants for sharing their expertise and ideas,

Peter Graven – Earth Science/ Life Science/ Robotics, Deer Creek Intermediate School (St Francis)

Craig Griffie – Technology Education, Brown Deer High School

Tracey Griffith – HR Outreach Manager, Walbec Group

Crystal Marmolejo – Project Engineer, CG Schmidt

Reginald Reed – Founder/CEO, Mindful Staffing Solutions

Josh Rudolf – Scheduling Manager, Mortenson 

Collab Labs Return for 2019-2020!

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Our Collab Lab series is back for a 4th season! Join us on October 10th to kick off the series with Collab Lab 29: Building Skilled Trades Talent. The complete schedule for the season is below.

Collab Lab 27: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

See Math Everywhere

We had a record crowd for Collab Lab 27, where we explored ways to enable kids and parents find creative and playful ways to engage in math throughout Milwaukee. The focus for the session started with an idea Mary Langmyer raised coming out of our December Collab Lab– what would it look like if we could see math everywhere in Milwaukee? We worked with Mary to put together a vision statement, and started talking to folks we wanted to pull in to help figure this out.

Mary introduced the evening’s topic and several of her sources of inspiration. We then had attendees form groups that each contained a mix of educators and community partners. Their first task was a brainstorming activity to capture ideas what seeing math everywhere might look like.

Each group was then asked to pick an idea to develop. We had them flesh out details, get some feedback from other attendees, and then outline what it would take to move the idea forward. Here’s what the groups came up with.

Estimation on Location

A scavenger hunt to estimate distances, times, quantities, percents age, etc. of neighborhood landmarks.

  • Where: School, library, neighborhood, grocery store, parks, pools
  • Who: Teacher, librarian, community organization, leader, parents, students, pedestrians
  • When: How about now? How many windows are in this building?
  • Partners: Libraries, schools, neighborhood associations, businesses, MCTS
  • Resources: Basics, like paper, volunteers, data, tracking, use a Google form or app if you want to get fancy.
  • Testing it out: School, library, south shore park

Fort MKE

Engage neighborhoods in construction of forts from re-cycled material

  • What: Everyone likes a fort; recycled/refurbished material; visual appeal of design; potential metrics– capacity, dimensions, quantity of material used, location coordinates
  • Why: Build community locally and across the city; teach math and engineering design, and communication skills
  • Where: Parks or schools– activate anywhere (access/equity)
  • Who: Kids in Milwaukee; 3 levels, for elementary, middle, and high school students. High school students might take on as a service learning project for a homeless shelter
  • When: Summer
  • Prize: Top design becomes an interactive exhibit at Discovery World (with membership for participating kids and families?)
  • Partners: MIAD, Rockwell, Northwestern Mutual, MSOE, Discovery World, Milwaukee County Parks, neighborhood associations
  • Resources: Recycled building materials, marketing materials
  • Funding: Sponsorship from partners
  • Test: Pilot in fall of 2019 with 2 schools

Family Road Trip – Go With Math

Math related activities for families planning a road trip

  • What: Budgeting of time and money – miles, maps, calculations
    • pre planning/investigating multiple trips; ranking
    • spreadsheet tracking
    • estimation and comparison with actual outcome
    • create simulation/game/scenarios of chance
    • create an app for others
    • environmental impact/cost
  • Why: Apply math, critical thinking real life, dream, plus plan and budgeting for the unexpected
  • Where: Could be anywhere!
  • Who: Anyone, any age– a family activity
  • When: Summer project with family or as project within school
  • Partners: travel agent, gas stations, visit MKE, tourist attractions, restaurants, transit, banks
  • Resources: Online travel planning ; spreadsheet app/program
  • Funding: Donors choose/go fund me; online research sites for sustainability

Fitness App Hackathon

A STEM challenge for Milwaukee area students to develop a fitness app

  • What: Hackathon to develop an app to track steps, heart rate, milage, weight goals; Once launched, users can hit fitness goals to unlock discounts at local establishments
  • Who: Collaboration with MSOE and YMCA
  • Where: Host the hackathon at MSOE
  • Partners: MSOE, YMCA, MPS, Learn Deep, area accelerators; MKE retailers and vendors
  • Resources: CYSI; local incubators; Vroom; MSOE students/faculty; YES! (Young Enterprising Society)

What does it take to dye the Milwaukee river?

What’s the math around dying the Milwaukee river green?

  • What: On the (now past) occasion of dying the Milwaukee river green, have students estimate how much dye is actually required.
  • Why: Apply concepts of volume, concentration, and flow rate to a real-life problem
  • Where: Competition at the Fiserv Forum where teams present their calculations. Winning team gets to participate in the ceremony to dye the river.
  • Who: MPS middle and high school students
  • When: NBA Playoffs for 2020?
  • Partners: Bucks, City of Milwaukee, DNR, Brewers, DNC, local universities
  • Resources: River measurement estimates (with which to calculate volume; data on dye concentration levels/coverage
  • Funding: Sponsors to fund Fiserv event; food & beverage donations
  • Test: Get the data from 2019 event; model the problem in a classroom to calculate volume and use food coloring to estimate concentration levels

Milwaukee’s Movable Bridges

Math explorations while waiting for a bridge to lower

  • Where: Milwaukee River bridges along Plankinton Avenue and Water Street
  • What: Younger kids – count the number of boats going past; older kids — geometry of bridges (height, angle when raised, shape), velocity, duration of events — boats passing, bridge raising/lowering; how can this process be made more efficient for everyone impacted?
  • When: Anytime, or while waiting for a bridge
  • Why: We have a captive audience that needs to do something during the wait time.
  • Who: Drivers, walkers, bikers, public transit riders, boaters
  • When: Spring/Summer (to supplement summer learning)
  • Partners: Milwaukee Public Works, Vroom, Google field trips
  • Resources: Signage by bridges
  • Funding: City, summer/after school programs
  • Test: social media challenge; summer to do list from school

Math-a-thon

Math races for a cause

  • What: Create a math race for your favorite cause where participants look at
    • estimation
    • measurement
    • conversions
    • functions
    • substitution
    • geometry – angles, slopes
    • speed/velocity
    • rate of change
    • averages
    • variables
  • Why: See math everywhere– Students determine purpose and type of race (bike, walk, marathon)
  • Where: Milwaukee area with evidence of math and interest (animals, vets, immigration, etc.)
  • Who: 6th-12th grades
  • When: Winter/spring of 2020
  • Partners: City (route feedback, viability); Existing races/walks; fundraisers, organizers, MPS
  • Resources: Classrooms/teachers
  • Funding: Contest, racing funding
  • Test: Plan southside mural tour with 3rd-5th graders for winter of 2019. Show results to potential partner organizations to sponsor an event during the summer of 2020

Smoothies for Mathies

Play with ratios by playing with food

  • What: Smoothie cards that are placed next to ingredients within grocery stores with activities focused on cost, nutrition, and quantities.
    • Substitutions, pie charts, percentages
    • Include prompts for families — what is the most cost effective, nutritious, etc.
  • Why: Access– we all eat, practical knowledge, adaptable recipe, nutrition, creativity, trying new foods/combinations
  • Where: Grocery stores, fruit stands, farmers’ markets, gas stations, anywhere food is sold
  • Who: Shoppers, stores– could be categorized by goal, e.g. more fiber, ethnic food, weight loss, body building
  • When: anytime/seasonal recipes
  • Partners: Aldi, Sendiks, Outpost, Pic N Save, other local stores, Fondy food center, Riverwest Community Food Center
  • Resources: Nutritionist, cook book authors, chefs, graphic designers, MIAD, printers, distribution/display maintenance
  • Funding: grants, advertising/promotion, brands pay for printing, food entrepreneurs for product placement; UW extension, WIC community outreach.
  • Test: individual store, easy to duplicate if successful; community stores

If you want to bake a pizza you must first invent the universe

An after school program to grow and prepare food

  • When: After school
  • Where: Neighborhood center
  • Why: People eat every day. If you are seeing math in something you do everyday, you’re learning math (in addition to nutrition and health)
  • Who: Students
    • Elementary School – garden
    • Middle School – Grocery store
    • High School – Test kitchen
  • How: Chez Panisse in Berkeley, grants, neighborhood center, partner
  • Partners: Grocery store, farm, restaurant, CSA school PTO, neighborhood center, Discovery World,

Build a Business

Student run business as exposure for applied math

  • What: Understanding economics of building a business; competition w/startup funding and showcase of ideas.
  • Why: Teach students fundamental math skills used in a business
    • pricing
    • costs
    • strategies
    • marketing, etc.
  • Where: After school program
  • Who: Middle and high school students
  • When: During school (equity); after school
  • Partners: Banks, JA, area entrepreneurs, foundations, sporting teams
  • Barriers: Time, funding for startups, curriculum, scalability
  • Resources: Leighton (MPS Rec), interested teachers/school districts, Universities, business schools, B-school students
  • Testing: 1-2 MPS After School summer programs/CLC site

Thanks!

Thanks again to Mary Langmyer for her enthusiasm and work to pull the session together, and The Commons for providing the space for this month’s Collab Lab. Thanks also to Monique Liston from Ubuntu Research who brought her grad students to both lend a hand and participate in the session.

For those of you that want to connect with or learn more about some of the math folks and resources from the Collab Lab:

Mary Langmyer is on Twitter @mlangmyer
Chris Nho with Chicago Public Schools and Public Math is on Twitter @nhoskee
Synovia Moss at Medical College of Wisconsin coordinates Vroom for our area
Gabriella Pinter at UWM runs math circles for teachers and students


Collab Lab 26 Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Collab Labs

Storytelling

Collab Lab 26 focused on storytelling and how we can use those practices to empower student voices and drive engagement.

We started the discussion with the question “What hopes do you have when students are given a chance to tell stories that matter to them?”:

  • Students will be able to share stories with an authentic audience
  • Students will develop a sense of identity and worth
  • Students will have the chance to understand a commonality of experience
  • Students are able to advocate for their ideas
  • Students capture history making connections
  • The process models collaboration, community, and critical thinking
  • Students understand the power of their voice, and empathy for others
  • Students share and support authentic representation, identity, and learning
  • Empathy – students see the ethical and therapeutic potential of seeing others as human
  • Students gain a sense of freedom, choice, ownership, authenticity, bravery, and dignity from the stories they share

Authentic storytelling comes with risks, so we also asked about the fears participants had when students tell stories that are meaningful to them:

  • We are not prepared to hear a story in a supportive way
  • A lack of efficacy or ability to change lives
  • If we don’t teach the art and science of storytelling, students will stop telling them– they need an audience
  • No acceptance of failure (shame, exposure, sharing)
  • Sensation of negative, leads to negative – e.g. if one student tells a story of harmful behavior does that lead others to emulate that behavior?
  • It is difficult to combat the toxicity of Celebrity as Hero.
  • Vulnerability of students (low initial stakes with incremental risk)
  • Exposure of trauma without an ability to care for it

From there we moved on to ask “What questions can help students identify stories worth telling?” Here, the need to as these questions in an iterative, repetitive way was called out as a necessary step in getting students to think deeply about their responses.  The goal for participants here is to help students find a story they can tell from the heart.

  • Who are you?
  • Where are you from?
  • Why?
  • For what and for whom?
  • How can this story touch one person?
  • How do you tell different stories to different people?
  • What’s your reason – your personal mission statement?
  • What is/are your:
    • weirdness
    • mutation
    • zip code
    • fears
    • pains
    • joys
    • passions

Our final question asked participants what they need to help students tell these stories:

  • To create a culture and community that supports students’ voices, and provides safety and comfort as they tell their stories
  • To give students options about how to tell their stories
  • To provide students a space that makes them feel awesome
  • Time, flexibility, community, connections
  • Access to storytelling expertise
  • Time for students to play
  • A culture of storytelling that recognizes the need for authentic listening, and receiving
  • The opportunity to use non-linguistic media
  • Imagination

Give the focus on storytelling, one of our discussion groups captured what this might look like as a story:

At MLK Elementary, a 6th grader who was sometimes seen as a troublemaker got up in a front of a room and told the story of how she realized she was a naturally gifted pool player.  This resulted in lots of positive attention for her! The workshops and prep time she used paid off!

Resources

Milwaukee Film

Youth Education (for young people): https://mkefilm.org/for-educators/youth-education

Educator Services: https://mkefilm.org/for-educators/educator-services

UWM

Milwaukee Visionaries Project (MVP) UWM-sponsored after-school animation program serving middle and high school students from throughout the city of Milwaukee. Our programming for middle and high school students aligns with the MPS school year and we enroll students on a rolling basis throughout the year. MVP does not currently offer a summer session, but UWM’s greater Art Ed networking organization (ArtsECO) runs Pre-College Art and Design classes for high school students during our off-season.

Information for Pre-College programming available at UWM can be found here: https://uwm.edu/arts/pre-college/

ArtsECO Based within UWM’s Peck School of the Arts, our diverse programming offerings develop teachers as change-makers. ArtsECO is backed by a strong and sustainable community of arts organizations, non-profits, and K12 school partnerships. We offer monthly Meet-Up events available to the public as well!

Geoconvos

Using place and identity as framework for storytelling as an https://geoconvos.org/

 

Have something to add that we didn’t catch here?  Let us know.

Thanks!

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space for this month’s Collab Lab.  Thanks also to our featured participants:

Karen Ambrosh — Teacher, Audubon Technology and Communication High School
Emily Berens — Program Coordinator, UWM’s ArtsECO
Adam Carr
Wendy Harrop — STEM/Library Integrator, Summit Elementary School
Dominic Inouye — Founder and Director, ZIP MKE & Jane’s Walk
Megan McGee — Co-founder and Executive Director, Ex Fabula
Cara Ogburn — Programming & Education Director, Milwaukee Film

Collab Lab 25 Recap

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Water: How can we engage students in authentic learning experiences related to water and water technologies?

Beyond the facts that Milwaukee sits next to a whole lot of water and spans several watersheds, it is home to more than 200 water technology companies. This creates an opportunity not just to explore physical connections to water and the environment, but to tap into expertise around how water is used and managed.  At our February Collab Lab, we pulled together individuals from area organizations engaged water technology and issues from a variety of perspectives. We then sat them down with educators to flesh out some ideas and make the connections that can help bring those ideas to life.

 

Amber DuChateau was kind enough to step in as a guest facilitator.  She guided our discussion groups through a process that began with participants sharing what drives their work and what excites them now about what they’re working on.  From our perspective, the really interesting work in schools is driven by teachers passions.  This method of introduction provides a chance for them to connect with others who share their enthusiasm.

 

Our search for opportunities began with a brainstorming process within each discussion group.  We asked each table to generate ideas for potential projects using one or more of these strategies:

  • Mix and match — What would it look like to combine exciting work from 2 or 3 members of your table?
  • Shift context — What does it look like to take exciting work and put it in a different location, class (art music, language arts, history, business), age group?
  • Empower students — what does it look like when students drive the questions, act as mentors to younger students, lead the project
  • Distribute the work — what changes if you had 10 classes chipping in, what does it look like if you have 100?
  • Extend the scope — what changes if you can rely on the skills of students/teachers in other classes?

That process gave us a list of ideas that included:

  • What constitutes “healthy water”
  • How does water flow through the curriculum
    • gardens
    • aquaponics (our focus for Collab Lab 22)
    • connecting questions (inquiry) to answers (outcomes)
  • How is water made?
  • Connect Sweet Water’s Adopt a Storm Drain project to schools
  • First Lego League + Computational Thinking + Water problems
  • Water Poetry (with presentation of work)
  • Test presentations of water related work before visitors to Discovery World
  • Tell the story of a drop of water
  • Tell the story of a drop of water through water bracelets (each token on a bracelet tells part of the story)
  • Enlist students in UWM’s School of Freshwater Science as mentors to MPS Science teachers working with Project GUTS
  • Tell the story of the Habitat Hotels constructed for the Harbor District by Bradley Tech students
  • Extend STEMhero‘s curriculum to connect students to look at water usage of businesses near schools

With those ideas in hand, each group moved on to select one idea and create a vision for what that might look like.  Here’s where they landed:

Project Idea 1: Adopt a Storm Drain +

Goal

Students adopt one or more storm drains near their school.  Students understand the function of storm drains, how pollution can enter the system, and be swept into area streams and Lake Michigan.  Inspired by this understanding, they work to keep their storm drain(s) free from garbage that may be swept into the drain and out into area waterways.

Key Issues

  • Scalability– how can this effort spread
  • What education levels to target?

Potential Partners

  • Sweet Water
  • Green Schools Consortium

Project Idea 2: If I Were a Drop of Water

Goal

Engage student physically, mentally, and emotionally to understand the flow of a drop of water from where it lands in Milwaukee and its journey to Lake Michigan.  Use a multidisciplinary approach to help students build these stories, which are then presented to an audience from the wider community.

Where/Who/When

Across the watersheds which cover Milwaukee in grades 6-12.  Pilot the effort in 7th or 8th grade. Prep for the effort in the fall, get students outside in the spring to follow the path of water from their chosen source to the lake.

What’s Needed to Move Forward

  • Identify locations to use as starting point for water journey
    • Tap local expertise to do so (building connections between schools and partners)
  • Do a test run of the water journey with teachers
  • Map the work envisioned back to curriculum standards

How to get Started

  • Reach out to science curriculum specialists to help identify schools who might be willing to pilot
  • Run the idea past local experts to identify source locations that would allow students to follow interesting journeys

Project Idea 3: What Constitutes Healthy Water?

Goals

  • Incorporate actual water issues for Milwaukee– lead, lake levels, etc.
  • Include water quality into multidisciplinary curriculum

How to get Started

  • Identify a client (big or small) for the work
    • Miller
    • Summerfest
    • MMSD
    • Colectivo
  • Craft a project to engage students in work to explore/address the client’s concerns around water.

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space, to Amber for facilitating, and our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Brenda Coley – Co-Executive Director, Milwaukee Water Commons
Jake Fincher – Stormwater Program Manager, Sweet Water
Tony Giron – Community Engagement Manager, Harbor District Milwaukee
Justin Hegarty, P.E., LEED A.P., Executive Director, Reflo
Kelly Ibarra – Teacher Success Lead, STEMhero
Cate Rahmlow – Director of Sector Strategy Development, WEDC
Rochelle Sandrin – Science Curriculum Specialist, Milwaukee Public Schools
Liz Sutton, Outreach Manager, UW-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences

Collab Lab 24 Recap

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs , , , , , , ,

Maps as a Point of Engagement

The idea for session came out of conversations we had last summer with Donna Genzmer and Kate Madison faculty members at UWM.  Kate and Donna run UWM’s  Power of Data Teacher Workshops. The Power of Data (POD) Project offers a 35 hour professional development program in mid-June that helps secondary teachers enhance existing lessons with Geospatial Inquiry.  Through NSF funding the program is both free for teachers and offers a stipend to participants.  We thought it would be useful to offer teachers interested in exploring how to leverage maps/Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools a chance to explore some ideas, and connect with resources early in the year so they might better be able to leverage the PODs training.

Milwaukee has a wealth of GIS talent at area universities, industries, and non-profits.  Our featured participants brought a broad range of expertise and practical knowledge in the use of GIS/spatial data analysis across a variety of domains.  We structured the session to allow participants to share their interests in exposing students to spatial data, explore ideas for potential projects, and solicit advice for how to make that happen.

That covered some pretty broad territory:

  • Neighborhood asset mapping
  • Macro economic data to map micro space
  • Conservation/spatial learning re Zoo animals
  • Connections to Math (social justice)
  • Viable composting sites
  • Linking environmental issues through maps
  • Past/present/future of place
  • Location of “good” landlords/housing
  • Location of bird houses
  • Parent pickup
  • Crime geography/address social justice
  • Locations for mobile maker space visits
  • Place of residence w/respect to school
  • Invasive/native plant distribution
  • Land and resource usemap
  • Suburban/urban agriculture
  • Watershed education
  • Green infrastructure
  • Food deserts
  • Location for community gardens
  • Data visualization
  • Develop GIS Apps w/IT/GIS skills
  • Freshwater connections
  • Connect people to water resources
  • Rainwater flow
  • Safety
  • Waste stream
  • Climate
  • Location of Companies

 

Upcoming workshops:

Milwaukee Community Map

Tuesday February 19th
4:30 to 5:30 PM
Arts@Large – 908 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee
details 

PODS Workshops

UWM POD Workshop #1
June 3 — 7, 2019, UWM Library

UWM POD Workshop #2
June 17 — 21, 2019, UWM Library

details

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space and to Marvin and our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Emily Champagne – GIS Supervisor, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD)
Donna Genzmer, GISP – Director, Cartography & GIS Center, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Auriana Gilliland-Lloyd – Conservation Assistant, Bonobo & Congo Biodiversity Initiative, Zoological Society of Milwaukee
Lawrence Hoffman – GIS Program Manager, Groundwork Milwaukee
Beth Haskovec – Program Officer, LISC Milwaukee
Kate Madison – Policy Analyst, UWM’s Center for Economic Development
Dr. Aleksandra Snowden Ph.D. – Assistant Professor Social & Cultural Sciences, Marquette University
Michael Timm – Reflo/Milwaukee Community Map

Collab Lab 23 Recap

Pete Reynolds Collab Labs , , , , , , , ,

The idea for last night’s Collab Lab came from Chris Willey after a conversation we had last summer.  Chris runs UWM’s Immersive Media Lab, and had recognized that there are a bunch of organizations in Milwaukee doing interesting work in innovation and entrepreneurship at the edges of K-12.  He suggested we use one of this season’s Collab Lab as a way to help educators understand what the organizations are up to, and uncover areas for collaboration.  We started with a list of organizations– UWM’s Immersive Media Lab, MIAD’s Open Lab, Kohl’s Innovation Center, The Commons, 88.9 Labs, Islands of Brilliance, Brinn Labs, and brought a group together to talk through what this might look like.

Collab Lab regulars know that our aim is not to talk at attendees, but to foster conversation among them, so a series of presentations was out from the start.  Since real collaboration requires alignment of more than just short term interests. Real collaboration comes out not just shared goals, but shared values.

This notion gave us both the first step in our process– having participants describe what it is that drives the work they do– and the idea to have Marvin Pope come in as a guest facilitator.  Marvin’s passion is helping others understand and share their purpose, so it was a natural fit. We were delighted that agreed to do so and was willing to work with us to refine the process he’d lead participants through.

Here’s where we landed…

To start, Marvin asked each participant to capture in a sentence or two, their purpose, and the work they do that is guided by that purpose. Participants then shared what they had written, first with whomever they were seated next to, and then within their discussion group.  Here’s some of what participants shared:

  • I’m on a mission to connect math teachers and transform classrooms
  • To facilitate others to become life-long learners
  • To expose students to opportunities and experiences
  • Helping students and teachers rethink learning through new means of instruction and student centered practices

We followed that by asking participants to note what they need to keep moving forward with their work. This too was done first individually, and then shared within the discussion group.  One of the goals here was to illustrate that it is not just educators who need help getting to where they want to be.  Representatives from each of the organizations were part of each discussion group, and they talked through their purpose, work and needs as well. Here we heard things like:

  • A support system that believes in the work I do
  • Teachers willing to collaborate
  • Ideas and perspectives that augment my own

Collab Lab 23In past sessions when we’ve led discussions about how to move past barriers, these focused on the common barriers to common goals of the participants.  Last night we focused on the specific needs of each participant. Participants had been documenting their thoughts on paper form we created for the session.  At this point we everyone pass their forms to the right, to gather ideas from each of the other participants within their discussion group. Once those made it all the way around the table, we let the groups talk through what they had written. The most interesting feedback I got was after the session ended when one attendee, commenting on this process noted “I was expecting a lot of You shoulds.  What came back was a lot of I can help withs.”

We wrapped up the process by having attendees jot down what their path forward now looks like. At the end, the form they completed, told the story of the purpose behind their work, the hurdles they face, the help they can get within the community, and where that help will take them. We invited participants to share their story with the group as a whole, by posting their form on the wall, or telling their story on a digital voice recorder to be shared more broadly.

Sorry, no big, overall summary of the discussion to report, just the good news that the process seemed to spark a lot of ideas around how attendees may work together to get where they want to be.

 

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space and to Marvin and our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Marvin Pope – BU

Tarik Moody – 88.9 Labs
Bill Pariso, Becki Johnson, Pete Prodoehl – Brinn Labs
Nick Grbavac – The Commons
Mike Klug, Tanmay Mhatre, Josh Delzer – Kohl’s Innovation Center
Mark Fairbanks & Amy Mason – Islands of Brilliance
Chris Willey – UWM’s Immersive Media Lab
Ben Dembroski – MIAD’s Open Lab

Collab Lab 22: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs ,

Collab Lab 22 was focused on how can schools leverage a greenhouse/aquaponics facility to provide a rich set of authentic learning experiences for students.  We structured the session as small group discussions focused on goals, the opportunities presented when these facilities are available to students, and what needs to be in place for educators to move forward.

Here’s what we came up with:

Goals

  • Develop authentic learning experiences
    • learn how to think systematically
  • Create a micro-economy
  • Tie into multiple areas within STEAM
  • Create tangible applications to drive student engagement
  • Pull in a new audience (of students)
  • Create a focus/spur for community development
  • Show students and colleagues what is possible
  • Create memorable, hands-on experiences for students
  • Aid local pantry
  • Develop a common language
  • Develop systems awareness
    • Circle of life– acquire food; manage waste; your role
  • Develop productive, self sustaining responsible adults– personal and work ethics
  • Collaborate for learning and greater benefit to community
  • Sustainable educational program
  • Included in educational curriculum standards
  • Equitable access to learning
  • Build literacy for the value of science

Key Takeaway:  The goal(s) for the facility should drive design

 

Opportunities

  • Cash crops
  • Allow students can see what one plant can provide
  • Build transferable skills
    • scientific illustration
    • ecosystems
    • problem solving
    • environmental law/policy
    • public speaking
    • making decisions
  • Tap into kids’ passions
  • Experiential learning — e.g. things break
  • Therapeutic effects/mindfulness
  • Chance for students to see small successes
  • Chance for students to collaborate with peers they would not otherwise interact with
  • Learn culinary skills/safe food handling
  • Build a connection to food/compassion for food systems
  • See something new
  • Experiment with sensors and controls
    • Live monitoring of system: pH, water usage, temperature
    • Build numeracy skills
  • Ag marketing apprenticeship
  • Healthy eating
  • Cooking with kids
  • Community engagement
  • Add meaning to field trips
    • Water/ponds in Milwaukee
  • Tie in to solar energy
  • Public policy implications
  • Develop aquaponics curriculum to build understanding of
    • systems thing
    • food production
    • scientific literacy
  • Inventory of best practices to share and collaborate
  • Accessible exposure to systems– e.g. turn the facility into a demonstration of a closed loop system
  • Composting to teach waste management
  • Start in elementary level to create mindset and culture

 

What is needed to move forward

  • Cultural norms
  • Buy-in from risk management, facilities & maintenance at the district level.
  • A teacher champion (and a backup)
  • A student champion
  • To be around people who know how to do this
  • Broad understanding of the value to students
  • A network of schools working with greenhouses/aquaponics
  • Revenue to cover costs/justify program (reduced need for field trips)
  • Build the case for academic ROI
  • Knowing how to measure behavioral outcomes
  • Regulatory knowledge– how to navigate contracts
  • Celebrate success
  • Space
  • To just start — learn from imperfections
  • Fundraising to expand/upgrade
  • Pioneers sharing their learning
  • Partners with knowledge, experience, funding
  • Colleagues who are motivated to take initiative
  • Tell the story– market the exciting things that are happening to the wider community
  • Create relationships to introduce accountability

 

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space and to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Charles Uihlein – Teens Grow Greens
Joe Jenna – Waukesha West High School
Sam Rikkers – Tiny Earth
Matt Ray – Fernwood Montessori (MPS)

Collab Lab 21: Recap & Notes

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Building Computer Science Talent

Over the summer we met with Ryan Bennett from SafeNet Consulting and Ryan Osterberg from Brookfield Central to talk about the CS internship program they put together for high school students.  That program leads teams of high school students to develop custom applications for other local non-profits. Over the past 2 years, they’ve developed an effective way to engage students in meaningful, high quality work. They have started a new non-profit, Code The Way, to carry on the effort and reach a broader pool of talent.

In the same way that having a real-world project helps sharpen the thinking of students, having a real-world program as a case study helped us talk through a number of the issues around developing CS talent in K-12.

We began the evening with an overview of the Code the Way program, how it is structured, and the key aspects of the approach that make it a valuable experience for students.  Our initial set of small group discussions focused on the aspects of the approach participants found most compelling.  Those key aspects fell into the following categories

Collaboration

  • Building a pathway from high school to college

Pedagogy

  • Context matters (real-world projects)
  • Encourages failing forward
  • Changes the role of teachers/shifts traditional learning models
  • Facilitated Learning

Curriculum

  • Teachers don’t feel confident in teaching computer science and those trained gain confidence and leave
  • Preparing students for future careers involves all students learning fundamentals of programming
  • How do we develop basic technological literacy skills across the student experience

Equity

  • The program/curriculum currently caters to top students.  How do we reach all students?

Partnerships

  • Having real world applications for community organizations is critical
  • What other opportunities do we have available in the Milwaukee area for partnerships with corporations

We then moved on to talk through barriers for each of these areas and what we might do to move forward…

Collaboration

Key Issues:

  • Time available for professional development, collaboration
  • Lack of incentives
  • Institutional barriers
  • Lack of platform to support collaboration

Strategy:

  • Educational policy on CS curriculum
  • Data on tech job growth (to make the case for resources)
  • Connect with business priorities so they are invested in schools

Pedagogy

Key issues:

  • Time
  • Intimidating
  • Buy-in
  • Resources/training
  • Incentives to continue up-skilling
  • Mismatch between what’s being tested and what industry needs
  • CS is not integrated with curriculum priorities

Strategies

  • Invite community leaders to an hour of code
  • Help teachers know it is ok to fail
  • Give teachers a chance to experience the learning module or lesson before going in front of students
  • Recognize opportunities to integrate curriculum– saves on time and adds context
  • College STEM/CS ambassadors
  • Offer more coverage time for teachers so they can learn, explore, collaborate, etc.

Curriculum

Key issues:

  • Prioritization of problem solving vs content (aka CS knowledge)
  • If we want students to solve real problems, what content do they need to do so?

Strategy:

  • Build partnerships/mentors from the “real world” who can inform/provide content, software, etc. which becomes the means to how students solve problems– thus balancing problem solving & content.  So… tap into TEALS  & leverage new partners
  • Quick wins… Talk to TEALS, reach out to local business.

Equity

Key issues:

  • School access– courses are offered within K-12
  • Qualified instructors
  • Paid or unpaid internships vs guaranteed income for students (who can’t afford to go without a summer job)
  • Representation of diverse K-12 demographics
  • Issues related to geography & transportation

Strategy:

  • Centralized platform of program offerings
  • District level talks of scope and sequence for CS for K-12
  • Survey to identify CS offerings
  • Paid internships & provide a pipeline for college & job (stipends/apprenticeships)
  • Opening your doors to see what challenges you have on site. Provide opportunities for others to help/diverse help
  • Privide transportation or bus passes; offer courses within students’ neighborhoods

Partnerships

Key issues:

  • IT vs CS
  • Reciprocal accountability
  • Equity in service
  • Institutional silos
  • Lack of social responsibility
  • Wanting only “cream of the crop”

Strategies:

  • Focus on student’s stories
  • Engage smaller businesses
  • Talk up success, MPS through suburban districts
  • Invite partners to see what is going on
  • Understand the customer
  • Strong message
  • Adjust model to fit more kids
  • Teach that failure is an option

Thanks again to The Commons for providing the space and to our featured participants for the experience and insight they brought to the discussion:

Ryan Bennett — Senior Consultant, SafeNet Consulting
Dennis Brylow — Associate Professor, Computer Science, Marquette University
Karen Green — Computer Science Coach, Milwaukee Public Schools
Ryan Osterberg — Computer Science Teacher, Brookfield Central High School
Mark Zacher — Milwaukee Regional Manager, TEALS

Resouces:

You can find an overview of Code the Way here: http://learndeep.org/wp-content/uploads/Case_statement.pdf

The Milwaukee Tech Hub Education Workgroup is a team of community volunteers committed to addressing barriers that will prevent our emerging workforce from accessing opportunities that will allow them to secure and sustain employment in an era of unprecedented technological change.  The group’s first deliverables were 1) a presentation to make “A Case for Change in K12”, and 2) web content that might help those charged with building a Computer Science program in schools.  Please review these resources before the Collab Lab as they might help spur ideas during your small group discussions.  If you have suggestions on how to improve these resources or have questions about the workgroup’s collective efforts, please email MTH.Education@gmail.com

2018-19 Collab Labs

Pete Reynolds Blog, Collab Labs

Collab Labs are back for a 3rd season

We’ve set the schedule for this year’s Collab Labs.  In Collaboration with SafeNet Consulting, we’re kicking off the season on October 11th with a look at developing computer science talent. Through the continued support of The Commons, we’ll be back in Ward 4– now with street car service (well, tracks).

Here’s the schedule:

View Calendar

2024-25 Collab Labs

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