PBL Tip: Project Manager

I am lucky enough to be a teacher, and I am even more fortunate to have a sister who is also a teacher. We both teach middle school. She's an 8th grade Language Arts teacher, and I teach middle school STEM.

We talk everyday and compare notes about our classes. She was starting a project this week where they are integrating Language Arts and Social Social Studies, and her kids are creating a movie about a period in time.  It's her first try at project based learning, and she was a bit nervous.

She said the first day of the project was not good. Her kids were not buying in to the project. They were off task. They were messing around. 

She needed some help.

I told her to "have her kids elect a project manager. This person can then meet with you daily, they can grade their group, they can be the ones who remind people to be on task, etc." 

I have found once you create that sense of ownership, you have buy-in. 

I have done this in my class when they have a huge project. 

I told her, "you can switch your project  manager each week, after a couple days--but they have to meet with you--makes the kids feel important and needed."

So, I talked to my sister again yesterday. She said the project manager tip saved the project! It has made a huge difference!

Glad I could help, sister! 

Recap: Spring break with my 2 year old

Spring Break this year has been a little off.

Hubby's spring break was the week prior, which means it was the first time in about 9 years that we haven't been off together. It's been weird. Our schedules have been off at our house for 2 weeks, and I am a little worried about Monday morning and waking my girl up for her trip to Nana and Papa's.

On the other hand, it has been wonderful for me to spend some one on one time with my daughter.
We have been very busy.

Monday-Austin Zoo (Highly recommend for little ones! She got to see a tiger up close. I loved when she growled at the tiger.)
Tuesday-Cinderella at Alamo Drafthouse (It was baby day and I was glad my two year old wasn't the only one making noise.)
Wednesday-Gym and a trip to Southpark Meadows in Austin to play on the playground
Thursday-Shopping, Puppet Show at the San Marcos Library and planning flowers in the afternoon
Friday-Gym, HEB, and time to rest. (Where did the week go?)

Now, it is raining. We had been waiting all week for this "alleged" rain, and now its here.

Plus we have been watching my sister's two dogs (maybe that's why we were gone so much)....I can't do three dogs. It is way too much work and way too hard to walk all three of them...even when Kedzie has the little one.

There is a little part of me that is glad to get back to our routine, and I am really excited for the summer. I think we are going to have so much fun!


Naptime and Duke and Murphy have taken over poor Chauncey's bed.

Presenting at my first conference...some reflections

Back before Christmas, I applied to present at the Texas Project Lead the Way Conference. The conference was to be held in Corpus Christi and this year I have really gotten to pursue my newest passion—recruiting and retaining girls in my STEM program (And helping others to do the same.) As I have started my Masters Degree this year, I have really enjoyed learning from my girls and I wanted to share some of my action research.

I had worked on my presentation for about 5 hours, and I had the hubby proofread it and formatted some changes. I was fairly happy with it.

And then it came to my actual presentation.

First, the presenter that was before my session went a teeny bit long. However, she is an energetic presenter. I enjoyed hearing what she had to say AND to her credit, she did help me set up the projector along with the speakers.  I am so thankful for that because I was having some technical difficulties.

Then for some reason my mouse on my laptop became disabled. (It still is!) This was a bit of an issue when I wanted to show my Youtube Video—however a gentleman in the front row was sitting right there and he helped me with the middle secret mouse—you know the button on the keyboard of a laptop?

I refused to be one of those presenters that fumbles around and wastes peoples time while they try to get a video to buffer. But, then I had another video that I really wanted to show, and I could not find a way to embed it. It was this Verizon Commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP3cyRRAfX0, I was able to show it and it really is one of my favorites.

Some thoughts about my presentation:

1. It was really fun to present about a topic that I love.
2. I probably shouldn’t have used a baby picture of my daughter where she wasn’t wearing a top (especially when talking about equality for women). Thank you audience member for pointing that out.
3. I hadn’t prepared for a couple questions. One lady kept asking questions and I kept saying, “I will get to that….or that answer is coming up.” Please give me a break, lady. Another question that was asked was, “Can you legally separate and create boys and girls classes?” Truly, I don’t know if it is illegal. Everyone is doing it. That must make it right?
4. I am so glad I presented. When I graduated from high school many years ago, I would have never gotten up and talked to a room of about 50+ adults. (Adults are scary….kids I can handle.)
5. I hope people left with something to think about and some ideas for recruiting and retaining girls in their STEM programs.

To the lone girl in my STEM class

Dear Lady,

I call you "lady," (its probably not the most politically correct) but you are the only girl in our whole cast of boy athletes...minus the 2 or 3 boys who are more artsy and less fartsy than the others.

I want to let you know that I think you are brave. It is not easy to be the only girl in a class of all boys. I admire you and I see so much potential in you.

I am afraid that I am not doing enough. I can't protect you from the comments that the boys make under their breath, or the times that you work alone…when everyone else has a partner.

I want to encourage you, and I try not to gush at the fact that you work so hard. I know that your hard work is going to get you farther in life than having a pretty face. Luckily, you have a pretty face and a strong work ethic.

You make me want to shelter my own daughter, but push her at the same time. I know she will be the only girl in her kindergarten class that can use a soldering iron, know how to make a series circuit and how to write computer programs before she can read. I want to teach her about "girl power" and how to stand up to those "mean ol' boys."

I hope I can convince you to stay with my class again next year, although I don't blame you if you pick another elective.

I don't know if this means anything, but because of you--I plan to work even harder to recruit more girls in my classes for next year.

I hope you realize that even though you are the only girl, you don't have to be the first one to help me--or to offer to clean up after everyone leaves…even though I appreciate it.

So for now, just know I am cheering for you. You aren't totally alone…I am here, too.

Sincerely,

Your teacher

First Semester: Reflections from my all girls STEM class

This semester has been one of my favorites so far. I have wonderful students and I love the fact that I have taught many of them two or three years in a row. They "get me."


I do have a new group of students, an all-girls STEM class. At the beginning of this year, I convinced my principal that an all-girls STEM class would improve retention rates among girls in our program. While this fact is still yet to be determined, I feel like I have made some great strides with my girls. While I know that some will not be able to take the next class in the 2015-2016 school year, I also hope that some of them will consider a STEM career in their future.


Teaching an all-girls class has a lot of advantages. My girls come in and work on their assignments without any prompting. They are all seated when the bell rings. If I don't force them to talk, I think we could have a whole class period that is completely silent. (Which is scary.)  They don't always turn in their work on time, but when I ask them to do something--they don't argue with me. We talk more about feelings than I do with my boys, but that is ok.


I think the girls have learned a lot about STEM and are starting to see some of the opportunities that are available to them in STEM fields. Last week, we talked about the lack of girls in computer science classes as we completed the "Hour of Code." They were shocked when we started to look at how the gaming industry seems to view women.


Yesterday, I gave them a final exam where I asked them to tell me two things that they have learned from taking Gateway to Technology this semester. I did not think that they would mention anything about girls in STEM, because the question was not geared toward anything in particular. Some of the responses I found were surprising, and made my heart extra happy.


"I learned that more men than women are in engineering and more women should do it, too."


"Girls can do Gateway to Technology just as well as boys."


"Coding is not just for boys, girls can do it, too."


"Not a lot of girls engineer because girls are afraid to try."


"Girls can do well in Gateway to Technology, too. Girls can help design projects to make a difference in people's lives."


I think these responses prove we are starting to plant some seeds. I am excited to see what the second semester holds. In the meantime, we are about two hours from Christmas break.


I. Can't. Wait!

My all girls STEM class can code!

This week my 6^th grade all girls STEM class participated in The Hour of Code—which was a great end to our Gaming and Computer Science Unit this semester.

I actually let my girls code all week, so we did more than just an hour—we coded in total for about 4 hours. The girls were able to see all kinds of tutorials and create thousands of lines of code. Each day I started them out with a video, some were from Code.org and others were ones I found on the internet. One day we saw a parody about Coding with Anna and Elsa from Frozen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weRX_Fv7BRU, another day we saw a video from Reshma Saujani—the Founder from Girls Who Code: http://www.makers.com/reshma-saujani. These videos provide some very interesting discussions from my girls where we decided that we need stronger girl avatars that conquer or lead. We want to see less “Princess Peach” and more everyday heroes. The girls enjoyed the videos because they were inspiring and made them realize that coding is for everyone—boys or girls, no matter how old or how famous you are.

I loved hearing them talk each day about going home and doing more tutorials from Code.org. Almost half of the class reported downloading one of the apps to their devices. That was not a requirement, but they just loved coding!

I gave them a survey today and 100% of my girls enjoyed learning about coding with Hour of Code. 93.75% of girls surveyed reported that “Girls can code just as well as boys can.” I also asked them why they thought that girls don’t typically take programming or coding classes in school. Some girls stated that they didn’t want to be seen as dorky, or that computers are a “boy thing.” My favorite response was, "because they (girls) think they are weak and we (girls) are not. Girls are STRONG."

Seeing the girls having so much fun and learning together made my heart happy. They truly loved coding this week and I think we are in for a great second semester!

7 Things I learned from living with my parents after 30

Since our house sold in a week and we were in the process of building a new one--we moved in with my parents from June to the end of October.


It was interesting to say the least. I got married when I was 21, so it had been a LONG time since I lived with my parents. Now, almost 12 years later--I also have a 2 year old and a slobbery Labrador retriever.


I learned a lot from my parents. We had some great conversations and I enjoyed their company tremendously.


Here are the top 7 things I learned from living with my parents after 30:


7. My parents love the Detroit Tigers (they are pretty much obsessed...we watched every game this summer) and they also watch the Voice. (Funny to me because I had never watched the Voice and now...I am hooked.)
6. My mom is an amazing cook. I have always known she is a great cook, but she is over the top. (She uses recipes!) I don't think we ate the same thing twice in 4 months.
5. Devices are not important. Smartphones, tablets are no big deal. (They actually go places without their phones...which can get a little infuriating!)
4. Sitting down to dinner is important. We always sat down together and ate as a family when I was a kid--there was not one meal that we ate on TV trays. We would always get the baby into her high chair and she would eat right along with us.
3. My dad is a fabulous "Papa." He will drop everything as soon as he comes home everyday to play with my daughter. After dinner, he would encourage her to "cook" him something in her kitchen.
2. Even if it is 100 degrees outside, they will walk. They walk about 2-4 miles everyday. (I came to really enjoy these walks.)
1. My parents are pretty cool people. They volunteer for everything. They give back to their church, they help their neighbors.


Truly, I don't know how I will make the transition back to being a family of 3. Hubby has a new job and it is a little stressful to know that it is all me again. I really appreciated my time with my parents.


I don't think they will miss the dog drool...