Peter Pappas »
09 December 2012 »
In Events, How To, Strategies »
There's a great new iBook that I highly recommend as a source for project based learning and team building activities for middle school students through adults. “Innovation Challenges - Mind Workouts for Teams” is available free at iTunes.
It tells the story of a great program at Saint Louis University, designed to promote creativity, innovation, and the entrepreneurial mindset through novel challenges. The book is a detailed how to for 22 challenges - team supplies, facilitator supplies, tips, learning outcomes and variations. It's a treasure trove lavishly illustrated with photos and videos. Challenges run the gamut from STEM to marketing and sustainability. The iBook also details how to replicate the competition at your institution.
The books notes :
The goal of the innovation challenges is to promote the entrepreneurial mindset through multiple exposures to innovation process in a competitive, multidisciplinary, team-based, creative environment. Just as everyone is encouraged to exercise everyday to keep the body fit, innovation challenges are designed to keep the mind fit. It’s a mind workout. The Innovation Challenges help participants to exercise their creative side, work in multidisciplinary teams, and experience the team dynamics. They learn to tackle a novel situation under intense competitive time pressure, while networking with others outside their disciplines, and most importantly, fine-tuning their entrepreneurial skills.
Here's more about the Weekly Innovation Challenge at Saint Louis University from their website:
Every Wednesday, Saint Louis University students have a chance to compete in the Weekly Innovation Challenge from 12-1pm in the Rotunda at Parks College. Students must form teams of three—these teams must include at least one engineering student and up to one faculty member. Most importantly, all participants must be from different majors/disciplines. The students are given an impromptu challenge and have one hour to compete. Whichever team completes the challenge successfully first wins $300 ($100 per teammate). Additionally, participants are asked to submit a weekly reflection on the challenge and one winner will be rewarded an additional $100.
The events are sponsored by the Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network, the Coleman Foundation and Saint Louis University. The goal of the competitions is for students to exercise their minds and creativity, just as they would their bodies. Challenges have included a wide variety of topics—from designing the tallest free-standing structure using spaghetti sticks to creating a “green” toaster box design. Winning teams have been from all sorts of disciplines. The first team to win was three female sophomores, including an aerospace engineering, political science and investigative medicine major.
Image credits: iBook / Innovation Challenges - Mind Workouts for Teams
Tags: Creativity, Critical thinking, ebook, Engagement, Higher-order thinking, Innovation, Innovation Challenge, Motivation, PBL, Saint Louis University, STEM
Peter Pappas »
18 July 2012 »
In Events, PD, Presentations, Reflection »
I recently was asked to keynote at the MicroSociety annual conference in Philadelphia. While my schedule prevented me from appearing in person, I thought it was a great opportunity to see if I could scale my small group webinar model into a conference keynote.
I used WebEx as my platform and attendees brought their own web-enabled devices to access to respond to my questions and prompts via LearningCatalytics.
Here’s how it went.
Tags: Critical thinking, Engagement, Innovation, Learning Catalytics, MicroSociety, Motivation, WebEx, Webinars
Peter Pappas »
16 July 2012 »
In Ed Tech, Events, How To, PD, Reflection, Strategies, Teachers »
Keynoters typically show up, explain their model, answer questions, etc. If all goes well, folks leave with an understanding of the ideas you pitched to them. Transfer of content is easy in the digital age, it’s processing the learning that’s the challenge. So I elected to flip my keynote. Why not use one of the strategies I recommend to teachers?
Here’s how I used my two hours – not to present, but to put them through a variety of experiences to provoke their reflections. (With more on how to flip your class.)
Tags: Critical thinking, Engagement, Flipped classroom, Higher-order thinking, Innovation, Learning Catalytics, Motivation, Relevance, Rigor
Peter Pappas »
10 July 2012 »
In Events, PD, Teachers »
Calling all teachers, instructional technologists, IT Directors, Principals, Admins and Teacher Librarians who live in the NW. Join us at Oregon Episcopal School on *Thursday, August 2nd from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. for our fourth edcampPDX.
Tags: edcampPDX, Google, Mike Gwaltney, PDX, Unconference
Peter Pappas »
12 March 2012 »
In Ed Tech, Events, Social Web, Teachers, Visualizations »
The folks behind TED talks have just launched TED-Ed to serve the mission “of capturing and amplifying the voice of the world’s greatest teachers.” TED-ED has put out a call to teachers everywhere to submit lesson ideas for inclusion in the new YouTube Channel – TED-Ed: Lessons worth sharing. Right now there’s a gifted educator delivered a great lesson to their class. TED-Ed is looking for your help to find that educator, team them with animators, and amplify that lesson for all to see. Nominate an educator | Share a lesson | Nominate an animator.
Tags: Artist, Creativity, David Gonzales, Innovation, Motivation, Relevance, Sir Ken Robinson, Sunni Brown, TED Talks, TED-Ed, Terin Izil
Peter Pappas »
04 February 2012 »
In Events, PD, Social Web, Teachers, Visualizations »
The 3rd edcampPDX is being held Feb 4, 2012 at Catlin Gabel School in Portland Oregon. This Storify serves as a permanent archive of the event’s social media backchannel. I’m following the hashtag #edcampPDX.
An edcamp is a unconference-style day of professional development organized and given by the local participants. It’s free, democratic, participant-driven professional development. Great teachers, interesting conversations and an excellent chance to network.
Tags: Backchannel, edcamp, edcampPDX, PDX, Storify, Twitter, Unconference
Peter Pappas »
26 January 2012 »
In Ed Tech, Events, PD, Presentations, Web 2.0 »
One of this year’s resolutions was to begin offering webinars. (not that I don’t enjoy airports) I recently completed my first pilot (description below) and I’m looking for three school sites who would like to try a free pilot webinar and offer me some feedback.
I think professional development should model what we want to see in the classroom. So I’d like to start with an 45-minute experiential webinar called: “Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) – What’s that look like in the classroom?” We’ll watch a few short video clips, do a few activities to model instruction at different levels of Blooms and then reflect on the experience.
Find out more and submit a request for free webinar. I will select from requests that demonstrate you’ll be easy to work with!
Tags: ARS, Bloom, Critical thinking, Defining, Essential questions, Google, Higher-order thinking, Innovation, Learning Catalytics, Live Meeting, Motivation, Rigor, Webinars
Peter Pappas »
24 January 2012 »
In Events, History / DBQ's, Visualizations »
This Wordle Word Cloud features the 100 most frequently used words from the full text of U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address. Look carefully and you’ll see “education.”
If you want to analyze word use in all the State of the Union addresses, there’s a great tool at “State of the Union.” Image below is from JFK’s 1961 SOTU.
Tags: Obama, State of the Union, Wordle
Peter Pappas »
19 January 2012 »
In Events, PD, Teachers »
Calling all educators from the Pacific NW. Join us in Portland on February 4, for the third edcampPDX – free, democratic, participant-driven professional development. It’s an unconference built on collaboration and dialogue, not keynotes. As one participant from a past edcamp tweeted “#EdcampPDX what an incredible day! I’m ready for September.”
Tags: Backchannel, Catlin Gabel School, edcamp, edcampPDX, Google, PDX, Storify, Unconference
Peter Pappas »
18 December 2011 »
In Ed Tech, Events, Guest post, How To, Students, Visualizations »
We devised an experiential project, “Complex City” in order to help students think critically about their communities. To help students to become more aware of their surroundings, in order to foster an educated, ethical, and empathetic community. To facilitate opportunities that help students translate experiences, investigations, and ideas into artistic renderings that effectively communicate new knowledge.
In asking them to map an area of San Diego that had significance to them, we wanted them to step back from the familiar aspects of their community and city, and translate those aspects into a visual map. As part of this project, students researched, interviewed, and investigated their city and community in myriad ways. By compiling their work and making collective and idiosyncratic maps of San Diego, they have been challenged to rethink what they understood to be the reality of the built environment around them, as well as to accept the new knowledges that their classmates contribute. They have become more invested in their own community because their new knowledge implicates them as involved citizens. These maps collect particular versions of this place (versions not always visible to others, or in traditional maps) as we see it in the fall/winter of 2011.
Tags: Artist, Complex City, Creativity, Critical thinking, Engagement, Essential questions, High Tech High, Infographic, Innovation, Maps, Margaret Noble, Math, PBL, Rachel Nichols, Rebecca Solnit, San Diego, Social change, STEM
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