This Hotel Lobby Wants Something From You

I love the idea of this table.

This is the table right next to the breakfast area at the suites my family stayed at over spring break. What does this table tell you?

With the choice of this long, narrow table, someone wanted to say, "You should sit here with people and TALK to them." This is out of the ordinary for most hotel lobbies, right? Tables are normal, yes, but typically they are square and fit 2-4 people. You go down to partake of the continental breakfast and guests sit spread out, usually keeping to themselves. I'll be honest - I didn't observe any difference in breakfast behavior patterns during my stay at the Home2 Suites, but I still had a different expectation when I walked into the lobby. If nothing else, it was an invitation or permission to interact in ways I would not normally feel a freedom to.

Like the buddy bench at some playgrounds, someone sitting at this table signals to others that they are open to "playing together."

What does this have to do with classrooms and learning??

Most teachers are more than comfortable with being mindful of ISOLATING students when it's assessment time, and any disciple of Wong's The First Days of School will ensure that students are able to move around the room without bottlenecking in spots, but we must also be mindful of how we will use seating to bring students together.

Not everyone is going to choose to work in a group (and that choice is SUPER important for introverts), but for those that do, is there a space on your room to make this not suck? I have many memories of smushing the slant-topped L-shaped desks together in high school, and it's a reality of room sharing and available space in a couple of my own classrooms right now, but NOTHING about that scenario screams "facilitating collaboration," right?

Whenever administrators or colleagues make note of the kids talking to each other at tables instead of silently staring at me during a lecture, I have to always push back and remind myself even that those tables are a choice I made to allow students to interact. In a perfect world, we would have flexible seating that easily combines, recombines, and separates to whatever setup I want, but if I must choose, I'll choose to connect, rather than isolate.

24 Ways for Schools and Educators to TWEET

I'm leading a session at our district PD day on Twitter, so I made up a "bingo" for the attendees to play on their own as they explore their own tweeting identity.

Which is your favorite?

Are You "Gifted"? - Try This Intelligence Test

Are you ready? 

This intelligence test measures your creativity and ability to think of multiple solutions. Play the timer below for 2 minutes, following the directions in the Google Form below. (reset the timer after each box.)

2 MIN TIMER

What's the Point of This?

I started reading Malcom Gladwell's Outliers this week. The basic thesis of this book is that "outliers," particularly successful or extraordinary people like Bill Gates or Andrew Carnegie are not solely the product of hard work, genius, or  go-get-ivesness, but a combination of brilliance, opportunity, and/or luck.

In one chapter he uses the case of psychologist Lewis Terman's longitudinal study of geniuses, "Genetic Studies of Genius". Terman's "termites," as he called them were children selected from prestigious families and schools for the highest of high of IQ scores. His hypothesis was that when these children grew up and impacted their professions, you would find multiple Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners, and influential civil servants.

More than 40 years into the study, his hypothesis was critiqued as resoundingly false. One contributing factor to success beyond our popular notion of "high IQ" is creativity. Successful individuals are not only "smart," but they are often creative problem solvers and abstract thinkers.

Gladwell introduces an "alternative intelligence test," that measures divergent intelligence (ability to think creatively in many directions vs. traditional IQ assessments that measure convergent intelligence, the ability to eliminate other options to a "right" answer). One of the more popular tests is Guilford's Alternative Uses Task (1967), which asks participants to think creatively about common, everyday items.

How could I use this in my class?
I think administering the Alternative Uses Task would be a great thing to do with your students when trying to unlock creativity or effort in your classroom. Many students who may feel insecure about their traditional IQ intelligence could do well at the task, opening up for you (and them) the idea of who is "smart" in your class.

Divergent thinking is important in finding multiple solutions to problems that can often get kids stuck on word problems/ open-ended problems. Knowing who the creative thinkers are in your room helps you and your students know who to go to as the "experts" when students are stuck for ideas. Facilitating these exchanges also open up opportunities for leadership beyond the "smart" students, engaging more of your students.

It could be especially interesting as an opener to presenting your students with a 3-Act Math Story.

WANT SOME FOR MORE?

You can find "Brick and Blanket" and four additional creativity tests on this post from 99u.com

http://99u.com/articles/7160/test-your-creativity-5-classic-creative-challenges

"We Just Want to Be Comfortable"

I went to the St. Louis EdSurge Summit at Ritenour High School Saturday afternoon. The event featured dozens of #edtech startups with tables sharing their product and passions, and a terrific keynote to end the day from Google Education czar +Jaime Casap, but what impacted me most was the student panel hosted in the auditorium after lunch.

The second question +Chris McGee posed to the group was, "If you had unlimited funds to set up your ideal learning space, what would you include?"

Accounting for my typing speed on an iPad, here are their responses:

• A desk with matching pencils and notebooks, picking where you sit, no desks in rows or columns 
• Students feeling comfortable, couches EVERYWHERE, because everyone loves couches, it's just uncomfortable sitting up in a desk - I can focus better on a couch
• ATMOSPHERE, as inviting as possible, simplicity and complexity in a way to get things done
• We DONT fall asleep on the sofas, it's not just the classroom, it's the teacher too, if we're in a cozy classroom the way we think and work will change
• Availability of being able to choose our tools for what we want
• PAPERLESS CLASSROOMS
• Students interacting with teachers when districts are hiring new teachers
• I think I focus on my work better when I'm working on a computer or tablet
• LIGHTING is a big part of atmosphere for relaxing 
• I can stay more organized with the laptops instead of using my binder.

Do you put as much thought into the layout of your room as you do the color on the walls, the alignment of your posters, or the security of your teacher desk?

I have a couch that I salvaged out of the "surplus: send to plant" storage area 2 summers ago that I put toward the back corner of my room in what I named the "collaboration corner." It's a decent space. I have a rug we were done with at home, a coffee table that I salvaged from somewhere else, and a few clipboards to write on. The only problem with the collaboration corner is that it's in the back corner. I don't feel like I can manage the students there when I'm at the front of the room at the SMARTboard (which is something else to consider anyway; should I be up there enough for it to feel like a problem?) or speaking at a student's desk in the front. So what happens? The collaboration corner hasn't hosted very much collaboration the past year and a few months.

So what's the plan? I'm gonna double down on the commitment to the collaboration corner and move the couch toward the front of the room.

Do you ever feel this way about the things those students shared? You want to believe what they're saying, that they're totally committed to those statements and that in the environment they described they would all be creative, productive little problem solving machines, but your experience with that starts to psych you out.

My hope is that moving the couch out of the back corner will separate the kids seeking the couch to hide out from the kids who just want to get in a spot where they can hunker down and work. The funny thing is, I thrive in the same environment with the same level of trust. I've convinced my curriculum coordinator to let me and a colleague go work at Panera Bread Co. this week on a website for the district rather than sitting at the table in his office. I'll sit there and drink somewhere between 6 - 9 cups of coffee, spread out my things, jam to some music, and crank through that work.

Here's where my put couch on Monday. You've got a week, kids. Show me what you've got.

Donorschoose.org for #Ferguson

Writing from his blog on Friday, +Bill Gates announced a HUGE match offer for this weekend on the popular philanthropy site Donors Choose.

Melinda and I are big fans of DonorsChoose.org, a program that makes it easy for teachers to connect with potential donors. Teachers can post projects that need funding, and donors can search for projects by school, subject, grade, and so on. You can give to your local school, or one across the country.

To make it easy for everyone to support teachers via DonorsChoose.org, our foundation will meet donors halfway. From August 22 through August 24, nearly every project on the site will be half off. For example, if a $500 project gets $250 in donations in that time, we will match that with another $250 and fully fund the project. (We will match up to a total of $1 million.) You can search for a project now—there are thousands to choose from.

I wanted to take this opportunity to highlight the Donors Choose projects in and around my school district in Ferguson to see how many classrooms we could help get over that 50% mark.

(CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO GO TO ITS DONORS CHOOSE PAGE)