5th Grade Science Fair!

In what was undoubtedly the launch point for design thinking at the Lower School in the spring of 2014, the 5th Grade Science Fair in 2015 was truly a sight to behold. This event encapsulated all of the elements of design thinking that we have embraced at Francis Parker. It was awesome!

First, it was 100% student created - all of the work was done by students during class time here on campus, and while students had consultative help from teachers and staff, they did all of the ideating, brainstorming, creating, and designing all on their own. While the final finish of these projects might not be as strong as those that involve parent help, the students owned their work and their learning in a way that would not have been possible otherwise.

During the morning of March 27, our 5th graders hosted the science fair at our Lower School campus. All students displayed their projects and were available to explain their work to parents, faculty, administration, and even their fellow students. It was truly remarkable to hear 10 year olds thoroughly explain complicated projects and processes, including hearing them discuss their iterative process and repeated testing to get a solid final product. Students also provided live demonstrations of their projects for all participants.

My favorite part of the process was that students were required to talk about successes, failures, challenges, and what they learned - not just about the project itself, but from the process of creating the project. Just behind that, my second favorite part of the event was that students from other grade levels visited the fair, and the 5th graders walked all of those students through their projects - students as teachers made for a fun morning of learning for all. Many of the poster boards that accompanied the projects included these discussions of successes and challenges. It was great to see kids realize that failing is part of succeeding, not to mention having them so professionally discuss their end results! See the photos below to get a taste of an incredible morning of teaching and learning and design thinking!

Display boards are examined by parents and faculty members. 

The science fair was a big hit for everyone! Kudos to our 5th graders.

All displays included discussions of successes and challenges - reflective learning evidence.

Here a group of students demonstrates their product in a live demo.

Another group's reflection on what worked, did not work, and what they'd do differently next time.

5th grade teams teach students from other grades - students as teachers led to powerful learning for all!

Updating Our Textbook

In 3rd grade, our students discovered that an entire chapter of their social studies textbook was woefully out of date. The wrong state governor, wrong representatives, and even wrong laws were shown as being current! Our students and teachers decided to do something about it. Enter Aurasma, a very neat app that gave a great option for students to take charge and set history straight.

Students first found all of the text and photos that needed to be updated. Then, they investigated the current and correct information that needed to be inserted. Finally, they put their iPads to use and virtually inserted the correct photos and information into the chapter using Aurasma. This app allows the students to "virtually insert" the right photos into the book. Once this process is done, the viewer can hold the iPad over the textbook and the app automatically and magically updates the photos and text when you look at the page using the iPad's camera. It is pretty amazing!

The students loved this project, and it provided an innovative and creative way for our students to learn the current office-holders in our state as well as enhance their digital learning skills. The 3rd grade teaching team shared that they had never seen their students so highly engaged in this unit of learning before. When I visited the classrooms, I was bombarded by students excitedly wanting to show off their Aurasma pages that they had created!