Imaginative Bridges - 3

While working on the 2 Minute Moment Project I began to think about several bridges.  I think most of us teachers hope to create a compelling educational experience for our students and most students would like to spend their day engaged in something truly compelling or worth while.  We work in a less than perfect environment to make that happen though.  We really have very little control over who are students are and in most cases the students have very little control over which classes and teachers they are paired with (or stuck with depending upon how you look at it).  We work in schools with sparse resources and some work in communities that are economically disadvantaged.  Yet some teachers are able to make it happen.  Most of us have those ah ha moments from time to time that keep us going, hoping that they happen more frequently,  and closer together.  That is one reason I took this class.


How do I make all of my classes compelling and more engaging.  How do I make them more like the experiences I've been having with my Advanced Underwater Robotics Class, my Underwater Robotics Class and my Robotics class.  I have had compelling moments in other classes but they are usually few and far between.  So, how do I know it's compelling?  Both the students and I care about the topic.  We want to keep pursuing it even when the class is over.  Students want to come in during their lunch period and continue working on it while eating their lunch.  Students want to come in before and after school to work on the project or class and not just for a grade.  Actually grades are the least of anybodies concerns on these types of compelling experiences.  It's about the project or mission that the class is working on and "WE" become totally immersed in it.

What keeps you awake at night?  When I'm involved in a compelling experience it does.  Not bills, not lesson plans or grades, not taking the garbage out.  The experience does.  I'll wake up thinking what it we change this? or why don't we try that?  How do I get the kids to do this?  Can I get them there?  It becomes a totally engaging experience.

For me this sweet spot in education or the "compelling experience" is more about the experience than the individual subject.  It is the center of the storm or activity.  It's hard to get excited about preparing a budget and a price list or talking about buoyancy with out context.  Most of my less compelling experiences are taught in isolation.

This is one way that I like to explain it:
We have traditionally taught high school and college like this:

Each individual subject all by itself with very little interaction with the other subjects.  Much the same way we have since the 1800's.

It's my belief that the compelling educational experiences' I've had have happened in a classroom or situation that more resembles the Venn-diagram below:

In my classes the sweet spot at the center of everything is the STEM Project.  I base everything around one big project and try to tie it together through out the class.   So, while public speaking may not be what the students want to do they do it as part of the overall project and they have a stake in it.  They live the project and in order to keep living the project they learn to speak in public and the better they get the easier it becomes and they see this a may to share their work and raise money to continue their project.