C4T 3

March 22, 2013

I wanted to share an activity called, The Marshmallow Challenge, that has been popularized by Tom Wujek’s Ted talk called, “Build a Tower, Build a Team.” After watching his presentation last summer, we performed this activity at a faculty meeting early in the year and I though it was a great way to have some fun and launch some great discussions. We have worked very hard over the past few years to build a collaborative culture and I knew that this challenge would lead to a great discussion about the power of teaming.
At the end of the day, I was not disappointed. The marshmallow challenge was a great way to reunite with colleagues after the summer break and the activity generated some great discussions about learning in our school. Here are some of the main points that faculty members brought up during our debriefing conversation.
- Manage your time – time is always a limiting factor and it is important that you are aware of the time that you have available to you and plan accordingly
- Team building – working with a team can be very complex but this challenge allowed for everyone to have their voices heard and play a role in a collaborative process
- It’s okay to take risks – this challenge reinforced that it is okay to think outside of the box when trying to accomplish something. The simple fact that no one had ever attempted anything like this previously meant that we were all immediately outside our comfort zones
- Learn from our mistakes – it is important to use prototypes when following a creative process. As teachers, this can be in the form of formative assessment. We constantly need to be monitoring our students learning and using that information to make our instructional decisions
- Set reachable goals – it is important to set goals that are attainable and measurable.
- Group size matters – although the activity calls for groups of 4, we completed the challenge in our departments which meant that our group size varied. It was discovered that the smaller groups seemed to be more successful with their towers than our larger groups.
- High stakes can lead to decreased performance on creative tasks – Tom Wujek outlines how the performance of groups in this challenge decreased when he introduced significant rewards. As our faculty continues to introduce more creative tasks in our classes, we need to ensure that we are setting our students up for success in their learning
- Fun – this was a fun, exciting activity and was a great way to kick off a new school year!

I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile Alabama. Although I am not a teacher yet but am going to school to be one this post spoke to me. This is a very helpful information. This will be on my agenda when I become a teacher.

April 7, 2013

Mark Hardeman says he loves the poem "Fire" by Judy Brown.

What makes a fire burn is space between the logs, a breathing space. Too much of a good thing, too many logs packed in too tight can douse the flames almost as surely as a pail of water would. So building fires requires attention to the spaces in between, as much as to the wood. When we are able to build open spaces in the same way we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fuel, and absence of the fuel together, that make fire possible. We only need to lay a log lightly from time to time. A fire grows simply because the space is there, with openings in which the flame that knows just how it wants to burn can find its way.

Mr. Hardeman says:
I know that many people attend conferences to take advantage of the open spaces that are provided to connect with colleagues and share ideas. This is a wonderful opportunity and I always return to school refreshed, reinvigorated and inspired. I also know that these conferences are not the only way for me to share ideas with other educators who are seeking innovative and creative strategies for our schools. As David said this morning, it is the open spaces that can re-ignite our flame or passion for learning. How amazing is it to realize that we have access to tools that allow us to share spaces and keep that fire burning on a daily basis?

Mr. Hardeman, It was great reading your blog. I love the poem.