Tuesday, January 31, 2017 | Ideation Day 4

Who are we as a community of thinkers, innovators?

What do I need to know about myself and my community, in order to develop a project?

How can I document and share my thinking through effective routines and organization?

At the end of this week of exploration, we begin narrowing ideas toward a driving question, problem statement, and a course of research.

DO NOW: FIVE MINUTE SPEED RESEARCH [5 min]

Spend five minutes researching. Google the topic or a question you have. Be ready to share out what you researched and how it went.

DO NEXT: SHARE OUT [8 min]
On a scale from 0-5, how much information did you find? Share out, including one piece of new information and the source. Consider, the quality of the source.

• SEE. - What did you notice in your 5 minutes of research? In our share out?
• THINK. - What do you think a lot/little information in 5 minutes means? What do you think about the quality of sources found in 5 minutes?
• WONDER: What does this experience make you wonder about your own research process.

EASYBIB SETUP [7 min]

Set up an account and new project in Easy Bib by following these directions.

1. Click login on the EasyBib website.
2. Click +New Project

3. Title your new project: First and Last Name | IDEAS Block | Spring 2017

Example: Addie Degenhardt | IDEAS Block | Spring 2017

MORE QUESTIONS [10 min]

• As a group, read the Driving Question page on the Humanities Website [3 minutes]
• Clarifying questions?
• Create a new document in your Project Block folder. Template
• Name it : Firstname Lastname | Driving Question | Spring 2017
• Move it to your P-Block folder
• Generate clear lists of Open and Closed questions on a topic.
• These can be copy and pasted from yesterday’s brain dump on your Question Starts document and added to throughout your process. Think of this document like your parking lot for the questions you need/want to answer throughout your process.

ADVISOR CONTACT [10:30-11:00]

Students

Advisors

Before you leave to discuss topics and ideas with advisors, create a list of 1-3 questions you want the advisor to consider. Be patient. If the advisor you are seeking out is busy, you might have to send them an email instead. Use your time during this 30 minutes wisely. If and when you discuss with an advisor, document your conversation. Be mindful of your advisor’s time. Please make sure you are back in your ideation groups by 11:00.

Make sure that you honoring the time of your p-block people and make sure they have the 30 minutes. Ensure your advisee have a clear picture of who they will be speaking with and what they will be asking before they leave. When speaking with students during this time, make sure they are documenting the conversation and that you are keeping an eye on the time. Please make sure all students are back in their ideation groups by 11:00.

SHARE OUT CONVERSATIONS [15 min]

• 1 interesting thing you learned or discovered OR 1 powerful question you asked for your research
• 1 next step for home learning tonight to be ready for proposals

Proposals will start tomorrow. Please be ready with your questions, initial research, etc.

Monday, January 30, 2017 | Ideation Day 3

DO NOW: CREATE QUESTION DOCUMENT

• Make a copy of the Question Starters document
• Rename the document: Firstname Lastname | Question Starts: Topic | Spring 2017
• Beckah DeYoung | Question Starts: Women’s Rights | Spring 2017
• Move the document into your Project Block folder.
• Repeat this process for each topic you are considering (more than one)

DO NEXT: GENERATE QUESTIONS

• Use the document to generate questions - keeping in mind that we are still seeking possibilities, ways of framing the topic that will lead to a project. Driving questions will emerge after some initial research and conferences with advisors.

GATHERING: WHIP AROUND

Share out a topic and 1 question you generated during your do now and do next

INDEPENDENT IDEATION

What do you need today?

• Continue your mind map?
• Make connections and ask questions?
• Expand or explode a topic further to break it down?
• Complete a Beane Protocol?
• Do initial research to make sure there is something out there about the topic?
• Email an advisor or staff member to discuss your topic?
• Check the list of advisors on the Ideation Page
• Prepare specific questions for certain advisors. In a professional email, students should contact at least two different advisors with specific questions. Students need to understand that a reply will not be immediate.
• Do you need to bounce ideas off of a collaborator?

REFLECTION

Share out your progress - What questions were answered? How did that stimulate your thinking? What questions remain unanswered? What are your next steps?

Tomorrow, we will set up structures for initial research and begin working toward driving questions.

Week of September 26-30 | Proposal Clarity & Research Phase

We will be meeting in project disciplines this week. The student-staff pairings are based primarily on student proposals, some of which are still being revised and completed. If changes need to be made to disciplinary groups, they will be made collaboratively starting on Wednesday and concluding on Friday morning.

It is a priority to make thinking visible throughout the research phase, so that we can see how our thinking changes, what influences us, what challenges us, and how we use our community and resources to learn and create. Keep group thinking alive in the room. Keep individual notes in manilla folders and Google Drive.

Please take attendance using the spreadsheet.

OBJECTIVES THIS WEEK

• Build community within disciplinary groups - learning about each other as wonderers and project managers.
• Refine project ideas and articulate thorough proposals.
• Engage in Academic Research and utilize the IDEAS Language Arts Research and Annotation Guide to 1) Locate credible sources for projects, 2) Read and annotate sources, 3) Manage an EasyBib project. 
• Analyze and select professionals models and inspirations related to a particular concept in academic content or art form.
• Reflect on Habits of Learning.

MONDAY>>
Start with ideation groups, then we will meet in disciplinary groups for the first time today. We will get to know the people and projects in the groups in order to begin building community. Students will identify specific needs, refine proposals, and begin research.

TUESDAY>>
Groups will establish norms for research in their space and with their resources. This will be a reading and conferencing day - working toward Annotated Bibliographies.

WEDNESDAY>>
Staff will share a professional model, establishing structures for collecting professional models as part of research. Adjustments to disciplinary groups, if needed.

THURSDAY>>
Reading and conferencing day.

FRIDAY>>
Reading day. Students will share Annotated Bibliography drafts for feedback and recommendations.


As we enter the research phase of IDEAS Block, consider these elements of our learning community:

Freshmen: All freshmen complete an extended bibliography during Fall 2016 semester. During the Spring 2017 semester, freshmen complete a traditional annotated bibliography along with a traditional research paper.

Research Paper: All sophomores, juniors, and seniors need to complete a research paper UNLESS they have had another formal writing component pre-approved by Addie based on the needs of their project. In order to receive this pre-approval, students need to set up a formal writing conference with Addie in The Writing Center.

Unfortunately, students have tried to use other writing endeavors in order to "get out" of truly demonstrating writing standards. Summaries of projects or "persuasive" arguments that merely supply the student's opinion are NOT accepted.

Acceptable formal writing endeavors are listed under the Academic Writing tab on the Humanities website.

Week of September 19th - 23th | Ideation, Initial Research, and Proposals

This week, we will focus on developing our own project ideas through remembering, reflection, and refinement. Proposals are due on Friday. Staff is encouraged to prioritize time for students to ideate during project block. 1:1 conferences are the reason we have such small groups. Some questions to guide 1:1 conferences:

• What are you working toward as a person, a professional, an artist? 
• What inspired you to do, say, write this? 
• How did you get to this idea? 
• How would this idea be different if we remixed it to one of the concepts in the hallway? 
• Why is this project more meaningful, impactful than existing work on this topic by you or other people in the world? 
• Who could you talk to stretch or strengthen your thinking about this idea? 
• So what? 

We will continue to make thinking visible throughout the ideation process, so that we can see how our thinking changes, what influences us, what challenges us, and how we use our community and resources to learn and create. Keep group thinking alive in the room. Keep individual notes in the manilla folders we started last week.


OBJECTIVES THIS WEEK

• Accept the challenge of stretching projects toward greater extents of innovation and more profound creativity. 
• Reflect on Habits of Learning: As part of our lifelong pursuit of learning, in the face of unprecedented technological, global, and professional changes that will require continual learning, we strive to... 

1. APPROACH TASKS WITH AN OPEN MIND 
2. ACCEPT CHALLENGES 
3. SEEK TO UNDERSTAND WHEN WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND 
4. USE EVIDENCE TO DOCUMENT LEARNING 

• Apply and name Habits of Mind through the creative process 
• Analyze and select professional models and inspirations related to a particular concept in academic content or creative form. 
• Develop generative and focused questions. 
• Engage in open dialogue with peers and professionals about project ideas. 
• Make Thinking Visible in order to understand details of passions, skills, interests, etc that might seed incredible projects. 

MONDAY>>
Continued ideation toward project proposals. Students will collect inspirations from their own experiences and from staff suggestions. Initial project ideas will be tested against the criteria established for creative and innovative projects.

TUESDAY>>
Focus on questions. Students will sift through ideation notes, narrow their project focus and begin developing open and closed questions to guide their projects. All of this is done with an emphasis on proposing a project that addresses a meaningful problem and/or expresses an essential idea, feeling, or thought.

WEDNESDAY>>
Write project proposals. They are due tomorrow to your current advisor for review.

THURSDAY>>
Review and revise project proposals for final submission.

FRIDAY>>

All students will use the Proposal Submission Form to submit their proposals. Staff will gather after school to determine project advisors and provide feedback. Students will receive feedback on their proposals and make revisions, clarify details next Monday.



Who are we as an intellectual community?
How do we analyze and share academic research?