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.

Thursday, Sept 17th | Organizing & Questioning

Please take attendance using the spreadsheet. (Add days.)

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?

Thank you all for engaging conversations about professional models yesterday. All advisors are encouraged to share their models with Kimberly, so that they can be added to this blog as reference. 

So far this week, we have had the opportunity to brainstorm different topics and survey different art forms. It is valuable, at this point, to have more than one topic to take deeper into ideation. Please keep in mind that many considerations go into a successful proposal, and project advisors will only approve viable proposals. 

Today we will set up an organizational system used to capture thinking as well as communicate thinking to project advisors. We will also generate questions and consult different advisors to test our topics. 

DO NOW: As a group, walk through the process of creating and curating a Google Drive folder for the semester.

• Google Drive >> New > Folder
• Name this folder : Firstname Lastname | Project Block | Fall 2015
• Example :  Jacob Bartz | Project Block | Fall 2015
• Share this folder with your current project advisor.
• Inside the folder, please place any documents already created and name them clearly with your name and a title for what the document is/says/does
• Example : Jacob Bartz | Ideation Lists | Fall 2015
• Example : Jacob Bartz | Ideation Mind Map | Fall 2015

DO NEXT:

• Use Question Sorts to begin generating questions about a topic.
• Click on the link above.
• Rename the document: Firstname Lastname | Question Starts : Topic | Fall 2015
• Move the document into your new folder for Project Block.
• 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.
• Repeat this process for each topic you are considering (more than one)

10:30 a.m. At this time, students are encouraged to review Advisor Profiles on the Ideation Page. They should prepare specific questions for certain advisors. On a whiteboard (or another place) each person should sign out - Stating their names & where they are going and who they intend to talk to.

10:35 a.m.  Students can leave classrooms with a purpose....and notebooks, Chromebooks, post-its, etc to have brief conversations with advisors who have an interest or expertise related to the topic. (Note: Rod and some Mosaic teachers may not be available. Find them after school.) This could also be a time for collaborators to bounce ideas off of one another. 

11:05 a.m.  Students return to original groups and share out their progress.

Tomorrow, we will set up structures for initial research and begin working toward driving questions. Students considering year long projects need to read this.