Humanities: Design Thinking: Empathy

Hi folks,

Most of you folks will be conducting empathy interviews this week.  Before you go about doing so, take a look at these videos.  A lot of helpful information in here.  You needn't watch all of them.  Jump around.  See which seem to have what you find most helpful.

NOTE: The second one does a great job of explaining empathy vs sympathy.

Blogger Fodder: "4 Ladies Get The 'Cover Model' Makeover Of Their Dreams ... And Then Hate The Results" (Video)

This appeared on my Facebook feed via Upworthy.com.  It was originally posted by BuzzFeed.

Blogger Fodder: "Red Bull Stratos - The Full Story"

Last year, a couple of classes followed the story of Felix Baumgartner and his journey skyward.

On Friday, January 31st, 2014, the GoPro footage of the event was released.

Watch this.  Think about maybe grabbing a quote and responding to it.

Blogger Fodder: Short Film: "End of Dates"

Some silly fun.  And aliens.  And stuff blowing up.

And . . . some pretty fantastic storytelling here, too.  Why do we care about this guy?  I mean, I do.  I'm thinking others would, too.  And there are a few twists here on what we usually expect from this sort of relationship, as well.

What do you folks think?  Could you make something like this?

All Classes: 1901 - A Three Minute Movie About History

Thoughts?  Does this demonstrate whether or not the filmmaker really knows and understands what happened?  Is it just a cool bit of filmmaking?  Or does it mean the filmmaker really had to consider which images to include and how to do so?

Might you make a project like this for class?

All Classes: How to Be Productive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maYwwQ8CYiA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Humanities: What Is Humanities & Clarifying 9/11

Today in Humanities we developed a more solid answer to "What Is Humanities?"

Warm Up

We started with another improv game, this one called "What Are You Doing?"

Watching & Discussing

And then we turned off the laughs for some serious watching, thinking and discussing courtesy www.Upworthy.com and ESPN's Outside the Lines.

If you watch here, you get some great notes via Upworthy.

We then discussed clarifying questions about 9/11 and ended the day by discussing "What IS Humanities?"

Homework

Be thinking about Cardboard Challenge; practice round tomorrow!

Get in any missing work (signatures, goals, artifacts)

PACE: Heroic Journeys & Essential Questions

Today we started our "I Am Hero" unit by first taking time to explore essential questions.

Essential Questions

Here's a video that will hopefully refresh your understanding of essential questions and add some ideas you may not have considered in class.




And here is a link to the essential question work that we did on a shared Google doc.  You can find that doc in your Drive under "PACE 2013 OUT."

The Hero's Journey

That lead us to watching this brilliant video about the hero's journey and the monomyth.



When then took some time to figure out our first reading groups.  You will be choosing your own reading schedule for either The Hunger Games or The Adventures of Ulysses.  
Teacher PACE: Finish the book by Sept. 30
Student PACE: Determine how you will chunk that reading between now and then.

Next week, we dig into the monomyth, what that means, and the expectations for your first big project including due dates, how I designed it, and how it will demonstrate your understanding.  We also open up the curriculum and figure out what it is you are supposed to know as sophomores and transform the school's language into your language.

Homework

Read: your group's chosen selection for Monday.
Teacher PACE: finish book by Sept 30
Student PACE: Determine how you will chunk that reading between now and then

PACE: Freedom, Autonomy, Accountability, Independence & Education

Today's plan ended up changing a bit because of a fire drill.  Glad we are all safe and sound, though.

We started by watching this video on visual thinking.

We used these skills to visualize our thinking about

• Independence
• Autonomy
• Freedom
• Accountability

From there we watched Sir Ken Robinson's thoughts on education via RSA Animate.

And the big essential question we left thinking about?

How might we experience independence, autonomy, freedom and accountability . . . 

in schools?

at Mt. Blue Campus?

in PACE?

Next class we dive into our first unit and unlike traditional classes, I'll be showing you how I planned it, how I developed the essential questions guiding it (and what essential questions are), and you'll be getting your first book to read: Hunger Games or Adventures of Ulysses.  Your choice.  (WHAT?!? Choice?! Yes.)

Humanities: Goal Setting & Cardboard Planning

Today we break in two . .

One group will work with Mr. Tierney on goals setting.  You need to complete the goals form for Tuesday a.k.a. tomorrow!

Another will work with Mr. Ryder on thinking about the Cardboard Challenge.
That session includes watching this video on visual thinking.

After watching the video, you'll put your visual thinking skills to work answering these three questions:

1. If you could help one person today, who would it be and why?

2. What are problems you see in our community, nation, and world?

3. What makes you happy?

These questions tie right into the Caine's Arcade Cardboard Challenge project that Mr. Tierney has outlined for us. (Click on that link for a .PDF version.)

AP Lit: Jago, Viz Think, Ender, Pip & Miles Roby

Monday and Tuesday, AP Lit will be all about finding common threads and ideas, training our brains to get beneath the surface, and practicing visual thinking or "viz think."

Discussing

We begin by looking at the "What Is Literature?" chapter from Carol Jago's text and identifying highlights, the moments that stuck with us, and the poetry and fiction we each chose from the selection.  We'll be tossing ideas up on the boards.

We'll take a moment to watch this video on visual thinking.

Analysis & Visual Thinking

This will propel us into work with Ender's Game, Empire Falls, Great Expectations and the selections from the Jago chapter.  

We will use visual thinking to conceptualize the connections between these two works as we continue our question to answer the essential question: Why do we study Literature?

Homework

Read: The rest of Ender's Game for the first class of next week.
Read: "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams for next class
Write/Create/Answer:  
Part I: What makes a great analytical essay? What are the essential qualities? Necessary component?  
Part II: To what extent are you capable of producing a great analytical essay?  What are your strengths & weakness as an essayist?    

Humanities: Designing, Boxing, Imagining, Artifacting, Digging Deep

We continue to shape up our learning space today as we do a different sort of work to determine next steps in the space.

Thinking

We'll begin with this video, "Adventures of a Cardboard Box" from Studio Canoe and activity to get us thinking outside the box.

Questions to Answer After Our Watching

• Why did we have you watch this video?
• How can what we say affect how other people think about us?
• What can we learn from our responses to another’s painful experiences?
• What effect can our jokes have on the people around us?

Artifacts & Humanities

From there we will turn our attention to artifact thinking & critical thinking, digging deep, going beyond the surface as we try to determine what Humanities is all about through evidence.  

Yesterday's artifact work was pretty good.  We can do even better.  

Design

After the artifact work, we return to designing the classroom where we will be using a 2x2 plotting system to help us whittle down all the room design ideas we have going to those we should probably actually put to work in our space.

And then . . . we can start moving stuff around.

Homework

Due Thursday 9/5

Gather artifacts that represent you based on these criteria.

a. One artifact should be about you as a student. 

b. One artifact should be about you socially (family/friends)

c. One artifact should be about your personal interests/hobbies.

d. The last artifact is completely up to you.  

On the sheet provided, write a few sentences about what each artifact says about 

you.  Put all of the artifacts in the brown paper bag given you along with the rationales.  

Put your name ONLY ON THE SHEET.  


Identity Cultural Anthropology Experience:  We will place the artifacts that each of you have brought in 

paper bags. Your job/and my job will be to get one bag, put the items on your desk, take a 

look at them, and then circulate around the room.  Make your best guess as to who belongs 

to each set of artifacts and why you think that.

AP Lit: Video Tutorial: How to Read Mr. Ryder's Comments

Here's a quick little video tutorial so you understand what I'm doing when I make comments on your work.

Quick Text Version

Handwritten comments:

Solid line = positive  (more lines mean more positives)

Wavy line = constructive criticism needs to be addressed

Handwritten comments = a mess and likely demand to be translated into human-based language

Google Doc comments:

Light blue highlight = positive

Gray highlight = typo

Comment = constructive criticism that needs to be addressed

Pages/Preview comments/annotations:

Same as Google Doc

Link to Video Tutorial on Comments

To post as a Google Doc after writing in Pages, simply cut and paste your work into a new Google Doc and share with me on Drive in your [Student Name] AP Lit IN Folder you will be creating on Drive

Humanities: Empathy & DEEP Design

We continue our design thinking work by looking at Casey Neistat's filmmaking & his studio.

Make It Count from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

GIZMODO - The Wildly Functional Studio of Video Wizard Casey Neistat, Part 1 from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

Then we will take a moment to get a working definition of "design thinking" going here in the room. We will be using Mary Cantwell's DEEP Design Thinking process.

• Discover
• Empathize
• Experiment
• Produce

Yesterday's See, Think, Wonder work was part of the Discover process.

Today we move into Empathize.

By considering the purpose and function of a space, we can better add design elements to help the user.  Thinking about the user and understanding what that user needs and all the ways that user might work within a space relies upon our EMPATHY skills.

We will use The Compass Points protocol to help us in this.

From http://jillianhinesley.weebly.com/design-thinking.html

We will interview one another, asking these four questions in order to better understand what we each want from this space.  This data we can use to make better decisions about the design we create next week.

We will then get into groups to discuss each of the points and what we have learned about each of us.

Welcome to the New Look of Flight307

Same great home for content and all great things that happen in Mr. Ryder's room.

But now he'll be using the same tool his students use to compose blogs & that should make everyone a little friendlier & happier.

Here's what Steve Jobs (the late visionary of Apple) has to say about change.