Innovative thinking

Right now I’m in the middle of teaching workshops about Design Thinking to second year student-teachers. This is a thinking process that promotes creative and innovative thinking as well as collaborative practices. It’s being taken up by some of the school boards in the Calgary area so it’s a hot topic, as you might imagine, and on my mind.

(Today’s posting isn’t really about design thinking so if you’re keen to learning more about Design Thinking and education you might like to visit a library guide, developed by the Doucette Library, called, funnily enough, Design Thinking.)

So, maybe it’s my frame-of-mind right now, immersed in teaching design thinking, that a book like Dazzle Ships: World War I and the Art ofConfusion by Chris Barton made a strong impression.

It’s 1917 and Britain is at risk of being cut off from crucial supplies of food brought in by ships. German U-boats were very skilled at targeting ships that supported the United Kingdom.  As the book states, “desperate times call for desperate measures” and innovative thinking was essential to overcoming these devastating loses.

Norman Wilkinson, a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve lieutenant-commander, had a seemingly bizarre idea – camouflaging the ships. By painting ships with an array of dazzling patterns and colours, it would break up the ship’s form on the ocean’s waters, presenting an image so confusing that it would be difficult to track.

“Dazzle was meant to make the Germans think a ship was, for example, turning toward the west when it was actually headed to the southeast.”

A small workforce (of mostly women) was organized to come up with patterns which were tested out to determine which were the most effective at tricking the eye. Thousands of British and American ships had be ‘dazzled’ by the end of the war.  Though, determining whether the dazzling really did save ships from being torpedoed is debatable, it did booster the morale of the sailors on those ships.

I love the sentiment that is summed up in the book :

 “a willingness to tackle problems by trying the unlikely, the improbable, the seemingly bonkers will always be needed.”

The material at the back of the book, author’s and illustrator’s notes, a timeline and reference list provide additional information for research purposes. I thought that the author’s notes about researching and writing about this book of special interest and would be instructive to students about this process.

I recommend this book for grades 4-7 for social studies, art, and science. Because it’s so interdisciplinary it’s perfect for STEAM classrooms.

Peace Bridge

Today’s recommended title will be of particular interest to Calgarians, Albertans and Canadians.

Bridges: an Introduction to Ten Great Bridges and Their Designers by Didier Cornille introduces us to 10 bridges from various countries spanning the globe providing a brief entry about the architects who designed them and sometimes a little about the construction process.  Each bridge has a something distinct about it, whether it was for a new construction process, a new design, extraordinary length, or a design feature.

Among the selected few is Calgary’s own Peace Bridge designed by Santiago Calatrava (2012).

The other bridges include:

Iron Bridge designed by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard (England, 1779)

Brooklyn Bridge designed by John Roebling, Washington Roebling and Emily Warren (United States, 1883)

Forth Bridge designed by Sir John Fowler and Sir Benjamin Baker (Scotland, 1890)

Plougastel Bridge designed by Eugene Freyssinet (France, 1930)

Sydney Harbour Bridge designed by John Jacob Crew Bradfield (Australia, 1932)

Golden Gate Bridge designed by Joseph Baermann Strauss (United States, 1937)

Rio-Niteroi Bridge designed by Jean Muller (Brasil, 1974)

Millau Viaduct designed by Norman Foster and Michel Virlogeux (France, 2004)

Mucem Footbridge designed by Rudy Ricciotti (France, 2013)

Each entry is very brief. I love the format of the book, which is oversized and read turned on its side so we are flipping the pages up. This is great for giving the reader a sense of length, giving the illustrations of each bridge lots of room to span the page. The details usually include a little information about the designer including other projects they’ve been involved in and most often specifics about the construction process.  The illustrations are simple, uncluttered and placed on pages with lots of white space.

The entry for the Peace Bridge in Calgary features several of Calatrava’s other structures giving only two short pages dedicated to the Peace Bridge itself. However cool looking this bridge there is not a lot of information about it in terms of construction.

Another thing I noticed is that with the exception of Emily Warren, who stepped in when her husband died building the Brooklyn Bridge there are no women featured here. There have to be some noteworthy bridges designed by women, right?

This book will be of interest to teachers for science (building things, designing), STEM, and social studies (Alberta, Canada, local politics). I would recommend this for middle grades.

If it’s broke…keep on breaking…

In last week’s post, I recommended a book I thought would be a great fit in an elementary, STEM classroom.  This week I have another book that would also work well in a STEM or STEAM classroom but would work across many grade levels.

Things Come Apart by Todd McLellan falls into the coffee table book category because the photographs are so provocative and will appeal to a wide range of ages.  The premise of the book is looking at all the parts of everyday appliances, mechanical devices and constructed objects. For example, let’s say you’re keen to know about the inner workings of a mechanical pencil or a 1928 mantel clock or a 1964 Smith-Corona typewriter or a 1912 upright piano or a 2002 iPod 2 or a 2012 two-seater light aircraft (you get the idea, a range of things over several decades) or what it’s made of, then this book is for you.

All of these devices (plus 44 others) are entirely disassembled by the author. Every single piece, from the smallest screw to the largest casings are included and arranged in very attractive layouts (my favourite is the 1960s accordion) on one page and with a corresponding page showing all the parts falling through the air.  The piano and airplane are the exceptions and have pull out spreads to show us the entirety of their discombobulated glory.

So what’s the value of this?

In the field of education, you may have become aware of the Maker Movement. It’s all about getting children back to using their hands to create things both low and higher tech. (Think origami paper cranes to clothes that are programmed to light-up.) But if you think about creating something or exploring an idea then it’s sometimes really useful to think what the opposite of this thing, idea or process is (in this case, deconstructing) as a way to develop a different understanding of the object, idea or process.

(If you’re keen to read more about the Maker Movement go to Paula Hollohan’s blog, Doucette Ed Tech to see additional resources and information.)

Included are five essays by experts in various fields who explore the idea of taking things a part or putting them together or how repairing, reusing or repurposing objects touch on sustainability issues. These essays are more for an adult level or senior high level student.

So, go grab those old toasters, computer printers and TVs that are sitting idly in your basement or garage. Let a new journey begin with loosening a screw or two. What are you waiting for?

Potential beyond imagining

Ada’s Violon: the story of the recycled Orchestra of Paraguayby Susan Hood and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport is a book I’ve been waiting for ever since I first heard and watched a video about this orchestra.

The Landfill Orchestra

What an amazing concept!

It works on so many levels. An extremely poor community in Paraguay is built around the recycling of garbage taken from a local landfill. As both the video and book explain, to own a valuable instrument is impossible because of the risk of theft. Because instruments are expensive to buy, it’s difficult for everyone to have an instrument of their own to play. The solution is to construct instruments from recycled materials, again derived from the landfill, instead.

The book provides more backstory than the video. It focuses on Ada Rios (shown in the video) and her family of recyclers giving us a sense of what the community is like: very poor with few opportunities of a better life and the threat of gang life as a way out. Though she does go to school, there aren’t many opportunities to go beyond the boundaries of her community, until the day her grandmother sees a sign advertising music lessons and encourages Ada to go. Immediately, Ada selects the violin as her instrument of choice.

The story continues with how the instruments were constructed and it’s fascinating to see them in the video. Paint cans, oil drums, forks, pipes and packing crates are all used to fashion these beautiful music makers.

With lots of practice, these novice musicians become good enough to perform in front of local audiences. Word spreads and they hold concerts for international audiences in other countries.

What a success story.

In terms of classroom connections, this kind of story has so many possibilities. There’s the grade 4 science unit on waste and our world which often ties into recycling. There’s the grade 3 social studies unit about quality of life that would work well with this story.  This would make an interesting book to bring into a fine arts classroom. I can see connections to the STEM/STEAM and maker movements, too. Or even a story from which to draw inspiration for activism at local levels.

This would definitely work across the elementary grades. Highly recommended.

Pinterest : Making life a little easier

Over the last few months, I started using Pinterest quite extensively as a way to curate titles of mostly juvenile literature to correspond with the Alberta Education curriculum.

     Visit Doucette Library's profile on Pinterest.   

Just this week I worked my way through the elementary program of studies for mathematics. This was not something I had been looking forward to (some of you may remember I'm somewhat of a math-a-phobe) and rate this right up there with going to the dentist.

Anyways, trying to use the learning objectives set out in broad categories by Alberta Education (numbers, patterns & relations, shape & space, statistics & probability) was a good starting point for organizing titles but quickly became too unwieldy. I created 13 boards to avoid lists with 100s of titles.

Take a look to see how I did that : Pinterest - Doucette Library (Tammy Flanders). 

I included only books found in the Doucette Library and linked the boards to the library's catalogue.  I've included a few titles for DVDs but focused primarily on fiction and nonfiction books appropriate for students in grades 1 to 6.

**You may notice the board, Variables & Equations (Patterns and Relations), has very few titles. If you know of any resources that would fit with algebraic thinking, I would be really, really grateful if you'd let me know.  It may be that there aren't that many kids books with algebra written into the story line especially at the elementary level. Please drop me a line with your recommendations.

If you get to the Doucette Library's Pinterest page you will notice many other boards that also correspond to the Alberta Education curriculum for elementary science and social studies down to the level of every topic for every grade. 

So, if you're teaching a science unit for one of the primary grades about colour this board might have titles that would interest you as a springboard, a provocation or a resource for scaffolding this topic.

Or, maybe you're teaching social studies and looking for resources about quality of life, or the history of Alberta or democracy; there are Pinterest boards for each of these topics. 

There are a few boards that are not tied to the Alberta Education program of studies but still relevant.  These include boards for First Nations, Metis and Inuit resources that are to be included across all content areas.  You will also find boards for fiction that might make tie-ins with STEM or STEAM curriculum.  Both of these groupings are organized by grade ranges of primary (grades K-3), middle school (grades 4-8) and secondary (grades 9-12).

One last board I'd like to highlight is specific to picture books for older readers. This is a topic of interest for those student-teachers (and sometimes teachers) teaching grades 6 to 12 that often don't think about using picture books. Many of the books listed here are some of my all-time favorites because they can be used across the grades to enrich many content areas.  Interest? Click here to see what I've included.

These boards are proving useful for student-teachers when incorporating juvenile literature into their lesson plans. I invite you to check them out and let me know what you think.

Happy New Year

I always feel that, for those of us tied to the academic school year, September is really the start of the new year not January. Being on a university campus everything ramps up, you can almost see the air vibrate with energy as students arrive and settle in.

So Happy New Year, everyone.  I wish you the best for the upcoming season.

My season started last week with a day spent with teachers at a local school taking us through a thinking process called Design Thinking.  It’s likely you will begin to hear more and more about this type of learning. I’m not going into details here but encourage you to check out my colleague’s blog, Doucette Ed Tech, that will outline more of the specifics plus a great, short 2 minute video that will enlighten you.  Suffice to say that the PD session was very worthwhile setting my brain to thinking about how I could use it in my own teaching.

So, being the eve of a new year and new thinking processes to work through my opening book recommendation for the 2015/16 academic school year is….[drum roll, please]….

The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires.

It’s a terrific picture book that captures the creative process of a girl and her assistant (pet dog) as they devise ‘the most magnificent thing’.  But this isn’t as ‘easy peasy’ as she first thinks.  There’s a lot of failed attempts along the way – or so it seems.  Growing increasingly frustrated and finally exploding after pinching her finger -- she quits!  Her assistant takes her for a walk where she is able to calm down. Reviewing all her rejects she discovers that each of them have a little something right about them.  They’re not all bad. One more attempt brings a more successful end result.  Happy days.

I love the illustrations.   The contrast between the little girl’s bright red tunic and the predominately white backgrounds with occasional pastel coloured objects holds our attention as we eagerly await the unveiling of the masterpiece. There’s not a lot of clutter to distract from the action and the antics of the assistant and a neighbour dog are fun, too.

This book has great classroom potential too for any building unit at the elementary level.  The trial and error process is the predominate storyline. There really aren’t any failures here as even her rejects are scooped up by neighbours who can see how the cast-offs will solve a problem for them. We’re able to understand that the thinking never stops; starting over doesn’t mean failure but a step towards deeper understanding; success can be redefined as the process unfolds; stepping away from a problem to reevaluate is a good strategy; perseverance pays off; cute dogs make the best assistants.

Endless possibilities for this book. Just like for this shiny, new school year.