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The Creativity Challenge: Design, Experiment, Test, Innovate, Build, Create, Inspire, and Unleash Your Genius

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The Creativity Challenge: Design, Experiment, Test, Innovate, Build, Create, Inspire, and Unleash Your Genius [Christensen, Tanner] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Creativity Challenge: Design, Experiment, Test, Innovate, Build, Create, Inspire, and Unleash Your Genius

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Arts & Culture Expeditions - Google Arts & Culture

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Go on a virtual field trip with Google Arts & Culture

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Morning Meeting is an engaging way to start each day, build a strong sense of community, and set children up for social and academic success.

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

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Virtual field trips are a game changer. Not only do they fill in for real field trips when budgets and other roadblocks prevent in-person options, but virtual field trips also open doors to educational experiences all over the country and the world, both past and present. No fundraising or permission slips required!

(Note: For anyone who needs it, YouTube offers a closed-captioning option. Just click the CC button in the bottom right-hand corner.)

Amazon Career Tours are free virtual field trips that inspire students to pursue careers of the future. Tour whenever, wherever on Kahoot! Each tour comes with a Teacher Toolkit that includes a facilitation guide and student worksheets.

2. The Zoo

There are so many amazing online options when it comes to zoos that we couldn't narrow it down to just one. Most zoos have live webcams in some of their most popular exhibits, such as the KC Zoo Polar Bear Cam and the Giant Panda Cam at Smithsonian's National Zoo. However, some zoos offer a more in-depth look. You'll definitely want to check out the San Diego Zoo as their site for kids includes behind-the-scenes videos and stories, as well as a variety of printable activities and online games. Check out our full list of virtual zoo goodness.

3. The Aquarium

It's a similar story with aquariums. You have your pick of live webcams, but our favorites are the Georgia Aquarium's Ocean Voyager webcam (wait for the whale shark!) and the "Jelly Cam" at Monterey Bay Aquarium (so soothing). The Seattle Aquarium even has a 30-minute video tour. Want more under-the-sea fun? Here's our ultimate list of virtual aquarium field trips.

4. The Farm

The classic preschool field trip goes online! You can have your pick of dairy farm field trips, but we like this one from the Dairy Alliance and this one from Stonyfield Organic. Farm Food 360 gives students the opportunity to immerse themselves in Canadian farm and food tours-from raising pigs to making milk and cheese. We're also loving these virtual egg farm field trips from the American Egg Board.

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5. An Art Museum

We found 20 art museums with virtual tours, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art's # MetKids and its awesome Where's Waldo? setup. And you can't miss the world-famous Louvre in Paris (no passport needed!). Check out the current virtual tours: Traveling Materials and Objects, the Advent of the Artist, the Body in Movement, and Founding Myths: From Hercules to Darth Vader!

6. A National Park

From webcams at Hawaii volcanoes to a virtual run along the rim of the Grand Canyon, you have tons of options here. Our top pick would have to be Yellowstone. The interactive maps are a great way to see the Mammoth Hot Springs and Mud Volcano, but we think kids will be psyched about the Old Faithful Geyser livestream and the opportunity to make their own predictions for its next eruption. Check out everything the National Park Service has to offer virtually.

7. A Planetarium

Through Stellarium Web, kids can explore over 60,000 stars, locate planets, and watch sunrises and solar eclipses. If you enter your location, you can see all the constellations that are visible in the night sky in your corner of the world.

Take your students on a virtual field trip of a recycling center and a modern landfill. Plus, there's a full-on curriculum that includes lesson plans, take-home handouts, and more.

Nickelodeon teamed up with two astronauts on the International Space Station to demonstrate how slime reacts to microgravity and had kids reproduce those same demonstrations back here on Earth. It makes for an amazing 15-minute virtual field trip.

The Nature Conservancy has a brand-new virtual field trip entitled "You're the Scientist! Citizen Science, Frogs & Cicadas." Check out their full library of videos on topics like climate change and water security.

Discovery Education hosts a variety of virtual events -each with a companion guide with hands-on learning activities. Current offerings include "Making a New Life: The Courage of a Refugee" and "The Future Is Now" (architectural and engineering innovations). Stay tuned for their upcoming civics virtual field trip, "The American Ideal."

This virtual field trip from Great Lakes Now has three components: coastal wetlands, algae, and lake sturgeon. Each video is a quick five minutes long.

Explore online exhibits and discover the history and evolution of play. Check out board games that changed play, sports video games that shaped digital play, and the making of Monopoly to name a few.

Kids can learn about the most recent Census and how census data is collected and used. This virtual field trip also features interviews with subject matter experts and an interactive challenge.

The "Museum of We the People," the Constitution Center serves as a "headquarters for civic education." Check out the Interactive Constitution section, and be sure to watch the virtual tour.

Houston, we have a virtual field trip. Three, actually. All with companion educator guides. The star of the show is the behind-the-scenes tour of the Johnson Space Center.

Boise State put together this fully interactive virtual field trip with text, photos, audio, and video about the history of music. The four featured music locations are: Vienna, Austria; New Orleans, Louisiana; Cleveland, Ohio; and Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia.

This living-history museum provides a look into life in an early American community. The website offers five different webcams featuring areas such as the tavern and the armory.

This virtual experience of George Washington's home is incredibly well done. Enter the different buildings-from the opulent mansion to the chilling slave quarters-and click on different items for video and text explanations.

This virtual tour comes with a real tour guide! Blaine Kortemeyer is the Assistant Chief of Interpretation and Education, who lends his expertise on the building of this national monument. The 3D Explorer is also an excellent tool.

Take a visit to the National WWII Museum for "a cross-country virtual expedition to discover the science, sites, and stories of the creation of the atomic bomb." Don't forget to download the classroom guide!

For a look inside the iconic building, check out the 360° tour of some of the most historic rooms of the People's House, from the Situation Room to the Oval Office. Examine each room and check out the contents up close.

The National Museum of Natural History's virtual experiences are self-guided, room-by-room tours of permanent, current, and past exhibits. Be sure to send kids to the second floor Bone Hall so they can take a look at all different kinds of skeletons.

A collaboration with over 1,200 leading museums and archives, Google Arts & Culture is an incredible storehouse of monumental works of art. We recommend the Street View and Play sections.

Boasting the world's largest collection of 360° image videos, 360 Cities provides kids with the opportunity to see stunning panoramas across the globe, including their video of the ice floe on the Vistula River in Poland.

It's the official residence of the Queen of England, and boy, is it opulent! Get a peek inside the gorgeous Grand Staircase, White Drawing Room, Throne Room, and Blue Drawing Room.

See one of the wonders of the world with this amazing, thousands-year-old fortification system known the world over. This virtual tour has four scenes available (you have to pay to get access to all 14). The bird's-eye view of Mutianyu pass is a highlight.

Most of us recognize the giant stone statues of Easter Island, but what's the story behind them? Nova's online adventure "Secrets of Easter Island" delves into the mystery with a virtual tour.

National Geographic lets you explore the world's largest cave, located in Vietnam. Use the interactive map to enjoy the fully immersive experience (sound on!).

You don't need a time machine! Discovering Ancient Egypt has a ton of free resources, but it's the interactive pyramid map and 3D temple reconstructions that really give it a field trip feel.

Virtually visit Turn Back the Clock, a museum exhibit that ran for two years at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. Through compelling personal stories, innovative interactive media, and pop culture artifacts, the exhibit takes guests through seven decades of history-from the dawn of the nuclear age to significant policy questions our leaders face today.

No, really! You can absolutely "go" to the red planet. With Access Mars, you can see the actual surface of Mars, recorded by NASA's Curiosity rover. Trust us-don't skip the intro. And if your kids liked that, check out this 4K tour of the moon. These may go down in history as some of the best virtual field trips your students get to experience.

Take a virtual tour of this historical battleship located on the Camden waterfront. This battleship has traveled more miles than any other!

No need to travel to Rome! Take in the amazing art and architecture located in the Vatican Museums with these 360-degree views.

Download the app and climb aboard the virtual tram line! Take a virtual walk through the Space Center Houston with informational stops along the way.

Virtually visit museum rooms in the famous Louvre located in Paris. Even check out The Louvre kids' site for student-friendly galleries and stories. You can't visit The Louvre without seeing the Mona Lisa, so check out their immersive Mona Lisa experience available in the app store.

This interactive tour of Ellis Island lets students explore places like the Baggage Room and the Stairs of Separation through short stories, historical photographs, videos, and audio clips. Students can also hear the stories of real kids who recently immigrated to the United States, explore colorful charts and graphs with immigration data, and watch a 30-minute movie that includes a Q&A with National Park Service Rangers who explain what coming to America was like for many immigrants.

38. Plimoth Patuxet Museums

Travel back to the 17th century with options for free, on-demand, digital resources or a live, 1-hour virtual school program led by a Plimoth Patuxet Contemporary Indigenous Museum Educator. Students explore Wampanoag daily life and history; discover the real history of Thanksgiving and the legend behind it; meet a 17th-century Pilgrim; get an interactive sneak peak into 17th-century wardrobes; and learn about simple machines and water power at the Plimoth Grist Mill. There are also options for virtual hands-on history workshops, including Wampanoag Pottery and Write Like a Pilgrim.

When you can't visit the museum in person, 3D virtual field trips to the Children's Museum Houston are the next best thing. All videos are produced and curated by museum educators and feature hands-on activities that can be done in the classroom. Topics include nutrition, math, states of matter, forces and properties of water, and more.

Beyond the Battle Field is a virtual field trip for grades 2-8 hosted by Lauren Tarshis, author of the I Survived historical-fiction series for kids. Students will meet a museum educator as well as the museum curator, and explore artifacts and documents from the American Revolution. Plus they'll hear the stories of teens who served during the war. There's also a Classroom Kit available with a vocabulary list and discussion questions by grade level.

If you liked this roundup of the best virtual field trips and want more resources like this, be sure to subscribe to our newsletters.

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40 Amazing Educational Virtual Field Trips

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You can't always get there in person, but lots of places will let you "visit" online. These are the best virtual field trips out there!

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Created by Empatico, the Empathy Framework is a tool that takes the current science one step further by recognizing there are also different levels of application. These include practicing empathy toward oneself, toward others and toward the rest of the world.

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Norfolk Collegiate - Portrait of a Graduate

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Norfolk Collegiate - Portrait of a Graduate

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Our Portrait of a Graduate

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Norfolk Collegiate develops critical thinkers, doers and explorers through innovative, engaging instruction in an inclusive and supportive learning community. We equip students to chart their unique paths to success by providing an educational experience based on the several principles.

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Jed Dearybury began his education career in 2001. During his 13 year early childhood classroom tenure, Jed received numerous awards. He was featured in GQ Magazine as Male Leader of the Year, met President Obama as the SC winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, and was named as a top 5 finalist for South Carolina Teacher of the Year because of his passion, love, and success in education. Since 2015, he has become an educational leader by providing quality, hands-on, engaging learning experiences for students and teachers across the country. In 2020, he published his first book, The Playful Classroom. Book 2, The Courageous Classroom will be released in July of 2021!

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Jed Dearybury began his education career in 2001. During his 13 year early childhood classroom tenure, Jed received numerous awards. He was featured in GQ Magazine as Male Leader of the Year, met President Obama as the SC winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching, and was named as a top 5 finalist for South Carolina Teacher of the Year because of his passion, love, and success in education.

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Jed Dearybury- The Playful Classroom Podcast

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Jed Dearybury- The Playful Classroom Podcast

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Principal Center Radio brings you the best in professional practice for school leaders, in an audio format that you can access in the car, on the treadmill, or anywhere you'd like to listen.

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Jed Dearybury-The Playful Classroom: The Power of Play for All Ages | Principal Center Radio

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Get the Book, The Playful Classroom: The Power of Play for All Ages Visit Jed's Website, www.MrDearybury.com Follow Jed on Twitter @MrDearybury About the Authors Jed Dearybury is a teacher educator and award-winning classroom teacher, who was featured as GQ Magazine as Male Leader of the Year, met President Obama as the SC winner of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.

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The Playful Classroom - SC Charter Chatter

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The Playful Classroom - SC Charter Chatter

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Podcast that interviews the authors of The Playful Cllassroom

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Listen to this episode from SC Charter Chatter on Spotify. Patti and Kevin sit down with Dr. Julie Jones, co-author of the professional development book, The Playful Classroom. She shares behind the scenes stories of how she and co-author, Jed Dearybury, came up with the idea, the mindset for the book, and the twists and turns of how their writings became an Amazon bestseller.

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The Playful Classroom shows readers how to reconnect with students, parents, and your profession. It’s full of real-life examples and research-based “how-to’s” that you can start implementing tomorrow. Imagine every day at school filled with creativity, relationship building, community, and growth. Is it possible? Yes, it is.

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Grateful wife, mom to three, unlikely gardener, creator of the Powersheets Intentional Goal Planner. Whether you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or in need of some refreshing truth, you're in the right place.

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The marshmallow challenge is a classic problem-solving exercise.

On this page, you'll find everything you need to understand the point of this challenge and why kindergarteners can easily win against business school graduates.

Short Summary

The marshmallow challenge is a simple design exercise and team-building activity for small groups.

The groups have to build the tallest free-standing structure from some spaghetti sticks, tape, and string and place one whole marshmallow on the top.

Running the challenge requires about 1 hour and some simple household items.

The exercise teaches essential lessons about the creative product development process and the nature of collaboration.

The challenge was invented by Peter Skillman and popularized by Tom Wujec.

Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash

Rules for the Marshmallow Challenge

The rules are easy; in 18 minutes, each group can use 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow to build the tallest free-standing structure with the entire marshmallow on the top.

To run the challenge yourself, check out our detailed step-by-step instructions.

The teams can break the spaghetti and cut the tape and string into any sized pieces.

A team can also use the materials as much or as little as they wish. For example, if they can decide to use all or no spaghetti, the same applies to the masking tape and string.

The exercise should be done indoors, and each team should have a steady table.

This challenge needs to be friendly and encouraging. However, the following three instructions need to be strictly respected.

You Must Use the Entire Marshmallow

The marshmallow mustn't be split into smaller pieces and must be placed on the top of the structure.

Build the Tallest Free-standing Structure

The groups can hold the structure until the end of the exercise. After that, the structure with the marshmallow on the top must stand on its own.

The team with the tallest structure measured is the winning team.

Stop When the Time Runs Out

The exercise is 18 minutes long. Therefore, the teams must stop working on their structure at the 18-minute mark. After this, if a team tries to support their structure, they're automatically disqualified.

Ideal Participants

The marshmallow challenge is suitable for teams of all ages and backgrounds.

It can significantly benefit students, professionals, and organizations seeking engaging activities to enhance collaboration and innovation.

The challenge is helpful for teams to encourage them to think outside the box and brainstorm about a new idea.

It's a highly recommended exercise for teams new to agile project management.

Design Exercise And Team Building Activity

The marshmallow challenge helps the participants to improve their innovative and problem-solving skills by helping to discover the value of prototyping.

The challenge is also a great team-building activity; it improves team collaboration and communication.

The fun nature of the game will create a memorable experience for everybody.

How Do People Perform

Usually, first people orient themselves to the task, talk about it, discuss how it would look, and try to create some hierarchy within their team for who is doing what.

Then they try to create a detailed plan, neatly organize their materials, and start building.

They build the spaghetti sticks into ever-growing structures, taped and bound together.

And just before the time runs out, they place the marshmallow on the top. Most of the time, the structure collapses because of the unexpected weight.

Different groups perform differently based on their background. For example, business school students, kindergarteners, and architects deliver the most exciting results.

Business School Students

Business school students are constantly fighting for power; for them, it's essential to know who the project's leader will be.

Besides that, they are trained to find the single right plan for the task and then execute it.

During the challenge, they focus on breaking down tasks, spending most time planning who is doing what, the structure of the spaghetti, and how the tape and string would hold them together. And when they have almost no time left, they place the marshmallow on the top, and the crisis begins.

They don't try to build a mediocre structure just to see their plan works. Instead, they want to build the perfect one.

Kindergarten School Students

Kindergarteners create taller and more interesting structures than their adult competitors.

Their secret is that they don't fight for power or plan the whole project. Instead, they build and build. Always keeping the marshmallow on the top. They build a higher structure than before.

They are building prototypes, continuously improving their already working structure with the marshmallow on the top. With new structures, they get immediate feedback about what works and what doesn't. This is the essence of the iterative design process.

Architects And Engineers

Architects also tend to overlook the weight of the marshmallow. Fortunately, they still build working marshmallow tower structures.

They understand that triangles and self-reinforcing geometrical patterns are the key to building stable structures to support more weight.

They already have the skills to build good structures.

What Can We Learn From This?

Most teams have a hidden assumption about the weight of the marshmallow. They're confident it's so light that their structure will easily hold it, and they wouldn't need to worry about it. When they try to place it on the top, to their surprise, the building collapses under its weight.

The marshmallow symbolizes the hidden assumptions about the project.

Every project has its own hidden assumptions nobody considers until the very last moment. They can only be discovered by building working prototypes that can be repeatedly improved to reach the best result.

Prototyping Matters

The exercise highlights the importance of prototyping and iterative design.

Successful startups use iterative design to get to the market fast and test their product's viability before shoveling more money and time into useless functionalities.

First, they identify the minimum viable product containing only the essential functionalities of their imagined final product.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Marshmallow Challenge?

The marshmallow challenge is a simple design exercise and team-building activity. The participants are split into smaller competing groups to build the tallest free-standing structure using spaghetti, tape, and string with an entire marshmallow on the top. The exercise teaches an essential lesson about creative product development and the importance of prototyping.

What Materials Do I Need for the Marshmallow Challenge?

You need 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow for each participating group. For example, 16 oz spaghetti, 1 roll of masking tape, 1 roll of string, and 1 bag of marshmallows should be enough for more than 20 groups.

What Are the Rules for the Marshmallow Challenge?

The rules for the marshmallow challenge are easy; in 18 minutes, each group can use 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of masking tape, and one yard of string to build the tallest freestanding structure with an entire marshmallow on the top. Check out the step-by-step instructions about how to organize and run the challenge.

What Does the Marshmallow Challenge Teach?

The marshmallow challenge teaches an important lesson to build prototypes instead of trying to build the perfect solution. The participants have a hidden assumption that the marshmallow is light, and their spaghetti structure can easily support it. They only focus on building one perfect structure without trying to build a simple one to test their assumptions. Their structure collapses when they place the marshmallow on the top at the last minute.

Every project has its own hidden assumptions that can remain hidden until the last minute and then ruin the project. Therefore creating working prototypes as early as possible is crucial.

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The Marshmallow Challenge is a simple, and instructive design activity that promotes and teaches valuable lessons in collaboration, innovation, and creativity.

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Finland is an educational superpower, despite breaking almost every "rule" we Americans think we know about education. Wrong Turns, Right Moves in Education (Archway, 2019) investigates the differences in these systems, advocating for an educational model that focuses on quality over quantity and the social emotional growth of children through play.

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The decline of play | Peter Gray | TEDxNavesink

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Hey y'all! Jed and Julie here. We are as happy as a mule in a pickle patch that you came to see us.

Wait? What? We haven't met yet?

Well, first... take a gander at what the nice folks below have to say about us.

Then check out our free courses to learn more.

Dr. Jemelleh Coes

2014 GA Teacher of the Year

"With practical and readily applicable classroom strategies, Jed and Julie invite us into the wonderful world of play through laughter and creativity! I laughed a lot and learned even more. From early learning through secondary education, all educators can find golden nuggets throughout this text!"

Dr. Anthony DeBenedet

author, Playful Intelligence

"It has been said that teachers affect eternity, having no idea where exactly their influence stops. If you are a teacher or a parent or simply a human being, read The Playful Classroom, a nd watch your influence, not only with the children around you, but with the adults, too, ripple toward eternity. Prepare to be inspired!"

Matt Miller

author, Ditch That Textbook

Playful learning isn't a reward. It's required! If you want deep, satisfied, inquisitive learning, the ideas inside The Playful Classroom will inspire and equip you.

Dyane Smokorowski

2019 National Teacher Hall of Fame Inductee

Jed Dearybury and Julie Jones take readers on a fun, engaging, and creative journey into the pedagogy of play! This must-read resource is perfect for all ages of learners and provides a wealth of ideas teachers can turn key straight away. Fantastic!"

Mike Soskil

Top 10 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize, 2017

"Fittingly, The Playful Classroom finds ways to help teachers elevate learning and boost engagement, while also creating a sense of joy and whimsy for readers. Dearybury and Jones provide educators with the practical strategies and excellent examples they need to infuse the critical element of play into any classroom."

Ann Marie Taylor

2008 SC Teacher of the Year

The Playful Classroom is essential for every educator. During a time where education reform is a MUST, this book helps educators place value back to the relationship between the student and the educator as well as being creative and flexible throughout the learning process. I have gifted all my teachers with this FABULOUS book!

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Julie and Jed chat about playful living. Sometimes they have a guest. Sometimes they don't. Listen. Play. Enjoy.

Julie and Jed chat about playful living. Sometimes they have a guest. Sometimes they don't. Listen. Play. Enjoy.

Play Purdy Y'all

Jed & Julie make me smile. I have know Jed and done many PDs with him. He is who you hear on the podcast and the real and true Jed is an amazing educator with incredible knowledge to share.

We Are Playful

Already buying merch!! Best podcast !!

Integrated Arts

I love it, I'm ready for the merch to come out! Good luck :)

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Julie and Jed chat about playful living. Sometimes they have a guest. Sometimes they don't. Listen. Play. Enjoy.

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Play( How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul)

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Play( How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul)

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Play( How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul)[PLAY][Paperback]

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Play( How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul)[PLAY][Paperback] [StuartBrown] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Play( How It Shapes the Brain Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul)[PLAY][Paperback]

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Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life

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Title: Free to Learn( Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier More Self-Reliant and Better Students for Life) Binding: Hardcover Author: GrayPeter Publisher: BasicBooks(AZ)

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" The New Education " is an inspiring, well-researched, and compellingly written manifesto for a revolution in learning and teaching. It is a book for everyone who wants to understand why and how universities need to be reimagined for the twenty-first century--those who have been 'educated' and those who aspire to be. It is the most important book I have read in many years."― Tony Wagner, Harvard University i-lab expert in residence and author of The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators The New Education is a welcome collection of stories detailing how professors, administrators and students are designing paths through higher education that are relevant to our changing culture and society... At her best, Davidson writes in the tradition of Du Bois and Dewey, a pragmatist tradition that puts inquiry first and sees learning through the potential of the full, complex human beings students can become."― Washington Post

"Davidson is one of the most thoughtful voices from within academia calling for a more student-centered university. New York Times Book Review Technology & Learning, Inside Higher Education John Warner, Chicago Tribune

"Davidson argues persuasively that student-centered, active learning can transform classrooms and even online courses... [her] enthusiasm and her examples should inspire creativity from a lot more college teachers."― Richard Leo Enos, Athenaeum

"The fact that Davidson is able to bridge her narrative on the history and future of higher education across a popular and academic audience is a testimony to her skills as a scholar, an educator, and a writer. Davidson knows her stuff, has something to say, and has clearly worked very hard in crafting a book that should be discussed by everyone who cares about higher education... Powerfully argued, beautifully written, and doggedly grounded in research and examples."― Christopher Hassall, Katatrepsis

"It's Davidson who has a vision for what education could and should be that's consistent with the traditional values of freedom, opportunity and progress we associate with education."― Susan D. Blum, Academography

"I am aware that I cannot do justice to the merits of this book, let alone capture the depths of Davidson's insights, in a few thousand words, but I do think I can make enough points sufficiently to warrant why readers should commit themselves to examining this volume, sharing it with others, and most importantly help to enact changes in higher education offered in this work."― The New Education takes a good hard look at the old education, and finds it sorely wanting. Are colleges and universities failing an entire generation of young people? Yes, argues Cathy N. Davidson, a renowned literary scholar and a leader in higher education reform. This is an important and illuminating book whose argument is driven by a deep knowledge of the past and an even deeper commitment to the future."―

"I found the book to be a succinct (it isn't long), interesting (particularly the historical perspectives on problems that plague us today), practical (so many references and case studies of success!) guide to the big problems in universities. The book is also written in a funny and light-hearted way, despite the gravity of some of the issues that are discussed. I'd strongly recommend it to all HE colleagues, and especially to staff in managerial positions. We're the ones who need to make the change."― Jill Lepore, David Woods Kemper '42 Professor of American History, Harvard University The New Education

"Read it. And change the world! If you are an academic or a student or an administrator, begin with college."
― compels us to equip our students with creative new tactics for navigating the volatile present. Grounded in a deep understanding of both historical and current crises in education, Davidson challenges us to reinvigorate and reconsider our approach to reform."― Danah Boyd, author of It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens The New Education offers valuable reflections on ways educators can reexamine approaches to preparing young women and men for a rapidly evolving modern world. Grounded in decades of classroom experience and scholarly inquiry, Cathy N. Davidson makes a compelling case for educators to interrogate traditional structures in higher education, and help students seek, in her words, 'a sustained and productive life.'"― John J. DeGioia, president Georgetown University Diana Taylor, president, Modern Language Association, and university professor, New York University Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor in Learning Technology, Plymouth, Devon, UK The New Education , Davidson emphasizes the importance of higher education as a place of transformation for students, making the role of the teaching in the academy a critical one. Tracing the evolution of the university from the seventeenth century through today, Davidson ... argues that our contemporary world has moved far beyond the nineteenth-century paradigms that the current university was designed for, and that it's past time for colleges and universities to evolve as well."― Cathy LeBlanc Kirkus Reviews

"Cathy N. Davidson offers us an inspiring and lucid explanation of how we got the educational system we have and how to build the one our students and our country needs and deserves. A must-read for those interested in higher education."―

"She pulls no punches and writes in a style that challenges and encourages in equal measure. She is a doyen of the progressive education movement, and her ideas are far reaching and influential."―

"An engaging, anecdotal, wide-ranging look at educational innovation... a persuasive plea for creative learning."―

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The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World In Flux

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Amazon.com: The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World In Flux: 9781541601277: Davidson, Cathy N.: Books

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Play Personalities - National Institute for Play

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What is your play personality? Most people are a mix of more than one. Which of Dr. Brown's play personalities sounds most like you?

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Do schools kill creativity? | Sir Ken Robinson | TED

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Hall of Fame

Position: Coach
Years: Yale (1888-92), Stanford (1892, 1894-95)
Place of Birth: New Britain, CT
Date of Birth: Apr 17, 1859
Place of Death: New York, NY
Date of Death: Mar 14, 1925

Walter Chauncey Camp is known as "The Father of American Football". Born in New Britain, Conn., April 7, 1859, he would be a Yale halfback and captain, and a member of the Intercollegiate Football Rules Committee for 48 years. His innovative mind would restructure the game from rugby to American football, creating the scrimmage line, the 11-man team, signal-calling and the quarterback position. Camp was the originator of the rule whereby a team had to give up the ball unless it had advanced a specified distance within a set number of downs. Camp studied medicine at Yale for two years, but gave it up to go to work in his uncle's watch factory and coach the 1888 Yale football team. Camp and Caspar Whitney collaborated in selecting the first All-America team one year later. Camp was the first man to publish a book on football, and was also a pioneer in the use of pictures and illustrations as coaching aids. He coached Yale 1888-92 and Stanford 1892, 1894-95. In 1892 he coached both. First he led Yale to a 13-0 season, then he went to Stanford, where the season started Dec. 17, and had a 2-0-2 record. Camp headed the rules committee and was editor of the official guide. He died March 14, 1925.

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Position: Coach Years: Yale (1888-92), Stanford (1892, 1894-95) Place of Birth: New Britain, CT Date of Birth: Apr 17, 1859 Place of Death: New York, NY Date of Death: Mar 14, 1925 Walter Chauncey Camp is known as "The Father of American Football".

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Chapter 1 "If You Want to Gather Honey, Don't Kick Over the Beehive" rat-tat-tat of machine guns. Crowley, crouching behind an overstuffed chair, fired incessantly at the police. Ten thousand excited people watched the battle. Nothing like it had ever been seen before on the sidewalks of New York. hung above the bed, and a dismal gas jet flickered yellow light. I believe I have made as detailed and exhaustive a study of Lincoln's personality and home life as it is possible for any being to make. I made a special study of Lincoln's method of dealing with people. Did he indulge in criticism? Oh, yes. As a young man in the Pigeon Creek Valley of Indiana, he not only criticized but he wrote letters and poems ridiculing people and dropped these letters on the country roads where they were sure to be found. One of these letters aroused resentments that burned for a lifetime. The town roared with laughter. Shields, sensitive and proud, boiled with indignation. He found out who wrote the letter, leaped on his horse, started after Lincoln, and challenged him to fight a duel. Lincoln didn't want to fight. He was opposed to dueling, but he couldn't get out of it and save his honor. He was given the choice of weapons. Since he had very long arms, he chose cavalry broadswords and took lessons in sword fighting from a West Point graduate; and, on the appointed day, he and Shields met on a sandbar in the Mississippi River, prepared to fight to the death; but, at the last minute, their seconds interrupted and stopped the duel. at three hundred feet in the air, both engines suddenly stopped. By deft maneuvering he managed to land the plane, but it was badly damaged although nobody was hurt.Principle 1

On May 7, 1931, the most sensational manhunt New York City had ever known had come to its climax. After weeks of search, "Two Gun" Crowley -- the killer, the gunman who didn't smoke or drink -- was at bay, trapped in his sweetheart's apartment on West End Avenue.

One hundred and fifty policemen and detectives laid siege to his top-floor hideaway. They chopped holes in the roof; they tried to smoke out Crowley, the "cop killer," with tear gas. Then they mounted their machine guns on surrounding buildings, and for more than an hour one of New York's fine residential areas reverberated with the crack of pistol fire and the

When Crowley was captured, Police Commissioner E. P. Mulrooney declared that the two-gun desperado was one of the most dangerous criminals ever encountered in the history of New York. "He will kill," said the Commissioner, "at the drop of a feather."

As Lincoln lay dying, Secretary of War Stanton said, "There lies the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen."

Even after Lincoln had become a practicing lawyer in Springfield, Illinois, he attacked his opponents openly in letters published in the newspapers. But he did this just once too often.

That was the most lurid personal incident in Lincoln's life. It taught him an invaluable lesson in the art of dealing with people. Never again did he write an insulting letter. Never again did he ridicule anyone. And from that time on, he almost never criticized anybody for anything.

Hoover's first act after the emergency landing was to inspect the airplane's fuel. Just as he suspected, the World War II propeller plane he had been flying had been fueled with jet fuel rather than gasoline.

Upon returning to the airport, he asked to see the mechanic who had serviced his airplane. The young man was sick with the agony of his mistake. Tears streamed down his face as Hoover approached. He had just caused the loss of a very expensive plane and could have caused the loss of three lives as well.

You can imagine Hoover's anger. One could anticipate the tongue-lashing that this proud and precise pilot would unleash for that carelessness. But Hoover didn't scold the mechanic; he didn't even criticize him. Instead, he put his big arm around the man's shoulder and said, "To show you I'm sure that you'll never do this again, I want you to service my F-51 tomorrow."

"Father Forgets" is one of those little pieces which -- dashed off in a moment of sincere feeling -- strikes an echoing chord in so many readers as to become a perennial reprint favorite. Since its first appearance, "Father Forgets" has been reproduced, writes the author, W. Livingston Larned, "in hundreds of magazines and house organs, and in newspapers the country over. It has been reprinted almost as extensively in many foreign languages. I have given personal permission to thousands who wished to read it from school, church, and lecture platforms. It has been 'on the air' on countless occasions and programs. Oddly enough, college periodicals have used it, and high-school magazines. Sometimes a little piece seems mysteriously to 'click.' This one certainly did."

Copyright &copy; 1936 by Dale Carnegie
Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!"

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive -- and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding -- this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy -- a little boy!"

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. I have asked too much, too much.

Instead of condemning people, let's try to understand them. Let's try to figure out why they do what they do. That's a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. "To know all is to forgive all."

As Dr. Johnson said: "God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.."

Why should you and I?

FATHER FORGETS

Often parents are tempted to criticize their children. You would expect me to say "don't." But I will not. I am merely going to say,

Time after time, during the Civil War, Lincoln put a new general at the head of the Army of the Potomac, and each one in turn -- McClellan, Pope, Burnside, Hooker, Meade -- blundered tragically and drove Lincoln to pacing the floor in despair. Half the nation savagely condemned these incompetent generals, but Lincoln, "with malice toward none, with charity for all," held his peace. One of his favorite quotations was "Judge not, that ye be not judged."

And when Mrs. Lincoln and others spoke harshly of the southern people, Lincoln replied: "Don't criticize them; they are just what we would be under similar circumstances."

Yet if any man ever had occasion to criticize, surely it was Lincoln. Let's take just one illustration:

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought during the first three days of July 1863. During the night of July 4, Lee began to retreat southward while storm clouds deluged the country with rain. When Lee reached the Potomac with his defeated army, he found a swollen, impassable river in front of him, and a victorious Union Army behind him. Lee was in a trap. He couldn't escape. Lincoln saw that. Here was a golden, heaven-sent opportunity -- the opportunity to capture Lee's army and end the war immediately. So, with a surge of high hope, Lincoln ordered Meade not to call a council of war but to attack Lee immediately. Lincoln telegraphed his orders and then sent a special messenger to Meade demanding immediate action.

And what did General Meade do? He did the very opposite of what he was told to do. He called a council of war in direct violation of Lincoln's orders. He hesitated. He procrastinated. He telegraphed all manner of excuses. He refused point-blank to attack Lee. Finally the waters receded and Lee escaped over the Potomac with his forces.

Lincoln was furious. "What does this mean?" Lincoln cried to his son Robert. "Great God! What does this mean? We had them within our grasp, and had only to stretch forth our hands and they were ours; yet nothing that I could say or do could make the army move. Under the circumstances, almost any general could have defeated Lee. If I had gone up there, I could have whipped him myself."

In bitter disappointment, Lincoln sat down and wrote Meade this letter. And remember, at this period of his life Lincoln was extremely conservative and restrained in his phraseology. So this letter coming from Lincoln in 1863 was tantamount to the severest rebuke.

My dear General,

I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within our easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few -- no more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.

What do you suppose Meade did when he read the letter?

Meade never saw that letter. Lincoln never mailed it. It was found among his papers after his death.

My guess is -- and this is only a guess -- that after writing that letter, Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself, "Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be so hasty. It is easy enough for me to sit here in the quiet of the White House and order Meade to attack; but if I had been up at Gettysburg, and if I had seen as much blood as Meade has seen during the last week, and if my ears had been pierced with the screams and shrieks of the wounded and dying, maybe I wouldn't be so anxious to attack either. If I had Meade's timid temperament, perhaps I would have done just what he had done. Anyhow, it is water under the bridge now. If I send this letter, it will relieve my feelings, but it will make Meade try to justify himself. It will make him condemn me. It will arouse hard feelings, impair all his further usefulness as a commander, and perhaps force him to resign from the army."

So, as I have already said, Lincoln put the letter aside, for he had learned by bitter experience that sharp criticisms and rebukes almost invariably end in futility.

Theodore Roosevelt said that when he, as President, was confronted with a perplexing problem, he used to lean back and look up at a large painting of Lincoln which hung above his desk in the White House and ask himself, "What would Lincoln do if he were in my shoes? How would he solve this problem?"

The next time we are tempted to admonish somebody, let's pull a five-dollar bill out of our pocket, look at Lincoln's picture on the bill, and ask, "How would Lincoln handle this problem if he had it?"

Mark Twain lost his temper occasionally and wrote letters that turned the paper brown. For example, he once wrote to a man who had aroused his ire: "The thing for you is a burial permit. You have only to speak and I will see that you get it." On another occasion he wrote to an editor about a proofreader's attempts to "improve my spelling and punctuation." He ordered: "Set the matter according to my copy hereafter and see that the proofreader retains his suggestions in the mush of his decayed brain."
rd

The writing of these stinging letters made Mark Twain feel better. They allowed him to blow off steam, and the letters didn't do any real harm, because Mark Twain's wife secretly lifted them out of the mail. They were never sent.

Do you know someone you would like to change and regulate and improve? Good! That is fine. I am all in favor of it. But why not begin on yourself? From a purely selfish standpoint, that is a lot more profitable than trying to improve others -- yes, and a lot less dangerous. "Don't complain about the snow on your neighbor's roof," said Confucius, "when your own doorstep is unclean."

When I was still young and trying hard to impress people, I wrote a foolish letter to Richard Harding Davis, an author who once loomed large on the literary horizon of America. I was preparing a magazine article about authors, and I asked Davis to tell me about his method of work. A few weeks earlier, I had received a letter from someone with this notation at the bottom: "Dictated but not read." I was quite impressed. I felt that the writer must be very big and busy and important. I wasn't the slightest bit busy, but I was eager to make an impression on Richard Harding Davis, so I ended my short note with the words: "Dictated but not read."

He never troubled to answer the letter. He simply returned it to me with this scribbled across the bottom: "Your bad manners are exceeded only by your bad manners." True, I had blundered, and perhaps I deserved this rebuke. But, being human, I resented it. I resented it so sharply that when I read of the death of Richard Harding Davis ten years later, the one thought that still persisted in my mind -- I am ashamed to admit -- was the hurt he had given me.

If you and I want to stir up a resentment tomorrow that may rankle across the decades and endure until death, just let us indulge in a little stinging criticism -- no matter how certain we are that it is justified.

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

Bitter criticism caused the sensitive Thomas Hardy, one of the finest novelists ever to enrich English literature, to give up forever the writing of fiction. Criticism drove Thomas Chatterton, the English poet, to suicide.

Benjamin Franklin, tactless in his youth, became so diplomatic, so adroit at handling people, that he was made American Ambassador to France. The secret of his success? "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "...and speak all the good I know of everybody."

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do.

But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.

"A great man shows his greatness," said Carlyle, "by the way he treats little men."

Bob Hoover, a famous test pilot and frequent performer at air shows, was returning to his home in Los Angeles from an air show in San Diego. As described in the magazine

In the autumn of 1842 he ridiculed a vain, pugnacious politician by the name of James Shields. Lincoln lampooned him through an anonymous letter published in the Springfield

What was the secret of Lincoln's success in dealing with people? I studied the life of Abraham Lincoln for ten years and devoted all of three years to writing and rewriting a book entitled

But how did "Two Gun" Crowley regard himself? We know, because while the police were firing into his apartment, he wrote a letter addressed "To whom it may concern." And, as he wrote, the blood flowing from his wounds left a crimson trail on the paper. In his letter Crowley said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one -- one that would do nobody any harm."

A short time before this, Crowley had been having a necking party with his girl friend on a country road out on Long Island. Suddenly a policeman walked up to the car and said: "Let me see your license."

Without saying a word, Crowley drew his gun and cut the policeman down with a shower of lead. As the dying officer fell, Crowley leaped out of the car, grabbed the officer's revolver, and fired another bullet into the prostrate body. And that was the killer who said: "Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one -- one that would do nobody any harm."

Crowley was sentenced to the electric chair. When he arrived at the death house in Sing Sing, did he say, "This is what I get for killing people"? No, he said: "This is what I get for defending myself."

The point of the story is this: "Two Gun" Crowley didn't blame himself for anything.

Is that an unusual attitude among criminals? If you think so, listen to this:

"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man."

That's Al Capone speaking. Yes, America's most notorious Public Enemy -- the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn't condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor -- an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.

And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of New York's most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor. And he believed it.

I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York's infamous Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he declared that "few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all."

If Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison walls don't blame themselves for anything -- what about the people with whom you and I come in contact?

John Wanamaker, founder of the stores that bear his name, once confessed: "I learned thirty years ago that it is foolish to scold. I have enough trouble overcoming my own limitations without fretting over the fact that God has not seen fit to distribute evenly the gift of intelligence."

Wanamaker learned this lesson early, but I personally had to blunder through this old world for a third of a century before it even began to dawn upon me that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, people don't criticize themselves for anything, no matter how wrong it may be.

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

B. F. Skinner, the world-famous psychologist, proved through his experiments that an animal rewarded for good behavior will learn much more rapidly and retain what it learns far more effectively than an animal punished for bad behavior. Later studies have shown that the same applies to humans. By criticizing, we do not make lasting changes and often incur resentment.

Hans Selye, another great psychologist, said, "As much as we thirst for approval, we dread condemnation."

The resentment that criticism engenders can demoralize employees, family members and friends, and still not correct the situation that has been condemned.

George B. Johnston of Enid, Oklahoma, is the safety coordinator for an engineering company. One of his responsibilities is to see that employees wear their hard hats whenever they are on the job in the field. He reported that whenever he came across workers who were not wearing hard hats, he would tell them with a lot of authority of the regulation and that they must comply. As a result he would get sullen acceptance, and often after he left, the workers would remove the hats.

He decided to try a different approach. The next time he found some of the workers not wearing their hard hat, he asked if the hats were uncomfortable or did not fit properly. Then he reminded the men in a pleasant tone of voice that the hat was designed to protect them from injury and suggested that it always be worn on the job. The result was increased compliance with the regulation with no resentment or emotional upset.

You will find examples of the futility of criticism bristling on a thousand pages of history. Take, for example, the famous quarrel between Theodore Roosevelt and President Taft -- a quarrel that split the Republican party, put Woodrow Wilson in the White House, and wrote bold, luminous lines across the First World War and altered the flow of history. Let's review the facts quickly. When Theodore Roosevelt stepped out of the White House in 1908, he supported Taft, who was elected President. Then Theodore Roosevelt went off to Africa to shoot lions. When he returned, he exploded. He denounced Taft for his conservatism, tried to secure the nomination for a third term himself, formed the Bull Moose party, and all but demolished the G.O.P. In the election that followed, William Howard Taft and the Republican party carried only two states -- Vermont and Utah. The most disastrous defeat the party had ever known.

Theodore Roosevelt blamed Taft, but did President Taft blame himself? Of course not. With tears in his eyes, Taft said: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."

Who was to blame? Roosevelt or Taft? Frankly, I don't know, and I don't care. The point I am trying to make is that all of Theodore Roosevelt's criticism didn't persuade Taft that he was wrong. It merely made Taft strive to justify himself and to reiterate with tears in his eyes: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."

Or, take the Teapot Dome oil scandal. It kept the newspapers ringing with indignation in the early 1920s. It rocked the nation! Within the memory of living men, nothing like it had ever happened before in American public life. Here are the bare facts of the scandal: Albert B. Fall, secretary of the interior in Harding's cabinet, was entrusted with the leasing of government oil reserves at Elk Hill and Teapot Dome -- oil reserves that had been set aside for the future use of the Navy. Did Secretary Fall permit competitive bidding? No sir, He handed the fat, juicy contract outright to his friend Edward L. Doheny. And what did Doheny do? He gave Secretary Fall what he was pleased to call a "loan" of one hundred thousand dollars. Then, in a high-handed manner, Secretary Fall ordered United States Marines into the district to drive off competitors whose adjacent wells were sapping oil out of the Elk Hill reserves. These competitors, driven off their ground at the ends of guns and bayonets, rushed into court -- and blew the lid off the Teapot Dome scandal. A stench arose so vile that it ruined the Harding Administration, nauseated an entire nation, threatened to wreck the Republican party, and put Albert B. Fall behind prison bars.

Fall was condemned viciously -- condemned as few men in public life have ever been. Did he repent? Never! Years later Herbert Hoover intimated in a public speech that President Harding's death had been due to mental anxiety and worry because a friend had betrayed him. When Mrs. Fall heard that, she sprang from her chair, she wept, she shook her fists at fate and screamed: "What! Harding betrayed by Fall? No! My husband never betrayed anyone. This whole house full of gold would not tempt my husband to do wrong. He is the one who has been betrayed and led to the slaughter and crucified."

There you are; human nature in action, wrongdoers, blaming everybody but themselves. We are all like that. So when you and I are tempted to criticize someone tomorrow, let's remember Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley and Albert Fall. Let's realize that criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home. Let's realize that the person we are going to correct and condemn will probably justify himself or herself, and condemn us in return; or, like the gentle Taft, will say: "I don't see how I could have done any differently from what I have."

On the morning of April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a hall bedroom of a cheap lodging house directly across the street from Ford's Theater, where John Wilkes Booth had shot him. Lincoln's long body lay stretched diagonally across a sagging bed that was too short for him. A cheap reproduction of Rosa Bonheur's famous painting The Horse Fair Lincoln the Unknown. Journal. Flight Operations, "Before you criticize them, read one of the classics of American journalism, 'Father Forgets.'" It originally appeared as an editorial in the People's Home Journal. We are reprinting it here with the author's permission, as condensed in the Reader's Digest: W. Livingston Larned

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How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie Books)

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Amazon.com: How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie Books): 9780671027032: Dale Carnegie: Books

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Grade 1 teacher welcomes students with special greeting

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Responsive Advisory Meeting is a purposeful routine for meeting the needs of young adolescents through building positive, meaningful relationships with caring adults and peers. There are four sequential components: arrival welcome, announcements, acknowledgments, and activity.

Why Middle Schoolers Benefit from Responsive Advisory Meeting

Responsive Advisory Meeting serves as an anchor for adolescents, a predictable routine that students need more than ever as they undergo rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual changes. Advisory provides a space and structure for teachers to support middle school students, both individually and as a group, as they develop their sense of self and identity in connection to their relationships with peers.

Responsive Advisory Meeting supports middle school students of all levels of development:

For new middle schoolers, consistency is key. While navigating a new building, adjusting to a different schedule, and mastering that right of the passage that is the locker, students find comfort and consistency in Advisory.

For older middle schoolers, Advisory offers agency. It is a springboard from which ideas for student-led service projects arise and a meeting ground for safe, healthy debate among students engaged in learning as a community.

The Four Components of Responsive Advisory Meeting

1. Arrival welcome - The teacher welcomes each student by name as they enter.

2. Announcements - In advance, the teacher writes an interactive message and displays it where it can be easily seen and read by all students.

3. Acknowledgments - In pairs or small groups, students share their responses to a prompt in the announcements message, a piece of news about themselves, or ideas about a topic related to their studies or interests.

4. Activity - The whole group does a fun, lively activity that's focused on the specific purpose of the meeting

Things to Remember

Responsive Advisory Meetings can be autonomous or can build on a common theme. Here are some tips for each component.

1. Arrival Welcome: Use your very first Responsive Advisory Meeting to focus on names. Ask each student to introduce themselves rather than reading names off a roster. This ensures that everyone is being addressed by their preferred name (which may not match the name on your roster or may have changed since the last time students were together) and that everyone can hear the proper pronunciation of each name.

2. Announcements: Communicate with digital natives digitally. If your school uses tablets or laptops, try writing the Announcement as an email or chat scheduled to send at the start of class. This also allows for more accessibility as students with visual impairments can enlarge the font and those with reading difficulty can wear headphone and listen to the message through a text reader.

3. Acknowledgments: Always read the room. Keep Acknowledgements low-risk at the beginning of the year or on those not uncommon occasions when students in the group have carried an underlying social conflict into Advisory that day. A simple one-word share around the room is always an easy choice.

4. Activity: Here is your chance to get students sinking their teeth into a rich content area or theme. Foster engagement by keeping the format fresh. If students are working on small group, on-going projects for a week or more, allow time for the group to break into pairs or for moments of solitary work and reflection.

The Purposes of Responsive Advisory Meeting

Advisory is designed to address seven key purposes:

1. Build student to student affiliation

2. Energize and re-engage

3. Reflect & recalibrate

4. Extend learning through themes

5. Support academic readiness

6. Strengthen advisor-advisee relationships

7. Develop communication and social skills development

As you become more comfortable with the practice and work to design Advisories for the year ahead, keeping these purposes in mind can help to scaffold effective, engaging lesson plans for all students.

Popular Articles about Responsive Advisory Meeting

Looking to introduce Responsive Advisory Meeting into your classroom or refine your current practices? Here are some of our most read articles on the subject:

Further Resources

For a more thorough exploration of this practice, including practical tips and effective ideas for each component, check out the following:

Also be sure to check our sample lesson plan and our 1-day planner with guiding questions to help you purposefully plan each component.

Tags: Building Classroom Community, Getting Started with RC, Responsive Advisory Meeting

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Responsive Advisory Meeting serves as an anchor for adolescents, a predictable routine that students need more than ever as they undergo rapid physical, emotional, and intellectual changes.

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Brene Brown - The Power of Vulnerability

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Brene Brown - The Power of Vulnerability

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The Power of Vulnerability | Brené Brown | TED

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Caring For Students: What Teachers Have to Say

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Caring For Students: What Teachers Have to Say

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Teacher Has Personalized Handshakes With Every Single One of His Students

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February 4, 2015, was the first annual Global School Play Day for students in schools around the world. In year one, over 65,000 students participated! Since 2015, over a million and a half students from 75 Nations were given the gift of unstructured playtime. Can we reach 2,000,000 students in 2024? We think so!

In his TEDx lecture, Peter Gray clearly argues the case that today's kids do not grow up playing and this has negatively impacted them in many ways. It's time we return the gift of play to this generation.

First, please register your class/school to tell the world that you will be participating in GSPD 2024. If you do not teach, but would like to register your vote of support, please use this

1. EDUCATE - Teach your students, parents, colleagues, and administration about the benefits and necessity for play. Perhaps you could share Peter Gray's TEDx video with them on the decline of play in our culture.

3. CALL FOR TOYS - Tell your class to bring anything they wish to play with to school on February 7, 2024 (Or as close to that date as you can). The only restrictions we ask are: they must bring toys and these toys may NOT require batteries or electricity. No devices. Give them some ideas, since today's kids rarely play and often own very few toys: board games, dolls, Legos, blocks, trucks, cars, racetracks, playing cards, empty cardboard boxes, markers, jigsaw puzzles, blankets (for forts), social games (charades, Pictionary, etc.) The only exception to the electronics rule would be a board game that has an electronic timer, an electronics play kit, or similar. How about taking your students out in the dirt or snow to dig, explore and get messy? You may want to show your students photos of past GSPD events to open their eyes to unfamiliar types of unstructured play.

on Global School Play Day, allow your students to spread their toys out around the room or take the kids outside and just PLAY!

Don't interfere with your students unless you see something that could get you fired or would physically hurt a child (this does not include something that may be physically uncomfortable for a child.)

Don't Leave Them Unsupervised as the day is unstructured by adults, but not unsupervised.

Other than taking a few pictures/videos, try to be invisible and let the kids play. This is a day of unstructured play, not playful teacher-led lessons. You will be amazed at what your kids come up with!

After the event, be sure to share your pictures, ideas, and reactions on social media (with parent consent) and hashtag them #GSPD2024. Perhaps you could add a post to your blog sharing about the experience. Ask your students to reflect on GSPD as well! Be sure to talk to your students and if possible, their parents, about the necessity of daily unstructured play. Your students will most surely ask if they can have play days more often. A great answer is, "Of course! Every day can be "play day" with your friends in your neighborhood after school. Keep playing as you did at school today, but just do it after school."

What if... you can't run your Global School Play Day on the first Wednesday in Febraury? Do it on another day! The important thing is your kids and colleagues need to be free from thinking that play is a waste of time and begin to see the value in it.

What if... you don't want to play ALL day? That's fine. Make it the hour of play. Again, the point of Global School Play Day is to raise awareness and start discussions. We do encourage you though to take the plunge and dedicate a whole day to unstructured play. You will cause others to ask why you would give up a whole day "just for playing."

What if... you want to jump in and play with your kids? Can adults play, too? That's up to you, but the concept of GSPD is to get kids playing freely without adult intervention or structure. If you get down on the floor with your kids, be sure to let them just play. Resist the temptation to organize, discipline, and teach.

What if...you want to have your students use iPads or computers? Well, no one is going to tell you what to do, but this is NOT the concept of Global School Play Day. GSPD is a day to get away from staring at screens and instead of interacting with peers. [Note: the organizers of GSPD are NOT opposed to technology use for children.]

Global School Play Day is for public schools, private schools, and homeschool families! Let's spread the word about the benefits of unstructured play. Together we can reverse the downward trend in childhood play that many nations have experienced since the 1950's.

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Global School Play Day is a an event promoting the importance of unstructured play in schools. Unstructured play helps children develop 21st century skills.

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The project was created in 2010 with a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. From its humble beginnings, the GRA has grown to make a truly global connection with milllions of students having participated.

What is it?

The premise is simple; we pick a book to read aloud to our students during a set 6-week period and during that time we try to make as many global connections as possible. Each teacher decides how much time they would like to dedicate and how involved they would like to be. Some people choose to connect with just one class, while others go for as many as possible. The scope and depth of the project is up to you. While there are commonly used such as Skype, Twitter, Padlet, or Flipgrid, you choose the tools that will make the most sense for you. Teachers get a community of other educators to do a global project with, hopefully inspiring them to continue these connections through the year.

When is it?

Once a year, starting in early October and running through mid-November. Due to the time commitment, this is only a once a year project, however, two fantastic spin-off projects run at other times; the New Zealand Read Aloud and the French version of GRA, Ecouter Lire le Monde.

I have questions as a Participant

Please see " For Participants" to have all of your questions answered.

I have questions as an Author

Please see "For Authors" to have all of your questions answered.

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To see the blog with the latest news and ideas, go here. To join our Facebook Community, go here - this is how you sign up The project was created in 2010 with a simple goal in mind; one book to connect the world. From its humble beginnings, the GRA has grown to make a...

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Create Locally, Share Globally. Connect virtually and view makers discuss about different projects, learning spaces, creations, coding, 3D designs, art lessons, etc.

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Bryan Berg Largest Card Stacking Structure PT 2

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Bryan Berg Largest Card Stacking Structure PT 2

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Largest Card Stacking Structure - Record Holder Profile - Bryan Berg Pt.2 - Guinness World Records

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Largest Card Stacking Structure - Record Holder Profile - Bryan Berg - Guinness World Records

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Largest Card Stacking Structure - Record Holder Profile - Bryan Berg - Guinness World Records

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Largest Card Stacking Structure - Record Holder Profile - Bryan Berg - Guinness World Records

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At youcubed, we inspire, educate and empower teachers of mathematics, transforming the latest research on mathematics learning into accessible and practical forms.

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It may seem obvious that students achieve at higher levels when teachers believe in them, but few would have predicted how much a simple message from teachers can change students' whole trajectories and achievement.

A study many years ago that probably would not be allowed today, showed something remarkable about teacher beliefs. Researchers told teachers that some classes of students - across six grade levels - had been tested and were capable of greater intellectual growth than other students. In reality, those students were of the same achievement levels as other students and were randomly chosen for the classes. At the end of one year the students' scores on IQ tests matched the teachers' false beliefs. When teachers were told that students had higher intellectual ability their students scored at significantly higher levels on IQ tests than students whose teachers were not told anything (Rosenthal and Jacobs, 1968). This study is a powerful illustration that teachers' expectations and beliefs about students matter.

In a much more recent study, researchers illustrated just how powerful a single message can be. Hundreds of students were involved in an experimental study of high school English classes. All of the students wrote essays and received critical diagnostic feedback from their teachers, but half the students received an extra sentence on the bottom of the feedback. The students who received the extra sentence achieved higher grades a year later, even though the teachers did not know who received the sentence and there were no other differences between the groups. It may seem incredible that one sentence could change students' learning trajectories to the extent that they achieve at higher levels a year later, with no other change, but this was the extra sentence:

I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.

Students who received this sentence scored at higher levels a year later. This effect was significant for students of color, who often feel less valued by their teachers (Cohen & Garcia, 2014). I share this finding with teachers frequently, and they always fully understand its significance. I do not share the result in the hope that teachers will add this same sentence to all of their students' work. That would lead students to think the sentence was not genuine, which would be counterproductive. I share it to emphasize the power of teachers' words and teachers' beliefs they hold about students, and to encourage teachers to instill positive belief messages at all times. Furthermore, belief in students alone is not enough (Shouse, 1996). Teachers must couple these beliefs with an academic environment that values open, growth mathematics , mistakes , and high quality assessments.

Teachers can communicate positive expectations to students by using encouraging words, and it is easy to do this with students who appear motivated, who learn easily, or who are quick. But it is even more important to communicate positive beliefs and expectations to students who are slow, appear unmotivated, or struggle. It is also important to realize that the speed at which students appear to grasp concepts is not indicative of their mathematics potential (Supekar et al, 2013). As hard as it is, it is important to not have any preconceptions about our students.

We must be open at all times to any student working hard and achieving at high levels.

Some students give the impression that math is a constant struggle for them and they may ask a lot of questions or keep saying they are stuck, but they are just hiding their mathematics potential and are likely to be suffering from a fixed mindset; often these students are scared to take a risk or to get anything wrong. Some students have had bad math experiences and messages from a young age or have not received opportunities for brain growth and learning that other students have, so they are at lower levels than other students. This in no way means they cannot excel with good mathematics teaching, positive messages, and, perhaps most importantly, high expectations from their teachers and parents.

You can be the person who turns things around for students and liberates their learning path. It usually takes just one person-a person whom students will never forget.

This article contains excerpts from Jo Boaler's new book, Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching
References

Boaler, J. (2015). Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Cohen, G. L., & Garcia, J. (2014). Educational Theory, Practice, and Policy and the Wisdom of Social Psychology. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(1), 13-20.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20.

Shouse, R. C. (1996). Academic press and sense of community: Conflict, congruence, and implications for student achievement. Social Psychology of Education, 1(1), 47-68.

Supekar, K.; Swigart, A., Tenison, C., Jolles, D., Rosenberg-Lee, M., Fuchs, L., & Menon, V. (2013). Neural Predictors of Individual Differences in Response to Math Tutoring in Primary-Grade School Children. PNAS, 110, 20 (8230-8235)

It may seem obvious that students achieve at higher levels when teachers believe in them, but few would have predicted how much a simple message from teachers can change students' whole trajectories and achievement.

A study many years ago that probably would not be allowed today, showed something remarkable about teacher beliefs. Researchers told teachers that some classes of students - across six grade levels - had been tested and were capable of greater intellectual growth than other students. In reality, those students were of the same achievement levels as other students and were randomly chosen for the classes. At the end of one year the students' scores on IQ tests matched the teachers' false beliefs. When teachers were told that students had higher intellectual ability their students scored at significantly higher levels on IQ tests than students whose teachers were not told anything (Rosenthal and Jacobs, 1968). This study is a powerful illustration that teachers' expectations and beliefs about students matter.

In a much more recent study, researchers illustrated just how powerful a single message can be. Hundreds of students were involved in an experimental study of high school English classes. All of the students wrote essays and received critical diagnostic feedback from their teachers, but half the students received an extra sentence on the bottom of the feedback. The students who received the extra sentence achieved higher grades a year later, even though the teachers did not know who received the sentence and there were no other differences between the groups. It may seem incredible that one sentence could change students' learning trajectories to the extent that they achieve at higher levels a year later, with no other change, but this was the extra sentence:

I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.

Students who received this sentence scored at higher levels a year later. This effect was significant for students of color, who often feel less valued by their teachers (Cohen & Garcia, 2014). I share this finding with teachers frequently, and they always fully understand its significance. I do not share the result in the hope that teachers will add this same sentence to all of their students' work. That would lead students to think the sentence was not genuine, which would be counterproductive. I share it to emphasize the power of teachers' words and teachers' beliefs they hold about students, and to encourage teachers to instill positive belief messages at all times. Furthermore, belief in students alone is not enough (Shouse, 1996). Teachers must couple these beliefs with an academic environment that values open, growth mathematics , mistakes , and high quality assessments.

Teachers can communicate positive expectations to students by using encouraging words, and it is easy to do this with students who appear motivated, who learn easily, or who are quick. But it is even more important to communicate positive beliefs and expectations to students who are slow, appear unmotivated, or struggle. It is also important to realize that the speed at which students appear to grasp concepts is not indicative of their mathematics potential (Supekar et al, 2013). As hard as it is, it is important to not have any preconceptions about our students.

We must be open at all times to any student working hard and achieving at high levels.

Some students give the impression that math is a constant struggle for them and they may ask a lot of questions or keep saying they are stuck, but they are just hiding their mathematics potential and are likely to be suffering from a fixed mindset; often these students are scared to take a risk or to get anything wrong. Some students have had bad math experiences and messages from a young age or have not received opportunities for brain growth and learning that other students have, so they are at lower levels than other students. This in no way means they cannot excel with good mathematics teaching, positive messages, and, perhaps most importantly, high expectations from their teachers and parents.

You can be the person who turns things around for students and liberates their learning path. It usually takes just one person-a person whom students will never forget.

This article contains excerpts from Jo Boaler's new book, Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching
References

Boaler, J. (2015). Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students' Potential Through Creative Math, Inspiring Messages and Innovative Teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Cohen, G. L., & Garcia, J. (2014). Educational Theory, Practice, and Policy and the Wisdom of Social Psychology. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1(1), 13-20.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom. The Urban Review, 3(1), 16-20.

Shouse, R. C. (1996). Academic press and sense of community: Conflict, congruence, and implications for student achievement. Social Psychology of Education, 1(1), 47-68.

Supekar, K.; Swigart, A., Tenison, C., Jolles, D., Rosenberg-Lee, M., Fuchs, L., & Menon, V. (2013). Neural Predictors of Individual Differences in Response to Math Tutoring in Primary-Grade School Children. PNAS, 110, 20 (8230-8235)

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When You Believe In Your Students They Do Better - YouCubed

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It may seem obvious that students achieve at higher levels when teachers believe in them, but few would have predicted how much a simple message from teachers can change students' whole trajectories and achievement. A study many years ago that probably would not be allowed today, showed something remarkable about teacher beliefs.

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A.J. Juliani is the author of the Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller, Adaptable: How to Create an Adaptable Curriculum and Flexible Learning Experiences That Work in Any Environment. His previous titles include Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning, LAUNCH: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student, Inquiry & Innovation in the Classroom, and The PBL Playbook.

A.J. Juliani serves as Faculty for the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (PLN) and former Director of Learning and Innovation for Centennial School District. As a Curriculum coordinator, Tech Director, English teacher, football coach, and K-12 Instructional Coach, A.J. has worked towards innovative learning experiences for schools in various roles.

A.J. is the author of books centered around student-agency, choice, innovative learning, and engagement. As a parent of five children, A.J. believes we must be intentional about innovation in order to create a better future of learning for all of our students. You can connect with A.J. on his blog, located at ajjuliani.com, or through Twitter (@ajjuliani) and Instagram (@learningwithaj).

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Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student

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Something happens in students when they define themselves as makers and inventors and creators. They discover powerful skills-problem-solving, critical thinking, and imagination-that will help them shape the world's future ... our future. If that's true, why isn't creativity a priority in more scho...

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Talk to Lisa about this!

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Breakout EDU - Educational Games for the Classroom

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Breakout EDU gamifies learning to create an engaging and empowering experience for students of all grade levels.

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"teacher vlog" "game based learning" gamification "gamification in education" "michael matera" mrmatera "mr matera" "middle school teacher" "education vloger"

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I love connecting with other educators and growing together. Please check out MrMatera.com for more ideas and ways to connect. Running PD for districts, conferences, or other events is a passion of mine.

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On the first day of school, 7th grade students tried their hand in the "Destroy the Box" challenge. They enjoyed this activity and it started a conversation about the power of not just thinking "outside of the box" but destroying the box.
-Ellen Alt

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Each of the science tables have baskets filled with activities for middle school students to "play" during down time. The baskets are inspired by the "cans" mentioned in the book and to give students options for non-electronic play in the classroom. So far, students love to play cards and draw when they have the opportunity. Some students have even created their own card games based on their favorite electronic games! Loving the creativity!
-Ellen Alt

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Happy campers this way. Grab a paddle! These bravery superstars are like bandage badges of honor with three playful patterns that help adventurers wear bumps and cuts with pride. Just the thing to get you up and running again. 48 count flex fabric bandages 2 kid-friendly sizes 3 unique patterns to…

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gonoodle "go noodle" "brain breaks in the classroom" "brain break dance" "brain break songs" "brain breaks just dance" "movement break" "classroom movement b...

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Welcome To GoNoodle! GoNoodle gets kids moving to be their strongest, bravest, silliest, smartest, bestest selves. Join the party and get ready for a fun-filled day of dancing, stretching, running, jumping, deep breathing, and wiggling with GoNoodle. We post new videos every Sunday, Monday, and Thursdays!

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An educator with a focus on sketchnoting, visual thinking, drawing, doodling, and design in K12 education.

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, about using the network instead of wasting time "networking." It's not self-promotion, it's self-discovery―let others into your process, then let them steal from you. Filled with illustrations, quotes, stories, and examples, Show Your Work! You Don't Have to Be a Genius ; Share Something Small Every Day ; and Stick Around , Kleon creates a user's manual for embracing the communal nature of creativity― what he calls the "ecology of talent." From broader life lessons about work (you can't find your voice if you don't use it) to the etiquette of sharing―and the dangers of oversharing―to the practicalities of Internet life (build a good domain name; give credit when credit is due), it's an inspiring manifesto for succeeding as any kind of artist or entrepreneur in the digital age.

In chapters such as

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Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (Austin Kleon)

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Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (Austin Kleon) [Kleon, Austin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (Austin Kleon)

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Clear your mind

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Meet the analog method for the digital age that will help you track the past, order the present, and design your future.

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Tweets by PintoBeanz11

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Tweets by jmattmiller

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Micah Brown

I am an Instructional Coach in the Andover Public Schools in Andover, KS. My passion is to see children become creative and imaginative problem solvers.
@MBrownEdTech

Dyane Smokorowski

I'm the Coordinator of Digital Literacy in the Wichita Public Schools in Wichita, KS. My passion is to see students find connections through global collaboration and equitable access to technology.
​ @Mrs_Smoke

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What's awesome about where you live? What good and services, historical buildings, attractions, or other notable places do you find the most interesting in your community? Who are the people helping...

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As a parent or child you probably had a love, hate relationship with messy play. I know I loved it as a child, but my parents were not big fans, at least not in the house! As a parent, I also loved it and saw the value and importance in it for a child's development! This lesson not only explores the need for it, but also allows students to engage, first hand, with messy play and evaluate the benefits of it for themselves.

Set

Ask students, "What comes to mind when you think of the term "messy play"? and have them share their responses.

Provide students with this prompt to think about: Should children be allowed to participate in messy play? (Reflect on this as you read as you will answer it later.)

Choose one or both of the suggested articles (assign one to A students and the other to B students) to read and reflect: "What the heck is messy play and why is it important?" and/or "The Importance of Messy Play." On a post-it-note, jot down the 3 main takeaways you learned from the article.

Now it's time for the Sculpt & Scoot activity. I adapted this activity from an idea in the book, "The Playful Classroom" (affiliate link).

Place students in small groups of 3 or 4. Give each student a small can of play-doh (each a different color) and a white board or paper along with a post it note.

Ask each student to SCULPT one key take-away they learned about messy play from the article. Give them 3-5 minutes only to create. When the timer goes off, students must write one sentence about their take-away beside their creation. Students then SCOOT clockwise one position. Students read what their neighbor wrote and add to their neighbor's sculpture with their own play-doh color, adding another sentence. Repeat the process on the third/fourth person's creation.

When students arrive back to their own creation, they are to observe and read additions to sculpture and sentences and then discuss as a group. Together, write a group summary on a large index card, answering the initial prompt (see above) with evidence from the article and/or learning experience. Each student should add their contribution to the summary using different color markers or pencils. Be sure to include an introductory sentence, one piece of evidence and explanation per person and a concluding sentence. Also include a color coded key if using different color markers or pencils. Note: This could also be done digitally on Padlet or Google Slides.

Groups now share their responses to the prompt with the class where it can be further discussed, if necessary.

Materials

iPads or Laptops

Projectors & Screen

Post-it-Notes

Play-doh

It Looked Like Spilt Milk (book-affilitate link)

Shaving Cream & Food Coloring

Wax Paper (optional)

Activities

Now for the fun... it's time for students to actually engage in some messy play! I ask students to pretend or imagine they are young children for this activity.

Give each student a tray or piece of wax paper and squirt some shaving cream on it. Ask students to "play with it" and think about how they are using their senses to "play/explore" with the shaving cream.

Read the story, "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" with the actual book. Ask students to make their own version of the shape designs described in the book, before showing them the book pictures. It's fun to see how students interpret the images along the way. It's up to you as to how many of the images you want them to create...it can be all of them or just a handful depending on the amount of time you have. Ask students to think about how adding a story to the play affects it.

Now, add a drop of food coloring to each student's shaving cream and after it's mixed, have them continue to play and add a couple more shape designs for them to create from the book. Ask them to think about how adding color affected the play experience.

After cleaning up the messy play, ask students if they enjoyed this type of play and to share why or why not. Additionally, ask them which PIES (physicial, intellectual, emotional, social areas of development) they felt were incorporated.

Note: All of the above questions can be answered verbally as a class discussion immediately following the activity or you can ask students to put their thoughts in writing before discussing as they complete the "Play Experience Exit Slip" found below.

After the messy play activity, I like to revisit the original prompt and see what connections students can make to the key learning take aways they gleaned from the article.

Attachments

Similar Lessons

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This lesson explores the need for messy play, allowing students a first hand experience to engage and evaluate the benefits of it for a child's development.