[squeakland] education meeting notes

[Rita Freudenberg]

Dear Squeaker,

please find the meeting notes from our last education meeting on the wiki:

http://wiki.squeakland.org/display/sq/2010/03/04/education+meeting+March%2C+4+2010

You can always find the notes on the wiki, even if I don't find the time to post it here. Go to 

http://wiki.squeakland.org

and scroll down, there you can find earlier meeting notes, too.

Greetings,
Rita

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Randy, Cathie, Christine, Cherry, Steve, Rita

Randy did send a paper with 10 lesson ideas for a mathematics unit around earlier this week and raised some questions:

#. Seymore Papert spoke about the difference between maths (rote approach often used in schools - example: worksheet on calculating area using A=lw) and mathematics (ideas - example: area is additive). I have concentrated more on mathematics. Should there be more worksheet-like activities or should teachers be encouraged to add them if desired?

We encouraged Randy to go on with focus on mathematics. Cathie said, that it is important for kids to see that there is more then one way to find a solution for a problem, and that math standards are also pushing this kind of learning now. Also, kids need a reason when doing things, so it is important to give a reason with every lesson. Randy already has some great ideas for that in his plans, like planting a garden, other ideas are setting up a new room or re-building regarding Haiti.

#. I would appreciate any suggestions for incorporating more Etoys objects and tiles into my plan.

We agree in not to do too much in one lesson, for instance, focus on perimeter in one lesson and on area in another, but also put both together later, because kids need to see it together to be able to distinguish it.

#. This item is mostly for Tim. Would this set of lessons be used in Haiti? Or should I think of developing the lessons only for the Squeakland web site?

Rita will send Randys paper to Tim, Chris and Allison to get an answer for that.

We talked about the upcoming "Google Summer of Code" and we would like to participate. We thought about project ideas. Randy came up with graphing tools for Etoys or tools for handling geographical information. Rita will ask on the next software meeting for a mentor, and we also need to find students who would actually do the project.
Randy mentioned that he got some tips on how to write text from an Etoys project, which he wanted to use for recording user actions. Steve suggested to think about "adaptive" projects, which can change depending on the actions of the kids.
We later came back to the first question about the constructionist way and Cherry said that we need to provide a way for the teachers from working with worksheets to support constructionist learning.
Steve said, that a suitable entry point would be having kids use Etoys instead of PowerPoint to demonstrate their understanding of ideas. This could be done with stories and animations.

from Cherry: Steve also said that another entry point for teachers would be to expand Etoys Challenge but refine the feedback for the kids (incorporating "bigger" rewards than just "Hey, you get to go on to the next page!". Having a good  transition from worksheets to project based learning will increase the teacher "buy-in" for Etoys. I agree on what Cathie said about finding several solutions to problems and presenting it several ways.
  



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