Mission Project Revised

Source: Creative Commons, Flickr, Ken Lund

Any person who has grown up in California, remembers the sugar cube mission project in 4th grade. Now, it might have been made of some other substance, but for the most part the project was always similar. Visit a mission, take some pictures, create a diagram, discuss the history, etc. Many kids today are moving through the same motions even though technology allows us to do so much more.

Today, we can simply type into a browser the name of a mission and we are given all the historical facts we'd ever need to know. I challenge you then, what is the purpose of recreating a mission if we can simply look up the facts? We need students to be applying knowledge and facts to something new. We need kids to be building missions on Mars. Read on to see my redesigned mission project:

Mission to …

Urgent message * Urgent Message * Urgent Message

Dear capable cadet,

If you choose to read on, then you are bound to and you solemnly swear to dedicate your entire brain, effort, and philosophy to an unforeseen challenge that will take you on a journey, that is unknown to any 4th grader to ever have walked the planet.

It is a period of exploration, of settlements, and of uncharted corners of the universe. The Wyosnick Enterprise is planning multiple explorations to settle and to convert others to the pillars of philosophy that we stand by. It is a challenge that needs capable minds to undertake it.

Below, are the chronicles of the missions. Choose wisely and report back to base as you progress throughout your journey. You will be tested and tried. You must be resilient. You must be strong.

Your mission is to determine where you would place a mission in the present time or in the future. Should you choose to take on this task, you must look to the history of our ancestors to determine what qualifications a mission needs, why missions were built, why or why not a mission should be build, the purpose they serve, etc. History shapes the present and determines the future. Apply your knowledge of the past and decide the most ideal location for a mission.

You must establish its design, create a model, write up a proposal based on historical facts, and analyze the word mission. Why am I sending you on a mission to build a mission?

Most of all you must be ready to justify your location and to justify the building of your mission in the first place. Think about the ethical implications of building missions and what that means for the indigenous people as well as those who are settling and exploring that universe.

Mission Checklist:

• Analysis of the word mission as a noun and a verb
• Historical research of missions in general
• Historical research of a specific mission as an influence on your task
• Location of present or future mission
• Plan of present or future mission
• User profile of mission goers, workers etc. displayed as a social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
• Diagram of present or future mission
• Explanation of historical influences in paper or video or podcast form
• Ethical debate on validity of missions, stance explained.

Spark, Whimsy -- Learning simply to Learn

Space Models at Brick Fest, Flickr via Creative Commons

Young children are encouraged to be whimsical and imaginative and to always ask why. Students in younger grades look with awe upon the lifecycle of a butterfly and draw endless pictures of colorful circles that they truly believe resemble their parents.

Then a few years pass. Times tables are memorized and we increase the content we teach and begin to instill a sense of conformity and pressure in our students that focuses on attaining success measured by society. It is no surprise that the imagination of our students changes to reflect a stale, stagnant state because they are learning what others want them to learn. Yet, our students are still creative underneath a shell of academic standards. However, we don't give them the opportunities to show the whimsical, inquisitive nature deep within them.

As teachers, we suffer from much the same ill-fated trajectory our students do. Believing we can change the world as a young teacher, we come to the first year of our teaching careers with an energy that feeds into our innovative lessons. Years pass and we are met with more strict standards, more programs to teach, less time to teach them, and more students, many of whom are bored and unengaged with the curriculum since they are being told what to learn and how to learn it.

Think of topics that you find interesting. Think of what you'd want to learn in school. Now think of what you teach. Think of how you teach it. Ask yourself, would I want to learn that way? Would I want to spend my afternoons at home doing that? A recent article came out about a revolutionary way of learning that focuses on engaging students with what they are interested in. Joshua Davis writes for Wired, "How a radical new teaching method could unleash a generation of geniuses." In it he explores a variety of progressive philosophies on learning.

Peter Gray, research professor at Boston college, is quoted by Joshua Davis as stating, " 'We’re teaching the child that his questions don’t matter, that what matters are the questions of the curriculum. That’s just not the way natural selection designed us to learn. It designed us to solve problems and figure things out that are part of our real lives, ' " which raises some key issues of institutionalized schooling. The whole purpose of school should be to teach kids a love of learning, a desire to understand the unknown, and the ability to apply what they know to questions they have. Ultimately its about the spark that fires up their curiosity thus raising their engagement in the classroom. It should not be about what other people think they need to know.

So, what if homework was filled with activities that truly sparked the curiosity of our children, thus supporting that their questions matter. What if students rushed to school the next day asking why, why, why? What if students eagerly awaited the next lesson rather than day dreaming through it?

A simple task like watching a video about space could be that spark for a child. A spark that could change the trajectory of a student's life, assisting them in realizing dreams they have. Take a look at these amazing videos on the International Space Station by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Here are two class work or homework documents I’ve put together, one for primary grades and one for upper grades.

Take on the challenge of giving assignments that you’d want to spend time on. If you wouldn’t want to do it, why would your kids?

Inspired and want more? Additional resources can be found at Ramsey Musallam’s Cycles of Learning blog that discusses in depth the use of video as a curiosity spark for initializing a love for learning.

Design Thinking for Educators

Link: Design Thinking for Educators

Use this tool kit to create meaningful, project based learning opportunities for your students.