Kicking off Big Time with my 8th Grade advisees went reasonably well. I stuck mostly to the protocols we used in the beta testing from our summer work with volunteers Stella, Ceila and Gwen.
It went something like this:
1. I played them the video that Mark posted which recapped the summer institute. I framed what we were about to do as an experiment. One which would help determine how the rest of the Middle School students might use a block of time for exploring any topic of their choosing. Remembering what we learned from our summer beta testing that explaining too much could be problematic I left it at that. I did want to impress upon them though that what we were about to do was really an attempt to help their experience at school be awesome! I did not say anything about the specifics of the project.
2. I posted the first question on a piece of paper and fixed it to the wall. “I am Interested In.” I gave very little instruction except to say: “Write down as many things that you can think of about which you are interested in. Take “interested in” to mean whatever you think it might.” They set off working without to much prompting. I saw Renzo writing some things that seemed trivial but I let it go. After they posted their stickies I asked students to gather so we could talk about them. I simply said, “what do you see?” Daniel was quick to point out similarities. I tried to let the students speak without any prompts.
3. I posted the second question, “I am good at.” After students posted we again gathered for a discussion. Rose posted one that was different and not subject related: “Not Giving Up.” I asked them to talk about how this was different than the others. Daniel pointed out that it was a skill that could be developed in all of the other topics. I asked them to point out the topics that were normally found in school and those that were not.
4. I posted the final question, “I am curious about.” Some prompts I gave were, “the skie’s the limit,” or “this could be something you’ve always wondered about.” They went about writing these responses with a little more enthusiasm.
Discussion:
Me: “Rose you wrote ‘Nature, ‘ can you say more about that? -any particular part of nature…the oceans, forests?”
Rose: “I’m interested in evolution.”
Me: “Can you say more about Music?”
Rose: “I want to know why people like certain kinds of music. I also want to know how to make certain kinds of music.”
Me: “Renzo, you wrote “Movies.” Can you say more about that. Do you like watching certain kinds of movies?”
Renzo: “No, I want to know how you like, make movies.”
Me: “Like writing move scripts?”
Renzo: “No, like how your shoot them and film them.”
Me: “So you’re interested in cinematography and maybe directing.”
Renzo: “yes!:
These discussions I think helped each student focus a little bit more specifically on an aspect of their interest. This kind of focus might help them to choose a topic with which they can find something tangible to explore.
I asked student to look at the 3 categories of questions and answers. I asked them to make connections. Someone said, a person who listed a topic as being good at it might be able to help someone with a topic that they listed under being curious about. I asked the question, in what order do you think most people might go in… meaning which comes first “Curiosity or Being Good at?”
5. Next I directed the students to pick a topic. I told them that this does not have to be the topic that they will explore for all of Big Time. I told them they would have a chance to think about another topic as being their final choice.
6. I asked them to write down as many questions they have about their topic. After 5 mins. we discussed. Each person shared. I had to help Renzo a bit with thinking of questions for film making.
7. Next I asked them to write down as many ways as possible that they could go about finding answers to their questions. At one point I asked them to think about people they might want to talk to. We discussed. Everyone included things like internet research etc. Rose thought to write something about conducting focus-groups for researching musical interests.
Rose-Music
Daniel-Basketball
Renzo-Film Making
Wrap Up, Next Steps
My final question was to ask students to say if they thought their chosen topic was something they could focus on for a great length of time, perhaps an entire quarter. I told them to think about this over the course of the next week. I asked them to also think about other topics that they may be interested in. I said that at our next meeting we would make another list of potential topics and then narrow it down to our top 3. We would choose our #1 topic at that time.
All seemed generally up beat and excited. I asked them on a scale of one to 10 (10 being the most excited), how excited would they be in getting to spend an entire block of time each week exploring something of their own choosing. They all said 10.