la créativité

Since we are working on innovation in our space unit I thought we would link that to our 4th C, creativity. This month we start every afternoon by discussing a quote. Over the last two weeks we have discussed quotes by Steve Jobs, Picasso, Matisse, Einstein and many others who touch on creativity. So far here's what we think is important about creativity: taking risks, making mistakes, overcoming fear, making connections, knowledge, seeing things other's haven't, thinking outside the box and using your imagination.

One of the interesting debates we had was whether school helps creativity flourish or whether it kills it dead. What do you think?

L'exploration de l'espace - suivi

Most students have collected a lot of data and researched what live would be like on mars and how we would get there. Some of the limiting factors for our designs so far are huge temperatures variations, limited space for food and provisions, cost and time. Most of the groups have brainstormed a few ideas around what to send and how they are going to send it. Now we move one to selecting the best idea, explaining in great detail and justifying why we chose this design.

Yesterday, we had a whole group lesson on some of the verb tenses, linking words and writing characteristics we need to write good explanations and justifications. "To justify we need to prove, give examples or back up our explanation".

"Math in French?!" Of course! If we are going to be sending rockets with provisions we need to be able to calculate lots of important things such as the weight, volume and cost our provisions, the amount and cost of fuel needed, the dimensions of the rocket etc.

the SAMR model

Last week, in a discussion about use of technology and innovation we learned about the SAMR model. The SAMR model helps educators, but in our case also students, judge how to they are using technology. Below is a good explanation of the model.

L'exploration de l'espace

Space exploration is our next big unit of study and we are going to boldly go where no one has gone before, mars! For this unit, students are working on creativity and innovation as they will attempt to solve one or two (time dependant) real-world space problems.

Challenge 1: How would you resupply a laboratory on Mars? If resupply is impossible how would you do then?

Students will record the whole design process using this Journal scientifique.


* No, I wasn't inspired by The Martian, check out my inspiration for this unit at NASA's Mission Imagination.

Canada et le monde - projet final

We are more or less done our Canada and the world inquiry. I say more or less because only a few groups have brought their proposal and whole project to fruition. Some students are waiting to hear from the principal to see if their project is feasible within the school year. Propositions have been evaluated by both the students themselves and the teacher using our co-constructed rubric. Rubrics will be going home for parents to look at early next week. Below are some general reflections on our strengths and next steps.

Strengths:
- We care deeply for various people around the world
- We are aware of issues that have a global impact (e.g. war, climate change, poverty)
- We collaborate increasingly well within the classroom
- We are much more comfortable solving authentic and ambiguous tasks or problems
- We are good at using technology to collaborate and share what we know


Next steps:
- We need to collect more data to truly understand the problem before we attempt to solve it
- We need to use technology to connect with people outside of the classroom who can give us real-world insight and feedback
- We need to be more creative!

Making the world a better place and 20% projects

As mentioned in a previous post, students have begun a project for our social studies uni; Canada and the world. We began our project with a discussion around another of the 6 Cs; Citoyenneté (citizenship).

Next, students were invited to discuss and research a global issue in which they believe they can make a difference using concrete action. Students are currently writing proposals for their projects.

Today, in order to inspire students we discussed the 20% project at Google and it's spreading use in education. Google has a long-standing history of letting employees use 20% of work time for their own individual projects and innovation. Gmail is one of the many examples of cool tools we use that came from a 20% project.

Educators around the world are using this same idea with students. Kevin Brookhouser's students in California, for instance, came up with tons of interesting projects to better their world. They have certainly inspired us too!

Un auto-portrait, les premiers selfies!

Check out our beautiful self-portraits. Surely you will recognise some familiar faces.