So You Made A Mistake…

I have found a new-to-me game to play on my phone when sitting in the airport.  It’s called Jelly Splash.  The premise of this game is to master the challenges at different levels by receiving points for eliminating “jellies” within a particular number of moves, or you could just need to eliminate the “gray slime”.  Now needless to say I am not always successful—I don’t meet the challenge.  In other words, I make mistakes:  mistakes in judgment, mistakes in connecting the most dots possible, and of course mistakes in strategy.  Yet I keep going back and playing again and again—actually it’s really “addictive”.  The question for me becomes “Why?”

Although there is a penalty for making the mistakes I make—I run out of lives and/or chances before I’ve mastered the challenge so I have to wait for a while for Jelly Splash to text me that I have new lives and the ability to try again, I can handle the mistakes simply because I know that my mistake is not fatal—I will get the opportunity to try again.  Also, those mistakes don’t happen in vain, I learn from them and can adjust my strategy to be more effective the next go round. 

If you think about it Jelly Splash certainly is a formula for success in our afterschool programs. 

1. Provide learning opportunities that are active—hands-on and minds-on.
2. Set clear expectations (Jellie says—here is the challenge)
3. Hold me accountable to accomplish the expectation or “suffer a consequence”
4. Once I’ve had the consequence, give me an opportunity to try again (and again, and again, and again if needed—don’t give up on me)
5. Help me learn from the mistakes I make

What more could we want.  Check out the C4K video entitled “So, You Made a Mistake” by clicking on this link. Think about how important it is to regroup and refresh after we make a mistake and move forward.  

Exponential Times

The world is changing rapidly!  This of course is an understatement.  We are living in exponential times.  Here are some interesting factoids. 

• ½ of what youth learn in the first two years of college is outdated by the time they are a junior.
• Facebook ingests over 500 terrabytes of data every day which includes uploading 300 million photos and 2.7 Billion likes.
• Technical information is doubling every 2 years
• In India, over 1,576 languages are spoken—this is compared to the between 6,800 and 6,900 languages in the world.
• India has more honors kids that America has kids.
• The top in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004 
• There are more text messages sent every day than there are people on the planet.
• A week’s worth of information in the New York Times is more than a person in the 18^th century would have experienced in a lifetime.  .
• Over 100 billion Google searches occur every month.
• 97.8% of people in Iceland use the internet.  78.3% of Americans do the same, while only 38.4% of the people in China and 0% of the people in North Korea. 
• “We are currently preparing youth for jobs that don’t yet exist; using technologies that haven’t been invented yet; in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet. 
• The weight of all the information on the internet is .2 millionths of an ounce—that’s equivalent of the smallest possible grain of sand.

So what does this all mean for us in the afterschool program?  To me it means that we need to redouble our efforts to infuse our work with helping youth master the Five C’s—communication, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and citizenship (global as well as local).  By focusing on how to think, communicate and interact we will prepare youth for the exponential circumstances that we find ourselves in.  Let’s also focus on helping youth develop a sense of belonging because in this fast-paced world, this could be the tether that grounds them. 

Check out the Consult 4 Kids video, A Sense of Belonging by click on this link.    This is one of over 400 instructional videos available to frontline afterschool staff through the C4K website.

Gather Data Through All Your Senses

One of the Habits of the Mind focuses on gather data through all of your senses—vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.  These are your natural pathways and by intentionally paying attention to the world around you through your senses you will experience the world more fully.

Sir Ken Robinson declares that we “are living in the most aesthetic time” in history and that we must fully participate in the world by taking it in through every sense.  To do that our learning opportunities for youth must be active—hands-on and minds-on.  We must work together so if we miss something our partners can bring it to our attention.  As we work to experience the world fully we will find it meaningful, build our skill set, and of course broaden our horizons.

Gathering data through all our sense is foundational for moving the study of STEM forward.  It is fundamental to the engineering process when we ask ourselves what is going on here?  What’s working well?  What are the problems?  What are the constraints?  Without using all of our senses we will not have an accurate picture.  We must perceive the world and attach those new perceptions to what we already know and then respond in wonderment and awe about what we now perceive. 

Taking the time to help youth intentionally gather information through all of their sense will pay big dividends.  We live in such an auditory and visual landscape that it is easy to overlook the other three essential senses—which often only come into play when we don’t like something, rather that realizing learning is a multi-sensory activity.

Learn more about how C4K has put this Habit of Mind to work in our Sci-gineering curriculum.  Check out this link for more information.  

Metacognition—Essential In Common Core

Cognition is defined as “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses” according to the Google online dictionary.  In other words it is about learning and translating experiences and input from our senses into something that makes sense to us.  The prefix “meta” has its roots in Greek and means “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” or “behind.  When you put the two together you have the word “metacognition” which is defined by Benchmark Education in this way:  “Metacognition literally means "big thinking."  You are thinking about thinking. During this process you are examining your brain's processing.  Teachers work to guide students to become more strategic thinkers by helping them understand the way they are processing information.  Questioning, visualizing, and synthesizing information are all ways that readers can examine their thinking process.  Through scaffolding and reciprocal teaching, students are able to practice the skills that lead to these overt acts becoming automatic.” 

Metacognition is one of the Habits of the Mind that we want to help youth develop.  In the afterschool program a natural place to support the development of metacognition is the homework component.  During this period youth are working through the instruction they have had during the school day and attempting to translate the information into a deeper understanding of the material.  Although it’s wonderful to find the “correct” answer, knowing what you did to find that answer is essential if we want youth be able to replicate the thinking on the next challenge and especially when that challenge is encountered in the real world.  Metacognition is equally or more important when youth reach an incorrect answer as it is when they have a correct response.  When there is an error, often the reason for that error can be found in the process of completing the task, and this “glitch” can be discovered as youth explain the process they went through to come to the answer they have recorded. 

Sometimes our responsibility is to help them develop a process for coming to the correct answer.  Consult 4 Kids has a great instructional video on helping youth think through working on a math problem.  Check it out by clicking on this link and viewing “Solving Word Problems"  

‘Tis The Season

Certainly when we see all of the advertisements and preparations for the holiday season it reminds us that “’Tis the Season”.  The question becomes “’Tis the season for what?”  Certainly we can complete the line of the carol that states “Tis the season to be jolly! Fa la la la la, la la, la, la!”  This phrase speaks to the joy and happiness we should be feeling and also sharing with one another.  Yet around our communities and the world there are many who are not experiencing joy or happiness—so is there something that your youth could do to bring joy and a jolly feeling to others?

Perhaps this season is the perfect time for a community service or service learning project.  Both of these projects bring joy to both the person who is on the receiving end and those who are on the giving end.  In a community service project perhaps your youth could join with a local food or toy drive, take greeting cards to a community center for seniors (or even have them distributed by a Meals on Wheels program), decorate paper grocery bags for the local grocery store so everyone who makes a purchase also receives a wish for joy, or any number of other things that would benefit the neighborhood and the community in which they live.  When youth have completed the project be sure to have them debrief the experience.

If you choose to do a service learning project youth will identify a need—local or otherwise—that they would like to support.  Perhaps this is collecting books for a local homeless shelter, supporting a relief effort for the children in the Philippines who have been affected by the recent typhoon, or simply helping the school return lost and found items to rightful owners.  In a service learning project you will want to include some academic reinforcement (preparing flyers, calculating a budget, researching the many different relief efforts they could support) that helps to coordinate the project, and intentionally having the youth reflect on the learning and the project itself, including how they “feel” about the work.

This year consider how you can make the “fa la la la la, la la, la, la be something that will help your youth see themselves as more than a recipient and understand that all of us can help to bring joy to others and support the resolution to challenges.

To learn more about Community Service click on this link.    You will have the opportunity to view a C4K Class for frontline staff entitled Community Service.  This is one of over 400 teaching videos that C4K has available for frontline staff.  

Hands-On and Minds-On

The LIAS (Learning in Afterschool and Summer) Principles tell us that learning should be active, collaborative, meaningful, supports mastery, and expands horizons.  Let’s look a little closer at the descriptor for the principle that Learning Is Active.  It says, “Learning and memory recall of new knowledge is strengthened through different exposures—seeing, hearing, touching, and doing. 

Afterschool and summer activities should involve young people in “doing” activities that allow them to be physically active, stimulate their innate curiosity, and that are hands-on and project-based.” 

This definition links closely with the Habits of the Mind, especially:  gathering data through all senses, applying past knowledge to new situations, and responding with wonderment and awe.  These habits of the mind are absolutely in the “wheelhouse” of afterschool which provides  the perfect incubator for projects that are identified, designed and developed by youth.  Ensuring that the experience for youth is both hands-on and minds-on indicates that youth are taking the lead on the project and making key decisions and thinking critically.  Projects like this are ripe with relationship-based collaboration, relevance, and are rigorous enough to peak interest.

Share your hands-on, minds-on learning opportunities with us at Consult 4 Kids at support@consultfourkids.com

Thanksgiving

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Attitude of Gratitude?”  This phrase was coined years ago by a motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar.  While Zig would certainly have approved of Thanksgiving, his premise was that every day should find each and every one of us demonstrating an “attitude of gratitude”.  Here is a story about Zig Ziglar that I believe you will find interesting.  It is shared by Vickie Hitzges.

“Years ago, I was the public relations director for motivational guru, Zig Ziglar. At the time, he was arguably the best-known, most loved speaker in the world. When audience members heard Zig, they witnessed a man chockfull of energy, vitality and joy. Having worked closely with him and known him well, I can tell you that the Zig you saw on stage was the real Zig Ziglar. In fact, I can't remember ever seeing him when he was not happy and upbeat.  The Zig I knew was one carbonated guy

Every time Zig answered his home phone, he picked up the receiver and said with gusto, "This is Jean Ziglar's happy husband!" And he meant it!

Awhile back one of Zig's closest friends and I were discussing Zig's aura of happiness. "Completely genuine," his friend said. "I have never seen him down." Then he added thoughtfully, but with love, "Hardly what you'd call normal."

"What's Zig's secret?" I asked.

"I think," he said, "it comes down to feeling grateful. Never met a guy more grateful than Zig.  Period."

You'd think anyone that grateful must have had an easy life. But that's not so.

Zig started out poor. Dirt poor. His father died when he was six, leaving his mother to raise eleven children alone. The family was virtually penniless. Yet despite their poverty, Mrs. Ziglar instilled a strong work ethic in her children and raised them to believe that both she and God loved them. She also instructed her children to practice saying "please" and "thank you." Those lessons stuck. Her formula of work, love and faith made their difficult lives easier. Gratitude made their lives enjoyable.

Zig once told me, "When we neglect to require our children to say `thank you' when someone gives them a gift or does something for them, we raise ungrateful children who are highly unlikely to be content. Without gratitude, happiness is rare. With gratitude, the odds for happiness go up dramatically."

So this Thanksgiving, consider how you might adopt this “attitude of gratitude”, and if you already have it, share it with others. Keep an Attitude of Gratitude

Let C4K know some specific things you are grateful for by sending write-up and/or pictures for use to post on Student Chatter.  Send items to support@consultfourkids.com