Our Blog has officially moved!

Go to http://magillbr.edublogs.org/ for the latest information about our classroom. Sorry for the delay in blogging. I hope to kick it up a notch in the near future.

Purpose

Recently, we've been working on our classroom purpose. It will help us to make decisions related to learning as we progress through the school year.

I think this story I'm sharing with you today really helps us to understand purpose. It's essential to have some purpose in everything we do. If you don't have a purpose, why are you doing it? Do you have autonomy without purpose? Are you even able to gain mastery without it?

Dipsea is a race that helps us to understand that purpose is important. Why? Well, nobody in their right mind would do it unless they have some sense of purpose to help them finish. Dipsea is a race that covers 7.4 miles. It's the oldest trail race in the US. Dipsea is not the most difficult running race in the world; however, it is treacherous and very challenging. Many racers have become injured while racing on the course which starts at sea level and rises to 1360 feet and descends back to sea level. Different points along the course have telling names like Cardiac, Insult Hill and Dynamite.

At this point, ask yourself "Would you enter this race? Why? Why not?

Read the story about Dipsea from Runners World Magazine. Next, read and listen to the 2010 race recap with Reilly Johnson.

What does this make you think about purpose? How does this relate to our classroom purpose?

Mastery

Here's the last video for the day.

What questions come to mind as you watch the video related to mastery thinking?

What questions come to mind related to high quality?

Cooperation & Mastery

This video explores what can happen when we all work together to learn and improve to a high degree. Ask yourself these questions:

What in the video is evidence of high levels of cooperation?


What in the video is evidence of mastery?

Ok Go - Here It Goes Again

Farmer John

Recently my friend, Farmer John, called me. We were talking about his farm and he explained to me that his irrigation system for his farm was recently shutdown due to a problem with the freshwater source. Farmer John explained that he would not be able to use the stream water he had been relying on due to low water volumes from the dry summer. He said he could only take some water from the stream as other wildlife like salmon depended on it to swim to their spawning grounds. Farmer John said the state is only allowing him to capture a small amount of water. He's worried about the crops he's planted. However, I told him why not use some of the saltwater from the ocean nearby. I said, "You could mix it with the freshwater you're allowed to harvest and conserve your freshwater and grow your crops!" I told him we've been experimenting with different levels of salinity. We could study the problem and share our findings. I said, "We'll find the range of tolerance for the crops." He said, "That would be great!"

Well, you guys have heard the story. Now, we need to think about the experimental design. Let's review what we did yesterday.

First, what predictions do you have for the seeds in the different cups? Remember we have cups with 0, 1, 2 and 4 scoops of salt per 1000 ml of water for irrigation.

Yamilet: "I think that the one with zero will have more growth than the cups with 2 and 4 scoops of salt."

Elizabeth: "She took mine."

Chris: "The cup with zero scoops of salt will grow."

Haylee: "I think that 1 and 0 will grow, but 2 and 4 will not because there's too much salt."

Estefani: "The cups that have 2 and 4 they have too much salt. I don't know if some plants have salt."