Gee, Think.

It was totally unexpected. I found myself in the basement of the Boston Museum of Science holding the first of 10 daily itineraries for a two week learning experience. I was about to instruct 24 high school sophomores in the virtues of collaboration. Collaboration, I found to be one of the most important skills. There was something about my graduate year of study that brought me to that conclusion, and I felt compelled to relay that message to this kids.

I can’t begin to describe the anxiety I felt in the days before the summer institute. I was responsible for 5 solo lesson plans and several others that I would teach in collaboration with my colleague Justin. I had very little experience teaching high school age students. I didn’t know what to expect. What would the kids think of the lessons we had in store? Would their attitudes be eager, interested, and enthusiastic? Would they be able to make their final presentations successfully? There were so many questions floating around in my head. I had a very hard time falling asleep on that first night in Boston.

We had done so much work to prepare for these 10 days. We worked with several dozen people to pull together all the details on everything from classroom furniture to wireless networks, guest speakers, planetarium shows, and scavenger hunts. We were charged with teaching these students the basics of the amorphous wireless grids, space science, information retrieval, museum exhibit design. These subjects were the substance. They were the goals, the concrete conclusions and hard facts. My goal was something different. I wanted not only to teach these students the concepts of these subjects. I wanted them to leave the museum changed. I wanted them to realize that they have the ability to focus, to learn, and most of all to collaborate to achieve their goals.

These 24 students were the dream team. They came from 3 separate school districts in Massachusetts and were hand picked to participate in the institute. Some students even wrote applications and were interviewed. They came into the museum as three distinct groups with long histories. Each group of students had gone to school together daily. Initially these groups were the defined student relationships, but by the end of the institute they had crossed those borders and founded lasting relationships. In fact some of these student still keep in touch to this day. I am still in touch with the feelings of inspiration I found while watching these students learn and collaborate in the positive environment we created.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 6:12 am and is filed under daily events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.