Who dunnit?

I cannot even tell you how exciting it is to work with teachers who are so passionate about teaching and coming up with ways to motivate and engage their students. This last week was like that. I am working at two middle schools in Oakland who just finished testing.  Madison Middle School is preparing for a Math/Science Expo on June 7th. I love this!

It’s all about teamwork, collaboration, inquiry, roles and responsibility.

Think CSI. The eighth grade kids came up with the title “CSI Oakland†and we’re putting together five crime scenes. Shhhhhh! We cannot let all the crimes out of the bag yet. Think money stolen — window broken — locker vandalized and more. We have fourteen suspects. Cannot tell you who they are, but they have mugshots with prison numbers, sour faces, and aliases. Some of the kids helped design the crimes and am working with the teacher and students to put all of this together. CSI Oakland Project.

So the school is all a buzz with projects. Math students are creating Glogster posters with images, text, and video describing how they solved an algebraic equation, VoiceThread presentations with comments about solving problems, and participating in BizWorld. Students are using math to create businesses. They are creating friendship bracelets, necklaces, and earrings to sell at the Expo. There are more. I’ll be sharing with pictures and videos. It doesn’t stop there. Going to be doing a cool project on Civil Rights and another on European Reformation.

I just started working with Frick Middle School. I ‘m working with two sixth grade teachers to help them create a project on Global Warming. The students will be designing the rubric. They start next week. Another teacher approached me to design a project comparing religions. This is what we need.

I’m jazzed.