Openly Independent

This week in Open Lab we are focusing on independence. We have been asked to say what we thought was necessary in independent working. I believe that to work independently, you first need to have confidence, so that you aren't constantly running to help and instead if a problem arises you look to solve it on your own. Second, I believe you would need a good work ethic, so that you actually do the work on time and with a cushion in case something new arises. And third, you need to use your resources to help because every problem you solve can not be singlehandedly fixed. Here is a picture of us in the class  

Openly Collaborating

This week in open lab we focused on a new tenet. That tenet was collaboration. We kick started the week with an activity we carried through Thursday. Monday was a test run, we had to decide on 6 people out of thirteen to survive on a new earth, because the current one was soon to be demolished. We were first told to do it independently, then we moved up to small groups to have a consensus of several on a group of survivors. Finally, we were moved to a whole class discussion on who would survive on the new planet. This final grouping was not completed as well as the others. It devolved into shouting and no information spread to more than a few. In other classes as well I had opportunities to collaborate. In biology I had several group activities, though nothing on the scale of what we did at the end of the first class. Collaboration is incredibly useful, though I think it is not always used to its fullest potential. Either the lack of efficiency or lack of communication brought us down several times outside of this week as well, with us running out of time, or simply arguing. If used properly though, it can move a group to operate fluidly and more efficiently than an individual. On Thursday when we did our rerun of the whole class decision making, we spread the ideas and opinions of everyone, which shifted my opinion on several options as we reached verdicts I hadn't. This will remain useful throughout life. In jobs group projects are constantly assigned. In class the teachers talked about a "power hour" where they collaborate on projects the school could do. The program itself was designed mainly by four teachers working together. We had quite a few issues in the first attempt, and so the day before we tried again we went through ways to improve our collaboration based off of sites our teachers had gone too and printed out, and I believe I found another with helpful tips for collaborating. That site is http://www.uarts.edu/students/helpful-tips-collaboration-and-group-work. Readers, why do you think collaboration is so highly valued? What are some examples you have seen or participated in collaboratively? I have a picture as well of our final choices written on the board after the group collaboration: https://doc-0g-90-docs.googleusercontent.com/docs/securesc/vnfa5ltbrcm2745mfvouki4bfbpjmt2o/ev4o0vi2hl38u3hfecl75tfdhek7hcot/1412294400000/12776449778694492527/13650809792572941776/0B4KcrH0tHsbFOTdFSmpVLVRFckE?h=16653014193614665626&e=download

Openly Punctuating

In English last week we worked on the weird and wacky punctuation marks that will come up in our paper writing. Mr. Sitze, a well-known advocate of the weird and wacky, had four groups created, each of which was to learn about, and present the information on one of the four punctuation marks. As previously stated, we learned about for punctuation marks: the colon, the semicolon, the hyphen, and the dash. For over forty-seven minutes we gave or listened to presentations and learned about these words. My relationship with these particular grammar terms has not always been a happy one; I have lost points on many assignments due to improperly using these. The colon especially I have always been scared to use~ in last years paper over theme analysis there was a place I needed to use a list on, and out of fear I simply made a new sentence to avoid missing points. I sincerely hope my relationship will improve this year; I feel I learned quite a bit from the presentations, and hope I have a chance to incorporate these into writing. I think my peers did a very good job, especially in the presentation on hyphens: Dylan and Gage did a very good job with the examples, and had more to say, but cut it short to save time. I hope from these presentations I will be able to far more effectively use the four punctuation marks~ the colon, the dash, the semicolon, and the hyphen.

Open Growth

This week in Open Lab, we discussed at great length the differences and uses of a fixed learning mindset versus a growth mindset. Briefly, a fixed mindset is one that focuses on grades, and is blatant in their labels, with some being "smart" or "stupid". A growth mindset focuses on the attainment of skills in a subject over the grade you get, and realizes that "stupid", is merely inexperienced and turns into "not smart yet". This program is going to try to focus on learning over grades, and transition to a more growth based learning system. I personally am very happy with this. I am tired of taking knowledge, learning it, and forgetting it before I can apply it. In the long run, this benefits me more as well. The knowledge I take here can be applied later elsewhere, instead of getting the A and moving on. In life I will have skills others have lost, which will move me ahead. Say I have a project in a work setting. After completing the project, even if it was done satisfactorily, I will take what I did into consideration and look at what I did wrong to improve next time. As I improve, while others stay at the same level, it will look far better on resumes and in terms of moving up to do bigger and better things. After we had these talks, I looked up the fixed vs. growth mindset, and found much of what we had said spread across several sites. For example, in both http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/ and http://jamesclear.com/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mindset, they discuss how the growth person see's failure in a positive light, as it can only help you get better. While the fixed person worries about how they look to others, the growth person simply wants knowledge. This seems to me a better and cleaner way to learn, and it will last far longer. If someone is growth they continue to learn their entire lifetime, while a fixed person sticks with their "smart" or "stupid" label. Readers, I have a few questions. Do you think that growth should be fully and totally incorporated into schools? Why? Can you see any benefits to the fixed system? And if so, what are they? Here is a picture of the whiteboard after we discussed fixed vs growth and how it relates to the four tenets.

Open Introduction

Hello. I am Kaden. That is all I will tell you. I am part of the Open Program, a new system in which learners focus on learning over grades. It will be taught to increase our skills in independence, creative problem solving, collaboration, and our use of cross curricular knowledge in an attempt to make us become better learners. I am afraid at this point that is all I know and I will attempt to get back to you when I learn more about the program. In each of the following posts I will attach pictures to help you get a visual of the class and students.

Openly Problem Solving

This week in open lab we focused on honing our skills in creative problem solving. We were given several tasks, including building a tower, a series of tasks involving logic puzzles and origami, and coming up with ways to save a gummy worm from perilous waters by getting him to a life vest. Each of these problems were solved, (or not) without any outside help. Everything depended on our own ingenuity. The tower building problem was, more specifically, to build a freestanding tower with the materials provided. We were in three groups, each with a bag of materials. The answer after we each competitively created our own towers, seemed obvious, though requiring someone stating out. We could have simply combined our materials. The thing I think I will remember best happened after that. A certain Alex Sitze said that all creative problem solving is taking your problem, and looking at it like a smart aleck. It seems similar to making a lazy person do work. They will work all day to make sure they don't have to do anything. The series of tasks on Wednesday were mostly completed, but failed due to miscommunication and a lax or irresponsible worker. The gummy worm was taken as a very enjoyable challenge to me. The teachers said that they had found five ways to save Sam (the worm). My goal was immediately six. I personally love this subject. Now and in the future there are always opportunities. Nothing works out the way it is supposed to. In any job there are always complications. Creative problem solving is how you fix it. In school it is simply taking a problem you can't solve, stepping back and looking at it from an angle that should never work. After doing that, you try anything, no matter how ridiculous. Any possible solution is still a solution. This is more in times of desperation though. When faced with a scenario that is still fresh, like a task given to you by your boss that is not being conventionally solved, there are different approaches. It requires far more thought, and all the information possible before you can even start. But it is fun. When you solve the issue, you have far more pride than solving any problem the usual way. I will miss the topic when we move on this week. Again, after we went through this week, I went to trusty google to see if what we had studied was all we could have done, and along with that, other methods to be used. I found that what we had gone through was largely true, and in one particular site, a very useful three step (broken down into six as you go deeper) system was used to help creatively problem solve. The site is http://www.creativeeducationfoundation.org/our-process/what-is-cps, and I found it very helpful. Readers, can you comment any problems you have creatively solved? How was it more beneficial than a usual methods and why did you go to creative problem solving to fix such a problem? The following is a video of one of our students saving Sam. https://doc-04-90-docs.googleusercontent.com/docs/securesc/vnfa5ltbrcm2745mfvouki4bfbpjmt2o/nb5i3ei2e9v4e45p1u2cefkqgmq0s6uq/1412294400000/12776449778694492527/13650809792572941776/0B4KcrH0tHsbFeEpDWS1sXzlnbWs?e=download&h=16653014193614665626&nonce=nrjlapufj2gj6&user=13650809792572941776&hash=ipfdbh46pv86ake87bhjs9asdm3ujt7a