ACE Global Book Club – Intro + Chapers 1-4 – STEAM Power

As an Instructional Technology Coach, I have the pleasure to work closely with educators as they discover new, meaningful ways to incorporate technology into their lessons. Their abilities range from learning to navigate G Suite and our LMS to exploring technologies that engage students’ critical thinking and creativity. When we look to reimagine a unit, we actually use an approach similar to the Needles’ suggestion of choosing one lesson that would benefit from switching things up (p. 33).

For example, one of the educators I frequently collaborate with is a Spanish teacher. Last school year she started having students recording speaking videos using Canvas Studio. A challenge she identified early in the process was students not wanting to appear “on camera.” Together we explored a few alternatives and decided on Animate with Audio in Adobe Express. This tool gave students the freedom to create a character or persona to voice, which allowed them to demonstrate their speaking skills in a fun, creative way. The speaking assessments quickly became something they looked forward to since they were eager to share their creations with peers and family. The teacher now uses these recordings as a portfolio for students to showcase how much their language proficiency improves throughout the year.

When it comes to creating safe spaces for both educators and their students to learn from failures, one of my newer teachers has a mantra I love: I don’t know what I don’t know. Combined with Needes’ encouragement for learners to “persist through failure” (p. 6), it’s a formula for success. Even if it takes a few rounds of trial and error.

When introducing a new technology I like to start with a “low stakes” activity before diving into the assignment. It’s usually something fun and personal that encourages exploration and experimentation without the pressure of an immediate grade. This way when it’s time to apply their newly learned  skill for a graded assessment they not only have some experience, but also see the value behind trying something new. For example, when I introduce tools like 3D pens I give a one-pager that highlights basic use and safety. Then I give learners five minutes to see what they can create. It’s amazing how quickly students begin helping one another and taking creative risks. Once they’re comfortable with using the tool it’s time for the true lesson to begin.

Hello! I’m so excited to be part of this study! I just got the book yesterday, so I have a little catching up to do—but I’m diving in today. Hopefully, my thoughts on the discussion questions will line up with what I’m reading.

I really believe that no matter the content area, intentionally embedding creativity and art into daily lessons is key to helping students grow. No one wants learning to feel like just work. It should be fun, engaging, and spark creativity. For that to happen, it has to start with us as teachers. If we’re not excited or willing to express ourselves, how can we expect our students to be?

What Stuck With Me

There is something that was written in the introduction that has resonated with me throughout the rest of the chapters.  While Tim uses art as the example, I think he is nailing some capital T truth claims. When he introduces the idea that art is not the most accessible content area, Tim notes, "in our modern educational world with its system of segregated subject matter, art isn't always as valued or supported as STEM in our schools" (xix).  I think Tim's claim is true for literally every subject area. How many times have you heard people claim that they can't teach kids to write better, do math, or understand a certain subject area because it's not "their" content area? While I am willing to concede that the fine arts are pushed the most to the margins, the effect is true across the board in a world where teachers become content-area experts. We put our horse blinders on and focus on how to be the most effective practitioners of "our" content, and worrying about offering academic supports in other areas is way far down our to-do lists.

What really shook my perspective has been my last 2 years of teaching. Years 1-16 of my career, I was in my academic safety zone of Social Studies and Speech/Theatre. However, last year I taught at a STEAM-focused middle school, and this year I'm an interventionist who has to teach several different content areas per period. It has been both liberating and frustrating to do a little bit of everything academically. I think this shift has also helped shape my answer to our three discussion questions this week!

1. Safe Spaces

 My answer here is simple. As teachers, we shouldn't be afraid to make "I don't know" a phrase we embrace daily when we answer our students' questions.  While there are many things in certain content areas we may have plentiful knowledge on, there are probably more things we don't know, especially when our students ask clever questions! Instead of putting the onus back on the student to simply Google it, we should take these moments of "I don't know" and use them to work alongside our students.  Second, I find a way to fail all the time. Sometimes it will be an intentional goof, other times I'll mess something up mid-explanation, and get called out on it, and grow from it!  If I can fail and recover in front of them in real time, it models how to handle setbacks with grace, destigmatizing failure to a degree.

My second thought is all about grades. The biggest damage done to our students is a hyperfixation on getting an A or B. This forces them to worry more about the endpoint and not the journey itself.  To change-it-up, I've radically transformed how I grade things in my classroom.  Fail it, guess what, you can redo it! You hit a barrier on an entry-level assignment and are afraid of mastering the higher-level content? I'll change your pace or goals to make sure you get to what is necessary.  Do crappy on smaller assignments, but test well? Great, I'll modify your gradebook input to emphasize end-products. The reverse? I'll micro-level assess you to mirror the same data I'd get from a larger end exam through multiple smaller assessments embedded into the work you're already doing.

If my students see that I'm willing to fail with them, and bend the assessment system to whatever fairly assesses them the best, they're more likely to put in the work and sweat that I am.

2. Creativity and Art in Your Curriculum

First, Adobe and all of the education work it has done (and continues to do) has been a game-changer for me. One of the no-brainers is taking a creative challenge and bending it to the will of something we're learning. Remember the AI Animal Alter-Ego? I had my students not only create one for themselves, but they were also assigned framers of the Constitution, and created one for them as well. The book bento box, we're using it currently to create bento boxes for math principles they're working on in their Algebra/Geometry classes.

Also, I've been teaching long enough to have a rubric for just about anything (and in the advent of AI, I can create new ones even faster), so all of my projects have lists of output options. Are you music-minded? Make a playlist or create a song to showcase the prompt. Drawing/Painting/Sculpting your thing? Create something to showcase your knowledge. Like to write? Make it a poem, short story, etc. You like to code? Create a coded module, game, or even vibe code something into existence.  From a statue of IUD commemorating a Supreme Court case to a music video re-writing Jill Sobule's "I Kissed a Girl" about the Boston Tea Party, to a poetry slam recreating famous debates, I've seen it all. How did I get there? I got out of our kiddos' way, and let them thrive when they could, and acted as a safety net when they needed it =-). I think the willingness to incorporate anything is based in my past lives as a band kid, theatre major, and speech/debate advocate. All of those traits pushed me to embrace the weird, so why not do it in any other sort of classroom setting <3.

3. Upcycling and Limitations

 

This is one of my favorite moments in Brooklyn 99. Sometimes we forget that stuff can be more than one thing, and Peralta's wisdom is important, especially in the realm of upcycling and creativity. Repurposing and upcycling anything pushes creative bounds to rethink intentions! While this is my shortest area of thought, teaching history lends itself well to cardboard building and upcycling. We made some Canopic jars (Egyptian urns) out of old soda cans and experimented with preservation materials. We've built landmarks out of any kind of old food-stained box, and had equal successes and failures.   We learned how to better use (or not use) materials for future wild endeavors! 

This was a little ranty at times, and for that, I apologize 😃

I was so excited to read this book because the author, Tim Needles, just made a visit to us in Utah last week at a MakerCon conference at one of our local universities. His passion for STEAM is SO contagious! Also, he told us a bit about how he designed the cover of his book by spray painting a 3D design. I'm just going to inlcude some of my key takeaways from these first four chapters. 

On page 8, the author talks about how shampooing his hair in the shower led him to ask questions and spark his curiosity. How often do we take small, simple things for granted without wondering why they work, if they could work better (like the sidewalks he mentioned) and keeping the user in mind to personalize products created in the design process. Last year, I finished my master's degree in EdTech with a project focusing on using the design thinking/engineering process with 3D printing in the elementary classroom. There was an article I read for my literature review in which a fourth grade teacher had a student in his class who was missing a hand (birth defect) and she was having a hard time logging into her Chromebook. Instead of ignoring the problem, the teacher took it as a learning opportunity and had the kids design something she could use to help her log in. He even took it one step further and had the kids walk around for an entire school day wearing a sock over one hand and then have them experience all the things kids do at school (getting a drink at the drinking fountain, writing with a pencil, computers, scissors, recess, lunch, etc.) with only one hand. This created a lot of empathy for the students and had a huge effect on their end product. 

"I let materials lead the way to innovation," pg. 21 This was a new one for me because I'm one of those anti-art loathers Tim mentioned in the book. I have never been good at drawing, not even stick people. I never thought about letting materials lead me first to creaate something new and now I want to try this with students. During the MakerCon keynote, Tim said he gave students an assignment to create a self-portrait using anything except art materials (using those limited constraints in such a skillful way!) and he said a student made their face out of Cheetos! So unique and probably memorable and out of the box for that student to experience. 

"Celebrate the work and share the success of the learning that occured." pg. 35 Too often, I think we as educators kind of hand out the final tests, give the grades, and then move on to the next subject in our curriculum. This is a note to me to celebrate the learning with a party, an authentic audience, a celebration, etc. just some way to show the kids that what they did was hard and we should value what we learned. 

I can't wait to see what the next few chapters include! 

Reading through the comments so far a few things have really resonated with me:

• Building that safe community where kids feel comfortable taking risks is something I am constantly striving for. I have the word "YET" posted all over my room, and I am constantly reminding kids that our goal is not perfection, but rather to get better through practice. I see the fear of failure in so many of my youngest students- they ask me to do something for them because they don't know how or it's too hard. I will always show them, but never do it for them. It takes time though, and persistence on my part before some kids will buy in. 

           This school year I launched a Weekyl Drawing Challenge for the whole school community. It's optional and open to family members too. I wanted to             make the practice of drawing more visible to my students, and show them that through repetition and practice we can grow. And I also wanted to                 push myselfl to draw more often- practice what I preach, and make my own struggles visible, which is something Tim touched on as well. 

• The idea that limitation breeds creativity is so true. I just finished a painting unit with my 3rd graders where they were limited to 3 colors, plus black and white. So many kids asked for more colors, but I told them that the challenge of this project is to ust stick to the 3 you have. They could mix them to make new colors, but they had to work within that color palette. I do a similar project in 4th, but they have to work within the value range of only 1 color. Limiting size, materials or elements of art really forces us to have to get creative with how we use those limited resources. During the 1st weke of school my 4th graders worked collaboratively to build the tallest structure they could given only a few materials. The kids came up with solutions that I have never even considered! 

           I want to challenge myself more to have the kids upcycle their art more. Whenever a student wants to start over, instead of throwing away their                     project, I keep them. Right now they are available for kids to upcycle during free choice time. But I have yet to design a project using upcycled                         artwork. This is something I want to work on. 

How do we as educators build safe spaces to allow our students opportunites to learn from their failures and grow? 

We use critical buddies to allow pupils to have a go, get a friend to help them to check and improve before it goes to 'adult checking time' - some of them are such encouragers and learn how to help others and be corrected by others in a protected and kind way.

Asking pupils to suggest the topics they wish to learn about and get them to plan how they could show their learning allows for creativity beyond what a teacher's mind can put into place.  Our activity based learning gives space and place for planning their own activity with the resources they have gathered in front of them. 

Upcycling with materials pupils have brought in or found just seems to provide for a more resourceful type of problem-solving and fosters innovation and creativty in a way that a worksheet cannot ever.  Seeing the potential in discarded items is a talent in itself!

I always tell my students that the library is the one place in the school, where they are not expected to know the answers. It is where they go to find the answers. It is okay if they fail in the library, be it through research or creating in our makerspace. Thee will always be a chance for them to try again tomorrow. I actually think through the use of Generative AI tools, like those built into the Adobe Suite, students are able to better express themselves. For example, maybe the student has "failed" at art before through traditional drawing, sketching or painting. The text to image component of Adobe Firefly can help the creativity that they envision in their minds come to life. 

You post some amazing questions here, @mford86! 

1. I'm speaking at conference in Iowa this week and my talk on "Relationships Matter" is where this begins. It's a simple standing at the door to greet your students, getting their input on how much more time they need, create SEL check ins for students in EACH lesson, and just being present with them. Once that is established, I think that physcological safety comes 🙂 

@mford86 - AMAZING first post!!

That question about creating safe spaces for students to fail — yes, yes, yes. 🙌

I used to tell my students that the library was our one place where ideas could get a little messy. It didn’t have to be perfect; it just had to be theirs. There’s something powerful about giving students permission to experiment...to build, break, and rebuild without fear of getting it wrong. I’ve watched students scrap an entire project, start over, and come back with something even better simply because they knew it was safe to take risks. That’s where the real creativity always lived. In the in-between moments where they were still figuring it out.

Creativity can’t grow without a little mess, emotional or physical, and I love how this book reminds us to make room for that. When we normalize the idea that failure is part of the process, we don’t just teach resilience; we teach students to trust themselves again. And honestly, that’s the most creative act of all.