Letting the Students Lead<\/a>.”<\/p>\nStill, Milam, who joined the faculty in 2019, was apprehensive. While students often present in class given MPA\u2019s commitment to public speaking, they had never before taught a class.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt MPA, there is a lot of emphasis on student voice,\u201d says Milam. \u201cBut I was initially leery of turning over the class to the students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Milam is learning new ideas from his students regarding how to make his own teaching better.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents at this age know how to talk to Middle School students \u2013 their peers \u2013 in a different way than I do as a teacher\u2014they know what they don\u2019t know,\u201d says Milam. \u201cAs a teacher, watching them teach, I am learning new ways to use innovative technologies that I might not have considered before, including everything from Quizlet Live, Kahoot, and Mapfling to Brain Pop and Survey Monkey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Developing Mini-Lessons<\/strong>
\nMilam teaches science and design to all current seventh and eighth graders, or 71 students. All of them are designing what Milam calls \u201cmini-lessons\u201d in pairs or individually within the grade\u2019s curricular focus. Seventh graders are currently studying human body systems; eighth graders, geology. The students chose from a list of topics or proposed one to Milam. Once that was complete, Milam had to teach the students how to teach.<\/p>\nTo guide their development of the mini-lesson, Milam created a framework for the students to follow that included:<\/p>\n
\n- \u00a0three learning objectives;<\/li>\n
- a \u201chook\u201d to engage students;<\/li>\n
- the content itself, presented with facts, pictures, videos, and other tools;<\/li>\n
- break-out sessions for students to collaborate in small groups;<\/li>\n
- a closing to bring the large group back together; and<\/li>\n
- an assessment to gauge whether students met the learning objectives.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
During the mini-lesson, the students were the hosts of the Zoom session, managing the platform\u2019s breakout rooms. They were in charge, while Milam observed.<\/p>\n
In learning how to teach, Milam\u2019s students now better understand\u2014and appreciate the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeveloping lessons is a lot of work, and I take that for granted,\u201d shares Sylvia, one of Milam\u2019s eighth-grade students. \u201cJust creating this 30-minute lesson was quite difficult and took a long time. I have a lot more respect for teachers and their work!\u201d<\/p>\n
Using An \u201cEscape Room\u201d To Teach About Pangea<\/strong>
\nSylvia and her classmate Ema chose to teach about Pangea, the supercontinent that existed before plate tectonics separated the continents into their current configuration. The topic wasn\u2019t on Milam\u2019s list, but Ema was interested in the subject. Plus, the girls sensed many of their classmates would focus on volcanoes and minerals. The eighth graders had always wanted to work together, and the mini-lesson provided the perfect opportunity.<\/p>\nSylvia and Ema didn\u2019t want their mini-lesson to \u201cbe boring.\u201d They wanted the students to be interested and engaged in the topic. Early in their planning, the girls decided to create an \u201cescape room,\u201d modeled off a similar exercise their English teacher had employed to teach grammar. Their previous science teacher had also used the teaching tool. Plus, both girls have enjoyed their own escape-room experiences with friends.<\/p>\n
At the start of their mini-lesson, Sylvia and Ema revealed the escape-room aspect and an incentive for their classmates to pay attention: the first group to break out would receive a \u201cfree homework pass.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girls designed their mini-lesson based on Milam\u2019s directions that outlined how to build a session and included teaching tips and tricks. In their session, they first explained how Pangea worked and then showed a demonstration. Next, it was time for the escape room in Zoom\u2019s breakout areas, where their classmates had to answer questions. Sylvia and Ema then entered the breakout area to determine the winners. The final piece was to complete a short quiz to assess what the students had learned. Both girls appreciated the challenge of the exercise.<\/p>\n
Working Through An Experiment Fail<\/strong>
\nLike Sylvia and Ema, their classmates Molly and Soumya had never taught a class. They\u2019d done plenty of PowerPoint presentations, but developing a mini-lesson was a completely new undertaking. Molly and Soumya chose their topic\u2014that oceans do not appear to mix\u2014based on a Quiz Bowl question. Both girls are members of the MPA team.<\/p>\nWhile Sylvia and Ema used Zoom breakout sessions for their escape room, Molly and Soumya used them for students to complete an experiment using water and salt to demonstrate why oceans do not mix. The idea was to pour salted tap water into regular tap water and observe the result. There should be an obvious separation between the two. Molly successfully tested the experiment before the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the session, it became quickly apparent that the experiment wasn\u2019t working,\u201d says Molly. \u201cSo we had to shift to trial and error in the breakout rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Molly and Soumya directed students who had food coloring to use that to differentiate the salt and no-salt waters. Others tried heating the water before mixing them. Another group poured the water in more gently instead of just dumping it in. Milam let the students problem-solve on their own, enjoying the learning displayed in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the lesson, I let them fail and shared with them that it was a good thing because it created an opportunity to knock home the lesson,\u201d says Milam. \u201cHad they experienced failure before the lesson started, they would have known there was an issue and deconstructed it on their own. Instead, the students had to collaborate and problem-solve together, which is a perfect teachable moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
In reflecting on their own experience, Molly and Soumya say that they likely did not give enough direction up front before the experiment. Plus, they didn\u2019t consider the fact that their research and preparation meant that they had more knowledge about the concepts than their classmates did. In the end, they determined that the trick to the experiment\u2019s success was having the right amount of salt and pouring the salted water in slowly, instead of just dumping it into the other glass.<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I learned that we needed to be more specific in our directions,\u201d says Molly. \u201cWe thought it went without saying that you would need to mix the salt in the water before combining it with the unsalted water.\u201d Soumya adds, \u201cWe also needed to take into account that the students knew nothing about our topic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learning about each other<\/strong>
\nMilam\u2019s students have learned about oceans, Pangea, volcanoes, the moon and more from their classmates over the past several weeks. They\u2019ve learned how to build a lesson and deliver it. But they\u2019ve also learned about their classmates.<\/p>\n\u201cIt has been interesting to see our peers undertake the assignments,\u201d says Molly. \u201cWe have seen them present projects before, but it was interesting to see how they\u2019re handling it virtually.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soumya agrees. \u201cWe went first, so we were the example,\u201d says Soumya. \u201cI have enjoyed seeing the presentations of people after us and how they\u2019re improving on what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ema and Sylvia also have welcomed the chance to see their classmates in action. Ema appreciated the different paces and the creative tools they used. Some of the presentations were broad in what they covered, while others went into more depth. The approach their classmates took gave the girls insight into their classmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s cool to see how their brains work, how they think through things and present the information,\u201d shares Sylvia. \u201cSome of them think in the big picture and others in the details.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic and the required distance learning, MPA students are demonstrating their creativity, insight, collaboration, and love of learning, fostered by exceptional faculty. Even during distance learning, our small class sizes and connected community are reflecting a warm and respectful learning environment where children thrive.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is in isolation right now, so you\u2019re by yourself,\u201d says Sylvia. \u201cBut still we\u2019re connected and talking to people, building relationships and friendships. I believe it\u2019s better to see people even if it\u2019s online because it brings a sense of comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A spirit of innovation flows through all that we do at Mounds Park Academy; now it\u2019s just through high-speed Internet instead of hallways and classrooms. Innovation fuels creative thinking and allows students to experience the joy of learning\u2014and thanks to John Milam\u2019s seventh- and eighth-grade science courses\u2014the joy of teaching. At the start of distance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":17240,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,26,28,24,29,8127,9,12,13,9660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-admission","category-blog","category-current-families","category-featured-posts","category-homepage","category-international","category-lower-school","category-middle-school","category-upper-school","category-virtual-learning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17241,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17238\/revisions\/17241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"John](\"https:\/\/nclhx5yj.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/milamwpstory.jpg\")
A spirit of innovation flows through all that we do at Mounds Park Academy; now it\u2019s just through high-speed Internet instead of hallways and classrooms. Innovation fuels creative thinking and allows students to experience the joy of learning\u2014and thanks to John Milam\u2019s seventh- and eighth-grade science courses\u2014the joy of teaching.<\/p>\n