CRUSH SCHOOL

5644 1st Avenue South Minneapolis, MN, 55419

I blog on Brain-Based Learning, Metacognition, EdTech, and Social-Emotional Learning. I am the author of the Crush School Series of Books, which help students understand how their brains process information and learn. I also wrote The Power of Three: How to Simplify Your Life to Amplify Your Personal and Professional Success, but be warned that it's meant for adults who want to thrive and are comfortable with four letter words.

Design Thinking The Student Learning Experience

September 01, 2017  /  Oskar Cymerman

Tuesday the 4th is GO time for me. New room. New kids. New school year.

I'm psyched, excited, hopeful, and a little scared. The fear is completely illogical, but that's me and I learned to embrace it.

Workshop/Get Ready week done. I had the physical space ready to go Tuesday. Furniture placed. Tech working(ish). Caffeine plentiful.

But wait... How the hell do I do this teaching thing again? I mean, I haven't done it for 3 months. The mental muscle has atrophied. I spent the week being busy, but mostly avoiding planning for the thing I am tasked with doing. Teaching, or maybe helping my students learn, or maybe both are important when it says Teacher next to your name.

No wonder you're anxious! my logical part says, but year after year my brain just keeps saying it's too much fun to give up working the eleventh-hour shift. It's because a breakthrough always seems to happen at the last possible moment.

Not to say I did not have a few light bulbs come on throughout the week because I did. They were good ideas, but there were what ifs and how am I's involved. Then, unexpectedly, a fuse was lit by Kristy Kruse Louden's blog Design Thinking as a Back to School Activity last night. I read Kristy's post, looked at the slideshow, told her I'm adapting (read: stealing) it for my classes, but I was too tired to process and figure out how. I slept.

And now the bomb went off and I know. This is the one for the ages. Or, at least until next year, we'll see. But I feel like I'm really onto something. so here it is.

Design thinking the student learning experience

DAY 1

First, let's get the student minds going with something real...

Design Thinking Learning - The problem

Second, let's pose a question...  

Design Thinking Learning - challenge

Third, let's introduce Design Thinking. No long descriptions, just explain it's a cycle/web, not a sequence, as you jump between steps.

Design Thinking Learning Cycle

Now, let's go to town! Ask students to walk around and interview/be interviewed by 5 people to get 5 answers to the 2 questions below.

Design Thinking Learning WEEK 1 (4).png

Finally, have students gather in their groups and combine their research (empathy work) into key ideas/takeaways.

Design Thinking Learning - definition

DAYS 2 & 3

Remind students of what the problem is.

Design Thinking Learning - Ideal day

Ask students to first individually review their previous work/notes and spend 5 minutes coming up with ideas for solutions. Then, they brainstorm in groups.

Design Thinking Learning - Ideation

With the Empathy, Definition, and Ideation work well on its way, it is now time to create.

Design Thinking Learning - prototyping

Each team should work on the prototype (presentation/poster/video etc.). The first 10 minutes on Day 3 can be used to show a 10-minute Shart Tank clip, so students see a good product pitch and can practice theirs.

DAY 4

Can they sell their ideas to an audience of peers? The prototypes are ready and it's GO time!

Design Thinking Learning - testing

Here's the link to the 14-slide show to go with the project.

This activity can be used anytime, not just beginning of the year and it can be applied to any problem in any class. And, it's a gift that keeps on giving. 

Students get the voice/choice personalization combo. Check.

Students create their own learning. Check.

You learn how they like to learn. Check.

They learn how Design Thinking works. Check.

They practice/hone Future Ready skills. Check.

They strain their brain and learn a lot. Check.

It's relaxed, engaging, and meaningful. Check.

The only help I plan to give is on explaining the Design Thinking Process and providing materials. Otherwise, the world is my student's oyster. Actually, it's an ocean of possibilities. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I hope you're the same.

You have the power to change lives. Use it often.

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Hi! I'm Oskar.          

I teach, write, speak, rant to make the world better.

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tags / focus, deep work, productivity, teaching teens, parenting teens

Powerful And Easy Way To Teach Kids (and Adults) To Focus [FREE Infographic]

August 24, 2017  /  Oskar Cymerman

Yo!

I think I'll just start each post that includes a free Infographic Poster this way from now on.

Yo!

I am excited to have created a new resource we all can use to help kids focus. And let's be real. Many adults, myself included, lose focus from time to time (that's a vague way of saying often). As we're not robots, we all need a reminder from time to time (same as above :).

Working with teens for 180 days each year for the last 14, I noticed that many flat out don't know how to focus, need help with focus, or simply lack focus. The reasons why kids might have a hard time focusing are many; lack of sleep, lack of movement, a surge of emotions, mental health etc. They are all valid.

The infographic below is about achieving deep work and insane productivity in the moment. It is to be used during those home or classroom moments when your kids have a hard time getting going on a task or project. It is a system anyone can use to achieve laser focus and to get things done. And, I plan on putting it up and using it often with my high school students this year.

Check it out.

focus to achieve insane productivity and deep work infographic

The beautiful part about the 3 step focus strategy above is that it can be adopted for children of all ages and walks of life. If 25 minutes is too long, adjust the pomodoro to 10, 15, or 20 minute chunks. You might also have to model how to be specific or how to make an effective plan. Too many steps overwhelm. Keep it simple.

And, don't forget to use it yourself when you just can't seem to stop procrastinating.

Nah. Adults never do that!

You have the power to change the world. Use it often.

PS. These are the sorts of strategies I talk about in my Crush School Book Series. I just added 5 bundles (that's all I have on hand) of Crush School 1 and 2 in Paperback to my store for $20, which is 25% off the Amazon price. For the price of 2 burritos and a pop at Chipotle, you can grab them HERE, and if you do I will sign them for you as well. And don't forget to grab the Focus Infographic PDF HERE, so you can print and hang it up.

Hi!

I'm Oskar. I teach, write, speak, and rant to make the world better.

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categories / Teaching
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Learning Is About Understanding And Changing The Brain

August 18, 2017  /  Oskar Cymerman

education is about changing the brain

Education has become a world of buzzwords, acronyms, initiatives, and fads.

It's not that these things are bad. In fact, many recent initiatives are worthy the resources they require. Project Based Learning (PBL), Flipped Learning, Blended Learning, Design Thinking, Genius Hour, Personalization, EdTech, Gamification, Breakout Edu, Minecraft Edu and many others are on point. They are clear signs of our collective drive toward progress in making learning better for as many students as possible. They make learning more exciting for students disillusioned with today's system of schooling, and those that thrive, dig the new methods as well.

But, when the new methods are put into life, one fact is often forgotten: Most profound learning happens when a student understands how her brain works and she knows the factors that affect brain development. Armed with this understanding, she can make conscious and informed decisions in her in-school and out-of-school life, and how to best apply her brain while learning and studying.

Unfortunately, teacher prep schools don't instruct soon-to-be teachers on how to teach K-12 students about how the human brain acquires, processes, stores, and recalls information. Not really...

They teach Piaget Stages of Development, which is valuable, but don't emphasize that students need to know the connection between learning and the physical processes that take place in the brain while learning. They teach strategies, but often don't break down what occurs in the brain when they're used, or why they are effective, or which ones are more effective than others.

Let's talk frustration. It happens at school and some of it is unavoidable. But guess what? A lot of it is! For example, some students think they can't learn something simply because they see others learning quicker. They do not understand that some students already have neural connections related to what's taught; a head start of sorts. Thinking you're not as smart but still have to get it is frustrating. It seems unfair to the struggling student and he might give up.

Many students do not know the difference between recall and rereading. Studying the wrong way is frustrating. They spend hours studying. Their understanding remains shaky. They keep forgetting. frustration. Frustration. FRUSTRATION. Only if they knew why rereading is so useless and recall so effective! Here's a post and an Infographic on Recall I made.

Let's talk creativity and innovation. Most students (actually people) believe creativity is something you're born with, but that's not the case at all. Understanding that you can become more creative by doing certain things and guiding your actions toward wiring your brain for creativity will lead to increased creativity. Exercising creativity frequently leads to innovation. It's all about the brain; attitudes, actions, ideations.

Let's talk reinvention. Again, it's all about the brain. To be able to reinvent yourself, you need to know how to (1) learn relatively quickly, but deeply, (2) think critically, (3) generate ideas, and (4) solve problems creatively. Predictions for the future are many and vague, but it makes sense that many careers of today will become obsolete, and new ones will emerge.

This means that specializing in only one field is obsolete and focusing on curricula is more and more preposterous. Though I believe subjects should not be taught in isolation from one another, I'm not saying they're all bad. It's just that schools still put emphases on concepts and topics, and not on universal and transferable skills like the ones I mention above. We lack the right focus.

And, while the new methods of learning grow in number and popularity, giving teachers and students more choices, we need to cancel out the hype noise and think how to maximize their potential. We must use the fundamental principles that govern the human brain to decide the effectiveness of these new ways. And, each decision teachers and administrators make must be driven by this question: How can this tool or strategy be used best to optimize brain development? Otherwise it's just a fad and a buzzword.

Because "Because it's cool" just isn't cool.

We need to help our students become decision makers capable of choosing the most effective way for them to learn. We've tried and failed at it using bad approaches such as Learning Styles Assessments. The learning styles myth has been debunked in the world of higher education more than 5 years ago, yet there are schools that continue wasting resources trying to figure out if their students are Visual, or Auditory, or Reader/Writer, or Tactile types. (By the way, we all learn best using multiple senses.)

In the last decade, using brain scanning technology, we have learned things about the brain that were previously obscured. We can see the formation and thickening of neural connections and the firing of synapses when the brain receives, processes, and stores information. We know what works and what wastes time. We have the ability to choose the most effective learning strategies and to optimize new and old methods of acquiring information to maximize learning. We know, but rarely use, because we're unaware.

To be successful now and in the future, students must know how to maximize their brain powers and how to learn effectively. And learning is something that lasts. So is success. So if you help students succeed in learning, they will learn how to succeed.

You can read all about this in my 2 Crush School books (a series on how to apply brain based learning in school and life) available on Amazon. Jon Harper, a host of the podcast My Bad with over 60,000 downloads per month, said: "Oskar has a way of making the complex seem so simple." I hope you enjoy my books as well and find a way to use them to help your students.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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