 For the past few months I have felt like a part of me has been emotionally paralyzed. As my friends sent their kids off to college one by one, I remained numb. I wouldn't allow the reality to sink in. My first born was heading to college and I didn't quite know how to process that an era was ending. Now as we drive away from Portland State with an empty seat in the car, the tears are flowing like a river. I feel like they've been building up just waiting to break loose.
Our girl is more than ready to fly. She's been dreaming of this day for a long time and I couldn't be more excited for her. She is a girl born for adventure and she has so many passions to pursue. Yet, my heart is breaking. All of those daily moments I too often have taken for granted, are no longer; the late night talks, the laughter, and the sibling banter. Then, I think of all of the things I wish I would have done; more girl nights, more talks, more hugs, more belly laughs. How could 18 years go by so fast? Could I have done more? Could I have done better? All those questions aren't going to turn back time, and I wouldn't want them to. My heart knows that she is exactly where she should be and that it is time for her to spread her wings. We've prepared her for this; she's ready. However, I will let the tears flow because I know that there is no stopping them anyway. Today I will mourn an end of an era....tomorrow I will celebrate the beginning of a new one.
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 Team building is a huge part of how I begin the school year. My culinary classes are team oriented so establishing trust and community right from the get-go is critical. This year, I decided to kick it up a notch with some inspiration from my friend and author of Explore Like a Pirate, Michael Matera. First off, let me say that if you have not yet read Explore Like a Pirate....click HERE and order it now! Michael's brand of gamification is much more than points and badges and all about the power of play and immersive learning! It's changed the way that I teach and look at education forever. Most definitely a game changer! Over the past few years, I've heard Michael share his awesome ideas for choosing teams and I've pondered how to best make them work in my class. Click HERE for his awesome vlog post on Creating Perfect Groups! One idea that I especially liked was setting up a football style "draft" to pick teams! When talking to him a bit more about it before school started this year, I had an epiphany! Why don't I set up a MasterChef Bootcamp! I could have team challenges planned every day that focus on employability skills such as: communication, collaboration, resilience, critical thinking, etc. To make it even better, I'd hand out Mystery XP badges to the winning teams that they'd collect over the course of the 2 week boot camp. The top 8 XP holders would be selected to be in our MasterChef draft to pick teams for the semester! To add a bit more intrigue, students couldn't scratch off the stickers until the last day! No one would really know who was leading because there were differing point values under each one! This was a shift from what I normally did, but I was so excited about this idea that I had to go for it! The first day of class I showed my Masterchef Launch trailer to get the students excited about the semester ahead. Then we started right into sharing our Favorite Things lesson! Read my blog post about it HERE! Each day during boot camp I mixed teams so students could all get to know everyone in the class. I made it a side challenge that anyone who could memorize all class member's names by the end of the bootcamp would get a bonus Mystery XP! This encouraged students to really take time to remember names each day. Some of the challenges I included were the Rice Krispy Favorite Things Challenge, The Marshmallow Challenge, A Digital BreakoutEDU, Mystery Box Challenge, and Culinary Code Names (Read about it in my On The Fly blog post HERE) It was fun to see the interaction between students as they got to know each other. Bringing in an element of play and challenge, established a feeling of community right away. Students loved collecting Mystery XP and the feeling of curiosity that came with unknown XP values hidden underneath. The day of the last challenge I started class by having students fill out a Masterchef Resume' that would be used to determine the draft picks the next day (though they didn't know that) Included were their 3 strengths, an area of growth, their player type from Bartle's test, and what they looked forward to learning in the class. I used the Save As Doc Chrome extension and had each printed out on a separate piece of paper. Each student on my roster was given a number and then I wrote their numbers on the resume'. Once all resumes' were numbered, I cut off the names so no one would know who they belonged to when making their selections. The next day, it was time for the draft! Students came in to the sound of dramatic music playing and a message on the screen to get out their Mystery XP and scratch them off to reveal the amounts! I went around collecting XP and writing down how much each student earned on my class roster. It took me just a few minutes to determine who my top 8 XP holders were! When there was a tie, I brought out my foam dice and had a roll off. Once the draft leaders were determined, I sent the rest of the class to kitchens to prep for an upcoming recipe and we began the draft. I had all of the resumes laid out in a grid in the center of the room on two pushed together tables. I had the team leaders gather around and spend about 5 minutes reading them. I explained that they wanted a balanced team, so they needed think about which resume's would best compliment each other. Before they began their selections, I allowed them to choose one classmate that they wanted on their team that would be a known. I had them write it on an index card and I slipped those resumes off of the grid since they were out of play. Then, starting with the top XP holder each team leader chose one resume from the grid. As they made their pick, I took the resume' and matched it to the number on my roster. I let them know who they chose and wrote it down on a paper to start building teams. Once all made their first selection, we went back to the top XP holder again and repeated until all students had been selected. Once the draft was complete, I made an announcement to the whole class as to who was on each team. I let them know that the following class period, students would be cooking with their new teams. The ingredients that they had just measured out would be used by the team assigned to that kitchen the next day to make Cheddar Biscuits! This would be their first cooking lab with their new teams! Wow! I must say I was a little apprehensive trying this new approach to team building. I was taking a big risk and wasn't entirely sure how it was all going to play out! I couldn't have been more happy with the results. This is definitely the best start I've had. Students have already begun to bond and they are pumped to launch into the MasterChef themed semester! This was the perfect way to build excitement and establish a community right from the start! It truly was a MAGICAL beginning!  Some days you feel like all the stars have aligned and a sprinkling of pixie dust landed on your classroom because everything goes just as planned. Those days are magical! Then there are those "other days". You know...days where nothing quite goes as planned. You keep pouring cup after cup of coffee thinking you may just need a little more caffeine. This week I had one of those days. One mishap turned into another mishap and no matter how hard I tried to recover, the mishaps kept coming. So I should have known when I began my 4th period class that it wasn't likely things would go as planned. Sure enough, they didn't. I had planned an amazing Digital BreakOutEDU orchestrated perfectly with ipads ready to scan the QR code that would bring them to the Digital BreakoutEDU site. I had tested them, all were good to go. When students came in, I hyped up the game and they were all chomping at the bit to team up for this challenge. I started the timer and off they went. Well, until they scanned the QR code to find out the wifi was down. Yep. None of the ipads connected and the Digital BreakoutEDU couldn't be accessed. To make matters worse, my sophomore son was in this class. He looked at me with his big brown eyes and I immediately knew what he was thinking, "How is she going to recover from this? I really don't want to see her fail...my reputation is on the line here." That's when my teacher mama powers went into overdrive. I had to think "ON THE FLY" and I had to do it quick! I glanced at my counter and saw the game "Code Names" and remembered an idea that I had tried at a workshop I facilitated but hadn't yet tried with my students. As I began to give instructions, I was literally formulating a plan in my brain as I spoke, "Class, we are going to create a game called Culinary Code Names" Did I know this was going to work? Absolutely not. But, I was going to give it my best shot. Not only did it work, but students loved it...including my son! I adapted the original Code Names game to match my content and you can too! You can find the original Code Names game on Amazon and a youtube video of the original rules HERE. Think about how you could you change the player titles, card names, and game scenario to match your content. CULINARY CODE NAMES Game Scenario: Two restaurants have been temporarily shut down due to a failed restaurant inspection. The Executive Chefs are on a race against the clock to find the source of the failed score and save their restaurant from closing forever. Materials needed:
Game Rules: 1. Divide class into teams of 3 or 4 students. 2. Pair teams up so 2 teams are playing against each other; one red team & one blue team. 3. Select one player from each team to be the Executive Chef (Spymaster in original game), all other team members will be employees. 4. Pass out the following to each team:
6. Teams will set out cards randomly in a 5 X 5 grid so all line up in straight rows. 7. The Executive Chefs from each team will be given a map card that identifies the cards that are on the grid. The red and blue spaces identify the supplies that belong to each team. The tan spaces are neutral spaces and the black identifies the contaminated card. Use the small plastic stand to keep the map card upright for only the Executive Chefs to see. 8. Each map card has four small rectangles, one on each side of the map grid, that indicates which team plays first. The team that plays first has one more supply to uncover than the other team. 9. The Executive Chefs will take turns trying to get their team to find their supplies before the other team finds theirs. Each will call out a one word hint to describe the supplies that they are trying to get their team to identify followed by the number of cards the hint relates to. Ex. tomato 2. 10. Line cooks must make at least one guess, after Chef gives the hint. If they guess the card(s) correctly the Chef covers it with a token of their team color. If it is wrong, it must be covered by the the token that it belongs to according to the map card. If they pick the contaminated card, the game is immediately over and the guessing team loses. 11. The game ends when a team wins by guessing all of their supplies on the grid, or loses by guessing the contaminated card. I'd love to hear your ideas for adapting this game to match your content! Tag me on Twitter @tishrich !    There was a time when I taught in isolation. I was a singleton educator teaching a subject that I didn't think anyone else could relate to. I mean really? Could anyone relate to a teacher that handed out Chef's knives to her students? So, I went on minding my own business, isolated in my culinary Narnia.
Enter the Twittersphere. Since I began connecting on Twitter 3 years ago, I have come to realize that I can learn so much from teachers of all subjects and grade levels. I am continually inspired and challenged in my teaching practice, taking ideas from a myriad of subject areas and finding new ways to infuse them into my classroom. I have learned that expanding my perspective beyond my narrow culinary vision allows me to think differently about content and what is possible. My PLN has become a family that I have turned to time and time again for not only ideas, but inspiration, wisdom, support, and encouragement. It's safe to say that I have grown more as an educator the past 3 years than I have my 17 years of teaching combined. Sound crazy? Yes. Crazy awesome, that is! So what happens when in this crazy awesome world you find other teachers from across the United States that ARE just like you; teachers that hand out Chef's knives to their students too? Let me tell you, it rocks your world! It's so incredible in fact that I started a Voxer group where we all could connect and idea share to our hearts content! Culinary Powers Activate! If you aren't following Julie Rice, Kelleigh Ratzlaff, or Karyn McAllister...stop everything and follow them now! They are amazing culinary educators who are continually blowing my mind with their amazing ideas and passion for education! This past summer, we decided to all collaborate on an idea we had wanted to try, but hadn't... a culinary BreakOutEdu! I had always dreamed of taking this project on, but for some reason the thought of creating a game from scratch paralyzed me. However, taking on this endeavor as a team felt much less daunting. We all set up a time to meet via Google Hangout to idea share and delegate tasks. We created a Google doc to collaborate, brainstorm and then followed each other's progress on Voxer. {Confession time: I was a lousy collaborator. Think of me as the team member that no one wants on their team because they don't pull their weight. Yep. I'm ashamed to say, that was me. I've promised to make it up to them and create the next one for the team} Now that I've got that off my chest, I will tell you that this collaboration process was FANTASTIC! Kelleigh created a Google Site to house the Digital BreakoutEDU and she, Julie, and Karyn created content, clues, and codes. It was truly awe-inspiring to watch it all come together. We launched the Digital BreakoutEDU's at different times and it was so helpful to all share our reflections of how the game played out. As everyone shared, we were able to anticipate possible glitches or issues and prepare for them ahead of time. It was also wonderful to share frustrations and successes with each other as the adventures unfolded. We were able to provide encouragement, support, and suggestions because we all had taken part in the process {okay, me less than the others.} This collaboration was much more than creating a Digital BreakoutEDU. It was forming a bond with other educator's that are on a similar adventure as my own. Was this BreakoutEDU the only thing we discussed throughout the past month? No. We shared other lessons, strategies, documents, and links. We talked about family, celebrated victories, and frustrations. We were sharing life together and the treasure that is found in being connected. This experience brought me closer to a group of friends that I'm so grateful to be on this educational journey with. I have a feeling that our adventures are just beginning.   One of my favorite movies of all time is The Sound of Music. A favorite scene from that movie is when all of the Von Trapp children come running into Maria’s room during a thunderstorm in search of comfort and safety. She quickly shifts their attention away from the thunderstorm and fears by breaking out into a song about a few of her favorite things. It’s all about a shift of perspective and choosing to focus on the things that make us happy rather than what makes us sad. Why is that? Why does focusing on our favorite things have such a powerful correlation to our feelings. Our favorite things say a lot about who we are and what we are passionate about. They can hold memories or connections to special people in our life or, reveal our dreams and the things we hold close to our heart. When I read Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess 4 years ago, I was greatly inspired and realized I needed to rethink the first days of school. Instead of diving into syllabi and procedures, why not first dive into the things that we are most passionate about and take time to establish a positive environment where students feel safe and supported. Let me tell you, making this shift has made a profound difference in how I’ve connected with students. Instead of overwhelming them with information, I focus on connecting with them individually by learning about their favorite things. Let me share with you how my first two days of class unfold: As students walk in, I have Sound of Music’s “Favorite Things” song playing with instructions on the screen to sit down anywhere they would like and write their 3 most favorite things on their stainless steel tables with dry erase markers. When they are done, they share with the person sitting next to them. I start class by sharing a slideshow of my favorite things that reveal the things that I am most passionate about. Then, I ask them to do something that they aren't expecting. Inspired by an idea from Teach Like a Pirate, I open up 3 large tubs of freshly made, brightly colored Play Doh and tell them they are going to sculpt one of their favorite things. They can choose as much or little dough as they want and any variety of colors. I tell them they can spread out and find a comfortable place to craft their creation. As students are sculpting, I am walking around having conversations about their sculptures and what they are making. It didn’t take long before creations were taking shape and all participants were immersed and engaged. They love talking about their creations and I find that asking simple questions about what they are making lead to more involved descriptions revealing a lot about them. Some share things that are personal, some are more surface level but they all enjoy the process. Lots of laughter and chatter ensue as classmates share about themselves in a non-threatening and fun way. After their creations are complete, I have them record a Flipgrid video sharing their name and explanation of their Playdoh creation so I can remember learn names faster and use them as conversation starters in the weeks to come as I got to know them better. I keep these videos private so I am the only one that can see them to alleviate any fear or stress of other classmates seeing these videos. The next day of class, I take the favorite things to the next level. I measure out enough ingredients for 8 teams to make Rice Krispy Treats. As they come in, epic adventure music is playing and I have them line up down the center of the room by birthday; January on one end, December on the other. I count off from Red through Silver (my kitchen colors) until all students have a place to go. I send them all into the corresponding kitchens and reveal the Rice Krispy Challenge. I explain that they will be making Rice Krispy treats, but there is a twist. Instead of making the standard Rice Krispy Treats they are used to, they will be shaping them into something that all 3 team members have in common. It can be a combination of each team member’s favorite things, or something entirely different that they discover they have in common. I set out some specialty ingredients that they can mix in too, such as candy eyes, spray glitter, sprinkles, food coloring, etc. to give a little bit more opportunity for creativity and artistic flare. I love that now students are not only thinking about their favorite things, but how they relate to those of others in the class. They are getting to know their classmates and connecting to the things they love. While students are collaborating on making their creations, I circulate the room encouraging dialogue and learning their names. When the creations are complete, I take a picture and mirror them to my Apple TV. When students finish cleaning up, we all gather and I have each team introduce themselves and explain their creation as I share it on the screen. This allows us to hear everyone’s names and learn something new about each of our classmates. It’s amazing how taking a few days to focus on passions and relationship building completely changes the tone and feel of the class. When students are given an opportunity to tap into their passions and share in a non-threatening way, they feel more relaxed and comfortable to talk and get to know each other. I love the laughter, silliness, and conversations. Student’s personalities begin emerging much sooner than they would otherwise and the level of enthusiasm and excitement for what’s to come is tangible. Syllabi and rules can wait, relationships come first.
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Tisha RichmondStudent Engagement & PD Specialist in Southern Oregon, Canva Learning Consultant, Canva Education Creator, and author of Make Learning Magical. I'm passionate about finding innovative ways to transform teaching and create unforgettable experiences in the classroom. |
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