Thursday's Shark Tank was a big success. I was really impressed with the ideas and vision that they're creating. Many students clearly have a passion that is feeding their ideas and many showed some real excitement when proposing their ideas.
I invited a colleague one period and my administrator (who was actually formally observing me at the same time) the other period. Both gave great feedback to the students that, coupled with student feedback, I think really gave students some good ideas moving forward.
I had initially hoped to have a larger class discussion after the presentations, and then have students write some reflections on the process for me to read over the break, but we ran out of time. Questions and conversations that followed each pitch ate up a lot of time, so we didn't have the time for the class discussion that I had hoped we would have.
Next Year
In the future I think I would actually split the class in half, and have them pitch to smaller groups and have someone record each pitch. This would allow us to get through all of them faster, and have time for a class discussion after. I would then have them post those video pitches into our LMS, Canvas, and create an online discussion on the videos. Then that night for homework I'd have each student watch and make comments on a couple pitches that they didn't watch in class. This would give additional feedback to each student, and make for more refined ideas.
Student Proposed Topics
Below is my rough description of the different topics proposed Thursday. These will certainly evolve over time, and I'll maybe showcase these these periodically the next few months. I've highlighted in blue, the ones that are science related.
- Volunteering in a retirement home and creating an oral history of those who live there.
- Creating a fitness plan to test the benefits of low, moderate, and high intensity workouts.
- Designing a lighter high top basketball shoe.
- Creating a documentary about distracted driving.
- Raising awareness of organ donation and promoting a way of increasing the number of donors.
- Comparing and contrasting different approaches to autism therapy and raising awareness and money for treatment.
- Creating a choice novel centered on emotional intelligence and brain science.
- Getting solar power established at SHS.
- Creating a visual portfolio of styles through the 20th century
- Creating a human body board game (like Clue) where players have to determine the system, and disease, afflicting a patient.
- Writing a business plan.
- Creating, preparing, and discussing the nutritional benefits of various meals and then creating a cookbook based on their blog.
- Creating a removable device that will address damage to clothes caused by autistic kids who chew on their clothing.
- Designing a method for increasing bone density.
- Creating a plan to help those who are diagnosed as pre-diabetic with changes in diet and lifestyle.
- Create an app that helps people choose where they should travel based on various criteria.
- Creating a targeted meal plan for sport specific athletes.
- Creating a light that utilizes salt water.
- Designing a genetically modified algae to help produce oxygen.
- Creating an app for cancer patients to help manage schedules, medications, and biometrics as well as create a social network for those with similar conditions.
- Studying and understanding online behavior when given anonymity compared to real identity.
- Creating video series highlighting pillars of health and how to promote a healthy lifestyle.
- Create a book on California native plants that highlight natural history, potential health benefits, and how to use them in home landscaping.
Reflection and Thoughts Moving Forward
As I had anticipated in my start with why post, those with an interest in science would pick related topics. More than half are science based, or build off specific topics we discussed last semester. Our unit on health that covered the effects of nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress, and social interactions on our bodies had a pretty large impact on the class and you can see that several are now applying what they learned in various and creative ways.
There's certainly some topics that I have some real questions about feasibility, or that they've taken on too big of an undertaking. Some might be too technical or too time consuming to have an actual product or solution at the end, but I think it's important to let students set their own goals and discover for themselves through their research and planning if they've bitten off more than they can chew. This is the way life is, and appropriate goal setting is a skill that needs to be developed.
What's really important here is the process, not the product.
We're on vacation for this next week. When we return, we will begin the blogging process and students will begin their projects.
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