Assessment in Minecraft - Take 1 Million and ONE!

I am squarely placing the blame for this post on Neal Manegold! Well ok, so I cannot actually blame Neal for my thinking, but he prodded, and now I am going down a whole other thought process that requires a brain dump, so be prepared if you keep reading!

We could chat on this all day, but what about a timer and every ~5 min crack open book & quill and answer "What am I thinking about?" Along with pics each time, would be awesome to capture building and thinking progression.

— Neal Manegold (@NealManegold) June 29, 2018

That tweet from Neal in response to my previous post is what prompted another look at my thinking, and what it was I was trying to get out through that last post. The idea proposed by Neal is awesome, and a great way of capturing student thinking while working in Minecraft. The initial issue from the previous post is still the same; How do I as a teacher get timely, and 'easy' access to this artifact of student thinking and progression?

It also prompts the following questions; If the artifact is in the game, and I still think feedback is important if we are looking at thinking processes, where should the feedback be? Should it be in game with the artifact, or is it OK that it is out of game and slightly removed? Is there any difference in the impact on students if the feedback is in the game and part of the artifact or out of game and slightly removed?

While stewing on those questions, and how we could try to resolve them or find some research (or do some research) to answer them, a new thought developed. When does something become a summative assessment rather than a formative assessment? Is it only when the learner is not provided with the feedback and opportunity to further develop and improve? If that is the case, then in theory, any reflection from a student on the thinking they went through, or learning they demonstrated is simply an opportunity for the teacher (and student) to go either the summative or formative path. This may well depend on the 'next task' or future opportunities and how the previous task, and any feedback impact on the path taken in the new task. Convoluted? Yup, welcome to my brain!

There are so many 'what if's' flying around in my head and yet again I feel like I am asking more questions than I am answering, but that is ok! I also know that what I am 'looking for' here is not a reality... YET! But I genuinely think it can be, I have seen what I valued from students in my own classroom, what I was using to assess them, and how I was actually assessing students all change just because I started using games in my classroom. It was not a small shift, but it was a very abrupt change, it didn't take years upon years to shift, it took possibly 1 year of really using games, and utilising them as a basis for student discussion so that I could 'hear' the students thinking and approaches, their understandings, 'aha' moments and stumbling blocks.

I am not sure I have said it in public(or writing) before, but I think Minecraft, as a 'gateway drug' for teachers (thanks go to Bron Stuckey for that simile) to using games in educational settings, has the potential to really disrupt and change the way the current education system works, at least here in Victoria. I also think it will likely be for the better. It will be far from easy, and I certainly don't think the path is clear, but the possibility is there! To shift the focus from a knowledge centric system of grading and assessment to something more relevant to the current, and possibly future, needs of our community.

Now by no means am I suggesting we throw everything out, there is a transition stage here, where we still need to look at competencies, and the current curriculum and assess 'Minecraft learning' against that. This will help grow, and support, the use of Minecraft (and hopefully other games) in classrooms, however I would hope for a gradual shift to the 'journey of learning' being the key focus, and the part we use to support and develop our students, not just the 'final product' of knowledge.

OK, enough brain dumping and rambling for now. As always, thanks for reading, and if you have any comments, leave them below, or reach out on other platforms, as Neal did!

Assessment in Minecraft - Take 1 Million!

Over the years I have had many thoughts around what it is to assess student learning in Minecraft, what is effective, what is not and what is most relevant. I have been looking at this from an 'outsider' perspective now, as someone who is not tied to producing student learning data in the form of numerical and alphabetical grades. I have never been a huge fan of grades, but they are a reality of teaching in the current education system here, so while I look in from the outside, I still need to consider the need for solid, gradable assessment of student learning while they are in Minecraft.

This has led to quite a bit of thought and discussion with other mentors around formative vs summative assessment. I produced the tutorial video below the other day, showing how to possibly use the book and quill as a formative assessment tool, rather than only a summative tool, but even now, while this is a possibility, I am not sure whether it is a good one? The editing of books and such in Minecraft is not all that fluid, this video shows a workaround to get an editable copy and still be able to 'submit' it to the teacher, but is it really a 'good' way of assessing student knowledge.

This has led to a whole thought process about how important is it that assessment takes place 'in' Minecraft as opposed to out of it. I had the idea in my head that having in-game artifacts of student learning would be valuable, but given the difficulties of actually doing 'assessment' IN Minecraft I am not so sure teachers should be utilising their extremely valuable time to pursue this mode of assessment.

Note, this is mostly about 'writing' within Minecraft, and more specifically reflective writing at that. I have during the recent trainings I have run, talked about how the portfolio is the way to get screenshots out of Minecraft:EE easily, for students to provide evidence of learning to the teacher. However the book and quill is even more powerful in-game as students can accompany the image with more than 2 lines of text, they can have a whole page of text instead. I envision this text accompanying the image to be a description of the reason this image depicts the students learning in Minecraft, what were they thinking at the time and what difficulties arose while building it, plus I am sure many other reflective and valuable questions students could answer about the learning and skills they demonstrated while building.

To be honest, my headspace was probably centred around having a 'base' Minecraft world where students (or teachers) could collate their digital portfolio over a semester or year. However, this so far from the default practice I see in classrooms around the globe. Each lesson/world is standalone, there is no 'continuity' and therefore no need for a collated group of in-game artifacts, because each world/lesson is separate and has limited or no connection to others.

The logical progression of this kind of use would imply that having in-game artifacts in the current 'mode of operation' is unsuitable, so why bother with the book and quill at all. What relevance does having this in-game book as evidence of learning hold for students when they can just revisit their build at any time? Who is using these in-game artifacts, and what is the 'value' of having them for these users?

I am looking at the book and quill as an opportunity to grab a snapshot of student thinking at one time (or multiple), and that has a lot of value to me as a teacher, value that I cannot get by looking at a static image with 2 lines, nor by looking at the in-game build without the student present. So the key here is capturing the student thinking at the time it happens.

Of course the same could be achieved using out-of game means but it 'removes' the students from the world they are working in. I am by no means an expert on 'flow' and how it affects learning and students, but I do know that when I am working in the Minecraft space, jumping in and out of it to gather information does disrupt my thinking patterns. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, I am thinking about where I need to be putting the information, and how I am going to get it there.

Can you tell this is a massive brain dump, and my thinking is still winding in and out of all kinds of scenarios as I write (and edit) this post prior to publishing (it only took me all day!). So what is best, and easiest, and least time consuming for all stakeholders? Having assessment objects in-game, or out of game?

So at the end of all of this rambling and thinking, I still cannot see an effective and timely way for teachers to provide formative assessment of student work in Minecraft. Even during a lesson, with 20 kids and 60 minutes, that is 3 minutes of 'feedback' time per student during the class. Look at behaviour management, and technical management, you lose at least 10-15minutes of that time. So you are down to just over 2 minutes of 1:1 student:teacher time.

It is just not enough to get a real snapshot of what the students were doing. What if the massive leap in student understanding happened in that 40+ minutes you spent elsewhere in that room, even worse, after the 2 minutes you spent with them? Don't mistake my meaning, Minecraft has not 'done' this, it is just a 'thing' that happens in many classes, Minecraft based or not. I would like Minecraft to be able to help solve some of this for teachers in future, and I think reflective writing by students is a great opportunity to begin this change.

I will throw another possible path forward out there, and one that I think may be the best solution I have right now. Students still write the book in-game, keeping in the world, and in the moment, once completed, they can then sign and export their book, but that is not where the work ends for them, that zip file does not get sent to the teacher. The student then collates their exported book into a document of some sort for the teacher. I did it into a OneNote yesterday to test out how I could use this in future to support providing feedback to students, and it took me around 5 minutes to get it set up as shown in the image below for a 12 page book.

The key here is that the thinking and reasoning is still captured at the time, and alongside the images that mean the most to the students. That being said this is still very hard to give a 'grade' to, at least in terms of the current grading system here. Feedback is the easy part here, I was even discussing with someone that 'inking' over student work, using the windows ink-space, was also seeming like a really solid option for providing feedback, but I am yet to try this out. It is the grading that is the problem here, how do you grade someone in a situation like this?

I think the only true solution is a long term one; we need to shift our thinking about what student learning looks like. Be prepared for a 'high horse rant' here; A grade on a paper or test is, and this is likely to be an unpopular opinion, more about gathering data on students and seeing if we 'achieved' our 'goal' of imparting more knowledge than what they started with. Knowledge is no longer the 'key to the city', thinking processes are, critical thinking and problem solving skills and strategies are some key things that I think we need to be looking at closer than content knowledge.

What I think Minecraft offers here, is the possibility of a whole new way of looking at student learning, and it aligns with the 'thinking' kind of assessment; what were they doing, what were they thinking, why did they do that in the way they chose, what problems did they solve are much less clear in terms of giving a 'grade' to a society who currently values those letters or numbers more than I think they should. It does however have the potential to be much clearer in terms of what the student learned or demonstrated along the way, particularly across multiple subject areas. I think this would paint a much clearer picture of how well we are preparing students for a world that no longer requires knowledge, I have all the knowledge I could ever need at my fingertips, either through my smartphone, or computer.

Having the know how to find the knowledge, critically reflect on the source and knowledge presented, then merge it with my prior knowledge and experience and then finally utilise it in a way that supports the task I originally needed the knowledge for are by far better skills than being able to regurgitate the knowledge imparted on my by others. I don't think Minecraft is the silver bullet to fix education systems, but I do think it is a tool that could support a step into a new way of looking at teaching, learning and assessment.

Ok rant over now, I think I have asked more questions than I answered in this post, and thanks so much for reading. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, information or research you think might help move this thought process forward, please feel free to leave it in the comments below.

A Different Kind of Teaching

If you have been following recent posts, you would know that I am working with teachers from a couple of schools to build their capacity to run, and in one particular case yesterday, build their own lessons in Minecraft: Education Edition. I spent a couple of hours with this particular teacher yesterday, after last weeks class that I ran, he had some ideas of what he wanted to create and what he wanted students to be doing in their first lesson with him.

In that couple of hours we went through building by hand, and using commands like /fill and /clone to speed that process up. He used /setworldspawn to bring students into the world within his confined area, so that he could give them instructions before they started the task. I don't think he needed it for this lesson, but we also went through the various uses of the /tp command, to teleport all students to him, to teleport one student to him, and how to teleport one student to another student. I have to say his skills at movement and building/breaking blocks increased dramatically within just that short amount of time.

At the end of the time, he had a lesson that he was comfortable running, that he had created, and that he knew exactly what he wanted students to do in. So we want from a fairly fresh beginner to a self made, comfortable lesson in about 2 hours. Which may be more indicative of his willingness to persevere than anything else, but still that is a nice 'statistic' to have as I try to bring more teachers on board.

He was planning on running that lesson with his class earlier today, so I touched base with him to see how it went. It was certainly a positive experience for him, and I am very happy to know it went well. I put these out on twitter earlier today, but these two quotes stand out for me as significant things for a teacher to be saying after only a couple of hours in Minecraft with his students.

"It is offering great engagement and great discussion when we look through the world together."

"The creative aspect allows a lot of individuality, which I feel the students enjoy."

I was looking at the screenshots he sent me, and remarking at how individual the towers are already, let alone the symmetrical design that will come when they come back to the activity. To be honest, I am very surprised at the absolute differences in the designs of the towers, just the block choice alone is such an individual thing, follow that through to shape and other design characteristics, and this has opened a different perspective for me already on what it is to build a 'tower' in Minecraft.

I am regretting not being in the classroom today, but I am also very conscious of the fact that I cannot be in every lesson every time. So to say I am pleased with my first 'supported from afar' lesson designed and created by someone else.... actually can I even call it my lesson in this case?

Anyway, I am pretty darn happy that it all went well, and that the activity went as the teacher expected it to. Below are a few of the screenshots from the student work, and when completed, the plan is to put these in their maths book and digital portfolio later. In case you were interested, this lesson is about symmetry, and the students first had to create their tower, and then put a design on/in it that had at least 1 or 2 lines of symmetry. You can see some students have started their designs and hopefully you can also see the lines of symmetry in their design.

As always if you got to the end, thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment below.

Version Issues, Success Despite.

So, knowing the update was out, and that some schools set up auto update and others don't, given my experiences the other day, I contacted the teacher I was working with on Thursday afternoon to work out what version of M:EE she was running. Settling on the latest, I then updated my laptop again so I was in line with her version.

Fast forward about 18 hours, just as we are starting to get students into M:EE for the first time. Everyone is logging in with success, picking skins, and then I glance at the version numbers on a couple of machines; Uh Oh!

Some are running 1.4.0 and others are running 1.0.27, out the window goes the idea of having the whole class in the one world. Some students are working in groups, some are working individually, so with a quick (and stressful) check, there were only 2 groups where members had different versions. With a quick shuffle of computers we sorted out one group, and while we were shuffling the other group, one of those computers then magically updated between log ins.

We tried a couple of restarts and log ins on the other computer to see if that would auto update magically between times, but alas we had no luck, so that particular group had to separate and work individually. I cannot work out why some machines had updated, and updated so quickly, while others did not even look to start to update, let alone finish. I guess this is just the way that windows updates are handled in this school environment (and I am sure many others).

Needless to say, I have put in a request on the product feedback area for an 'Update Now' button to see if that would alleviate this issue in the future, but I am not sure how that would work with a windows store program, and also within a school network.

Now to the task students were working on, it was pretty straight forward, students had researched and planned out a build of an ancient building of their own choice, and were putting those plans into action. Like last time, there were a few standout builds, but everyone had success. All the students learned how to create their own world, join a hosted world, take selfies and pictures with the camera and caption them as well as export them for their teacher.

Given that students were working in a student hosted world, rather than a teacher hosted world, it was also important that they exported their world at the end of the class as well, since the worlds are not user specific, but computer specific, and these are not personal devices, in theory, anybody could come into those worlds in the future and destroy/modify those builds. So we had to teach them how to export their world, and import it again for next time so that they had it at exactly the same spot that they left it.

Unfortunately due to the multiple hosts and differing versions, the recording of students in-game was impossible, and since the students were sending their portfolios to the teacher, I didn't get any of them yet either. This means no pictures again today.

I leave in an hour to go back to the primary school I was at last week, to spend a couple of hours going through some world building tips and strategies with the teacher there, he is keen to get started building his own lessons, rather than relying on me, or others to build them for him. Which I think is a great idea, and I am really looking forward to seeing what he needs to create in his first map, and what kind of support/instructions I can provide to help get him there.

That's it for now, thanks as always for reading, feel free to leave a comment below.

Incomplete Success.

So, a lot of reflection to happen after todays lesson in the somewhat beginners map. It was great to realise that students still don't read instructions in game when they start learning in Minecraft and it is going to take some time to work them out of that habit. How did I forget this?!

The invisible maze, too hard. We only had around 35 minutes once everyone logged in and joined the world, and about 25 minutes after we got everyone sorted. Unfortunately the M:EE update that happened meant that the map was not completed, as I did the final couple of hours worth of work in 1.4.0, not realising that the school was not on auto-update and hence still running 1.2.7. So I had to wind back to a previous version that was incomplete in terms of teacher controls. This meant that I missed parts of the startup routine for the challenges. The boating towards the challenges was also probably a bit much, and too far. Many students did not know how to row their boats, and their render distance was too low to see the start of the challenges.

The jumping puzzle was also too hard for Pocket Edition players trying to move to a keyboard and mouse for almost the first time. The final thing that I feel quite stupid about, is that I gave students worldbuilder ability when they get to the third challenge so that they could create an NPC. However it also means that they can cross border blocks, ignore allow and deny blocks.

I found this out as a student finished the second challenge, and got to the third challenge, with all the permissions included, ignored all the instructions and flew over to 'help' their friends in the jumping challenge. I cannot believe I didn't realise that, I spent hours checking all the border blocks and allow and deny blocks to try and 'prevent' them from breaking eachothers NPCs and such... all that time wasted!

So all of that sort of reflection (and embarrassment) aside, students did learn how to use the camera and portfolio, exporting as well. They also know how the border blocks work, and some would also know how the allow and deny blocks work. One really great thing about today was that the teacher really wants to learn how to create maps, and he has ideas already about the first map he wants to create. So next week, instead of teaching students, I am going to work with the teacher to support their map creation skill acquisition.

Once that map is complete, we will run the world together, or at least with me in the room as well. I did record the lesson today, but I had not set up the recording software very well, and it is a bit frame dropish. I will still edit parts of it down and post it on my YouTube channel for anyone interested. I did spend the afternoon tweaking the recording software so I can hopefully record smoother tomorrow.

Tomorrow I go back to the same school as last week to support a somewhat Minecraft experienced teacher to run her first M:EE lesson. The students will be creating ancient buildings, they have done the research and the planning, and this time I am hoping to be able to record and grab screen shots to share the great work that these students create.

I also need to revamp the map I used today, but I am not quite sure how much to do so just yet, I would like to run it with another group, giving clearer instructions about the challenges before I do too much with it. I think the basics are solid, it is just a matter of a few (hopefully) minor tweaks.

A bit of a bland post today, hopefully there will be more images tomorrow. I am going to try getting back to sharing the images of what I am talking about more, I have been a bit slack at that lately. Thanks always for reading, feel free to leave a comment below. Hey, I will even give you a task; share your thoughts about how you might get students up to speed on the EE specific interactions you might like to use in your class.

Somewhat a Beginners Map

I have been working on a new map, to introduce Minecraft 'players' to the EE specific blocks and items, how to interact with them and what impacts they can have on their experience. This map was supposed to take only a couple of hours to make after the initial planning, and in normal me form, I need it by Thursday this week.

So I spent about 4 hours streaming the planning, throwing ideas around and initial building. By the time I had thrown all my ideas around, I had some pretty straight forward ideas about how I wanted it to work in a classroom. Starting with some open exploration early in the class, to make sure the teacher has enough time to go around and make sure that everyone knows the basics of movement in Minecraft, or for students to help each other out, whichever way it goes.

After this open exploration, there would be a series of 3 challenges, these challenges explain, in an interactive way, what the M:EE specific blocks do, the first is an 'invisible' maze. The maze is made with border blocks below the platform and the border block particles show the paths you can and cannot take. I play tested it myself and it was really tricky, so I put in some 'sign post' blocks to help students find their way. It is not supposed to be impossible, but it is not supposed to be a straight shot either.

The invisible border maze.

Once they get to the end of the maze, students are supposed to use the camera to take a photo, or selfie with the NPC, then head down into the staging area for the next challenge. The second challenge is a mix a parkour/jumping puzzle and building puzzle, designed to show how the allow and deny blocks work.

The start of the allow/deny jump and build puzzle.

Once they get to the end of this, they head to the third challenge, which is not really a 'challenge' I guess, in the 'problem' sense, but more a task to show students how to work with NPCs when they have the /worldbuilder ability. At the conclusion of the lesson, students are to export their portfolio showing their achievements throughout the lesson for the teacher. Plus, as a bonus, since I think I am working with these students that I am meeting on Thursday a fair bit over the next little while, I will have some information about the students from the NPC "zoo".

The 30 challenge 2 platforms.

So, simple right? Wrong! Parallel play for the challenges meant that I needed to create 30 copies of challenge 2, 30 'pens' for the NPC "zoo" and work out some way to prevent, or at the very least minimise the risk of two students ending up in the same location for either challenge 2 or 3. This meant that I spent approximately 8 hours today working on commands and setting everything up so that teleporting works to the appropriate location and the appropriate abilities are afforded at each.

The NPC zoo.

I also learned today that you can easily adjust the direction that a person faces when you teleport them, through any of the 360 degrees, not just the cardinal directions. While I was messing about with that, I also learned that you can teleport 'only' people who are looking in a certain direction, which I have a feeling may mean something for future maps. I am not sure what yet, but there is an inkling of an idea that may yet prove to be quite useful.

One 'cell' in the NPC zoo.

Now all I have left is to create the 'teacher staging area' whereby any teacher can start the challenges, without my input, this should only take a couple of hours...... Oh the irony! I want to share this map on the EE site, but also with all kinds of teachers as I move forward in the rollout and support across the state. I think this map/lesson has a lot of merit, and is much more targeted at comfortable players, rather than those who have never played before.

This has been on my mind, since now the statistics in my very small sample have shifted from 1 or 2 in a class having played before, to 1 or 2 in a class not having played before. The old 'tutorial world' or the other activities I have run in the past to support students to learn how to move around in Minecraft just are not needed any more. But I don't think this means that students will automatically know about all the EE specific blocks and items that can change their experience in a classroom setting.

So, by going through these 3 challenges, what do students learn? If they didn't already know, they learn how to move in Minecraft. They learn what border, allow and deny blocks do. They learn how to interact with NPCs with and without /worldbuilder ability and they learn how to take pictures, and selfies and then caption and export these for their teachers. While not explicitly in the challenges, students are also exposed to all three sizes of boards, and now that I think on it, I think I might request they use at least one in their zoo decoration.

It is certainly not the prettiest build, and I am sure with some more time I could make a story to flow through it, but first I want to see how it runs as an activity in a classroom. Luckily I will be able to see how it runs in a classroom tomorrow. I have spoken to the teacher I am working with, and I am going to try and be 'hands off' observer rather than the facilitator of this lesson. I am also hoping to record some footage of the students going through the challenges for reflection

Minecraft... in a classroom... It is GREAT to be BACK!

Today marks the first day I have used Minecraft: Education Edition in a classroom... and the first day in a few years that I have used any Minecraft version in a formal Australian classroom, and let me tell you, for me, it is still as thrilling and enjoyable as it always was. The version may have changed, the process for getting started is also quite different, but the core basics in the classroom are still exactly the same.

I knew this on an intellectual level, don't get me wrong, but there was that little niggling part of me that was worried it would all be different and the 'spark' would not be there. I am very glad to say that the spark has not gone, and the kids I worked with today in Minecraft, were absolutely amazing, focused and creative, and I very much look forward to continuing to work with them in future.

There were of course technical issues, there always is on the first attempt, but these did not dampen the overall experience for the students. There were a few computers around the room that just would not either install or run M:EE, and I have left that little problem in the very capable hands of the local technician to try and solve. Students who could not log on themselves, sat beside someone who could and they worked together, which was a very pleasing aspect of this particular class today.

One part of the narrative of the lesson that stands out for me, was one student was building in black concrete, and since they were supposed to be building ancient Egyptian obelisks, pyramids or temples, I queried her on what she was building, and why in black. She merrily pipes up with, "I'm building a statue of Anubis, and he is black!" so, having been put back in my box, I kept wandering the room admiring their creativity, and the learning they had shown through their respective builds.

Also, in reflection, it is amazing what 'comfort' with the environment does, this is the first group of students I have worked with where they were already Minecraft players, all but 2 had played before in some way shape or form, only about half on PC though, so we ran through the controls quickly for those PE players. The amount that they built in the time they had was significantly more than the last time I ran this project with students a few years ago when the students were not comfortable Minecraft players.

There were plenty of pyramids, quite a few neat obelisks and a few pretty good looking temples, or at least the beginnings of them plus a couple of amazing statues (one being Anubis of course). I will request a few screenshots from the teachers and see if I am able to share them when next I post. What is great is that, while there was plenty of summative assessment material today, there was also a lot of non-curriculum learning. Students learned how to log into M:EE, how to use the camera and portfolio, and also how to 'behave' in Minecraft in school and these non-curricular skills will stand them in good stead to continue to gain benefit when next they join a Minecraft class. It was great to see that there were very few behavioural issues with students today, whether that continues in future classes remains to be seen, but I believe if the lessons continue to be engaging and worthwhile for the students, then it will.

Today's session went for about 90 minutes, and, after the 'first logon' time and introduction we probably had about 60 or so minutes of build time before we started taking pictures using the camera, and teaching students how to export their portfolio for the teacher to view. Teaching students how to take "selfies" in Minecraft was not something I had ever done before, and I must admit it was quite an enjoyable lesson to teach.

Another interesting thing I learned was that if the teachers laptop goes to sleep while hosting the world for the class, the program shuts down and all students get disconnected. It was really nice to be able to say to the students, that if they didn't want that to happen again, they had to convince their teacher to play with them, and help them out. Of course they did this in all kinds of ways, one students even promised a large sum of cash, but all students definitely supported her in joining, and those sitting next to her were super helpful in helping her navigate. All in all, I think it was a great first experience for the students, and probably, in reflection just as great for me and the other teachers involved.

One of the teachers involved today was already a Minecraft convert, but had only ever used MinecraftEdu, hence the reason I had been requested to go to the school today to support her to get started with M:EE. Together we have begun planning some humanities lessons/projects from year 7 to 10 that they (we) could possibly run. However the other teacher involved today is now completely sold, and is looking at how she may be able to use Minecraft in her junior Science classes next term.

In the space of less than 2 hours, she had gone from never playing Minecraft before, to seeing how valuable it could be for her teaching, and is already exploring possibilities for future classrooms. I think she was amazed at the creativity the students showed, and the depth of learning they were able to get into their blocky creation.

I call that a win, and for my first 'in school' coaching day I can only hope the wins keep coming. Thanks, as always, for reading and feel free to leave a comment below.