NHS Titles

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Maze Runner by James Dashner
The Leading Indicators:  A Short History of the Numbers that Rule Our World by Zachary Karabell
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Jack Reacher Series by Lee Childs
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Mountains beyond Mountains: The Quest of Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder
Blinded By Sight: Seeing Race through the Eyes of the Blind by Osagie Obasogie   
American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Dangerous Sniper in U.S. Military History by Chris Kyle,  Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden
Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War by Michael Shaara
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl 

AVReading Newsletter April 2015: Open Space Technology

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Open Space Technology is an educational learning experience that allows groups to choose an area of interest, explore that area, and report out.  The very nature of the experience makes it very useable within the classroom environment, but it has also been used in community, corporate, and leadership settings.  It can be a completely open process, with no thematic commonality between the areas of interest, or it can be more focused.  

Though it is not a literacy strategy per se, it is quite fitting for our school building push towards engagement and inquiry. So for this month’s newsletter, I will write a little about how Open Space Technology works and why it might be a unique experience for your classroom.

I first came to Open Space Technology in a leadership conference.  There were about forty of us from a wide variety of fields:  architecture, public health, food sciences, politics etc.  We were told, as a
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full group, to generate topic ideas that we would be interested in discussing with other professionals.  They could cover any imaginable idea.  Blank sheets of paper were spread throughout the room.  We had some thinking time to post an idea on a blank sheet.  And then we were brought back together as a full group.  Anyone with an idea for a group came forward and the sheets (now with discussion topics on them) were posted around the room. The ideas included everything from violence in video games to our crumbling infrastructure to race and identity.  We were specifically told, that we held our own professional development within our hands. That we should submit ideas we were curious about and that would be meaningful to us.   Once the discussion topics were posted and briefly explored, rooms / spaces and discussion leaders (who may or may not be an expert on the topic) were assigned to each.

For the next 45 minutes, we met in those groups talking about the topic.  None of us were experts, but each of us could contribute something to the discussion.  We were told that if we did not like the direction of the discussion or wanted to move onto another group, we should exercise the law of two feet and leave.

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At the end of the 45 minutes, we reconvened as a full group and each of us shared out one important interesting idea we took for that discussion.

The advantages of Open Space Technology include engagement, capitalizing on the given strengths of a group, and releasing responsibility of learning to the community.  I’ve had lots of positive experiences with this format, with both adults and students.  

This last week, I did a digital version of Open Space Technology.  In my media studies class, we are studying social media.  So, the class brainstormed seven or eight topics related to social media (dangers of social media, privacy and social media, brain science and social media).  Within Google Classroom, I created a document for each topic and shared them with the entire class.  Students then chose one of those topics, visited the corresponding document, researched it, and contributed one or two pieces of information to the page.  Once they had contributed something, they were told to read the pieces submitted in that document by others from their group.  On day two, students returned to the classroom and shared one interesting, important or unique idea they had learned from the experience.  

If you are considering an Open Space Event, here is really all you need.  

Open Space Technology:  Social Media Topic

Open Space Technology- a forum of discussion and learning where a community generates topic ideas, divides by those topic ideas, analyzes them in groups, and shares out their findings.

Laws of Open Space:

1. Generate an Idea of interest to you.
2. Be present for your group and topic.  (Contribute)
3. Law of two feet.  If you don’t like the direction of your group, move to another one.  

Mission:  Generate topic Ideas, Move to online space, Find links that relate to your topic idea, Share out your findings to the class.

 

Read the full newsletter here.  (Includes Hot Reads and Reading Tips for Students for April.)