 That could be a product that kids could make, right? Feel many tabs open. Is this a story of all of your lives, isn't it? To be a child in your brain? Yeah, it was so new. A lot of people don't even know about this elementary migration. Like there's really just a ton of people, like even in my own town, that were like, we didn't know this happened. This gorgeous creature we didn't know actually was out ever. So raising awareness with websites and working in conjunction with local nature centers or naturalists could be really powerful for raising that awareness. They can do interviews with local scientists. Jim Andrews, who is our state herpetologist, was incredibly generous. I met him down in Middlebury. He came with me to a school visit. I'm sure he'd do a podcast that a student, or an interview with a student. People are open to this. They just need the call. And it's the best if the student can make the call. Infographics are a really neat tool that's cropped up now. There's a great site called Canva. It's just canva.com that I've been making infographics with students. And there's just templates that's easy to use and it's a great way to communicate a lot of information in one visual. So maybe they create, for this time that they share this migration time. Or maybe it's the fall and it's the migration of another species you wanna feature or whatever. A guidebook to the amphibians because a lot of people don't even know about the Spotted Salamanders. I was thinking about a mural, a community art because the illustrations. I'm amazed by the illustrator on a regular basis. And one of the things that I really love is this particular spread is the threats, the human-caused threats to the Salamanders. And it took me a little bit to see that she did the empty space that they're missing. The power in that as an art teacher or an integrated study to say what is a threat in your local habitat, in your state? Could you do a public mural that had the empty space featuring us considering what would happen if they were gone? So that was just an emerging idea about her artwork. There's another place like the intentional choice of the illustrator to put yellow spots. Because in the text it says, the school day crawls on slowly like a Salamander, minutes into long hours, staring at the clock. All I can see is rain and bright yellow spots. So then the illustrator put yellow spots over the whole scene. That never would have occurred to me. So how could a student create a piece of work and then use what's in the text to guide the design of the illustration? You know, there's so much potential there just on the illustrations. Magazines. I don't know if you guys have seen Thingwinks before. They're so neat. I don't know what I linked here. Okay, well, that's not what I wanted, but. So basically, if that's the website that you can create a Thingwink through, but it's an image that you can sync in links into. So there's a lot of applications here. We have a couple posts on the Tarant Blog about this. So like let's say I had a map of middle steps where I live and I'm a student, I can replicate that map, put it up and then sync in spots where the Salamander crossing sites are and put up my data for what I found at those sites or information or websites or whatever. So it's rich as an activity. Is it actually text on the image? Or it can be anything? Or like a symbol? Or you can do whatever. You can do whatever. Okay, it can be text, video, pictures. It's cool. And then you can also, what happens next in the story? If it's a literacy type lesson, a skit of it. So there's just a book trailer. The author, excuse me, the illustrator made a really nice book trailer, but what if the student created ones? I thought those would be pretty cool. Just to add in for the infographics, Vengage is an excellent site that works better than Canva for Infographics. V-I-N-N-G-A-G-E. And they have all sorts of templates and then you can look at those templates and then create your own. Ken, could you say anything else? Vengage, V-E-N-N-G-A-G-E. At Canva works really well for if you need logos and awards and things, but Vengage is infographics pretty much only. Is it similar to what Gloucester was? Gloucester was an online poster, but they got ninth to pay for it. Now it's not for you. No, Vengage is it, maybe a little bit. Yeah, I've used Gloucester before, but Vengage is really like, these are infographics. And so I did a whole, you want to go through it, like how do you read an infographic and what's going on with the text and what do you highlight and things like that. And it's interactive. You can sync links into it as well or not. Yeah, you more than likely aren't going to though in your infographic because you're explaining or it's your visual literacy of that information. And it allows you to, for free, the free part, allows you to make like four. And then you just have them delete the old ones that they don't need. I run into trouble with the free thing. That thing link is like that. You can do a little bit for free a little bit. Canva so far has not, there's little visual parts that they charge you for. But that's always a trick. I start to love something. And then they're like, no, it costs money. Yeah, like, no. So there's other, all the other parts of PDL are listed here with some sample learning scales, sample reflection, questions and ideas, front loading and transferable scales. So there's a lot of just resources here for you. And let's see, oh, it's some of my favorite. Oh, some of these websites that I was referring to about project-based learning are linked at the end of this as well. So there's hopefully, hopefully you won't keep track of them. And then these are just some ideas for that culminating event, right? So habitat tours, film festivals, skits and performances, you know, interestingly towns have made decisions about this. Like Monkdon built a wildlife tunnel because their salamander migration took place over, oh, what is that? I can't remember, but it's just super busy and there's tons of mortality. So that town made that decision. They had to do some fundraising and they funded it with town funds and they made a tunnel. I found it. It's not like published where it is. I felt so excited and stealthy pullover like ran over to it. I was, somebody asked me if there was a tunnel cam and I said, I didn't think so. There is, okay, good. If you want, we'll get it later. I'm so excited about that. I have night video of them crossing. It's the coolest thing. It's, yeah, it's the night cam. And it's also used by all sorts of wildlife. So it's not just the salamanders that survive from it. So what I'm saying is that if a student group wants to explore the mortality rates and what their own town can do and then present to the town representatives and really just say, what are we going to do? Keen, New Hampshire closes down the intersection or two because of the migration. What's your town going to do? You know, it's a question the kids can bring up. And then just a salamander party and learning fair because a lot of people don't even know about these fine creatures. So this is here for you. I know we're running out of time so I want to hustle. I want to just show you two, I mentioned it earlier. I'll show you this one. I don't know if you've seen this book. It's a wonderful book about sort of this albatross of regular news, the news cycle that kids are experiencing. If you see this first page, I'll just read it to you. It says, all over the world, the news told and told and retold of anger and hatred, people against people and little girl was frightened by everything she heard and saw and felt. And so I'm doing some think-alouds with this and thinking might say to my students, do you ever feel like this? What has made you feel this way? And she's asking her parents about it and she said, is there something we could do to make the world a better place? And her papa said, come with me. And you could just with your class or do this in advance to get your own thinking down. Every kid wants a chance to improve a condition. Her father says, yes. Her father says, yes, come with me, let's do something about it. He doesn't say, no, you're too little. You should wait till you're older. You shouldn't talk about X, Y, or Z. And so asking kids, like they just went out and they took public transport. So to get kids to notice, like what do you notice in the picture? What act of kindness are they doing? And there's representation of all sorts of folks in this. So they're doing public transportation, right? And then she goes off and the author says that they want a tiny battle over fear. And then same thing plays out with the mom and they end up going to sort of an international section of the city to get their ingredients for their food. And at this food counter, it says, because one person doesn't represent a family or race or the people of the land, what might this mean, right? So basically leading the students to say, you don't have to be afraid in this world, you can make decisions every day that can help improve the world. And so then that might lead your class to a guiding question, right? So in the end, they're creating this public art and you'll see all the doors are opening because all sorts of other kids are coming out and noticing, hey, I want to be part of that. I want to do something good. And it says, what will you do to be brave and gentle and strong? What can you do to create a better world and to fight fear? So a book like this could certainly ignite a whole class set of projects around that. And similarly, this book Love by Matt Topena and More and Long, it's these glorious different representations of what love sounds, feels, and looks like. So I love it in so many ways because it just busts through all sorts of different stereotypes and biases that may exist and represents, like here's something that's not usually represented. Little boy here, while his parents are arguing, how many kids don't ever get to see themselves represented in a book? There's another picture of a family that lives in a trailer and the mother and daughter are dancing. I just, I love that all sorts of love and all sorts of lifestyles are represented. And it makes me ask guiding questions like, what love do you see and feel here on a regular basis? What, how could you tell the story of what love looks like, sounds like, smells like, feels like in your area? And maybe if somebody's not experiencing that at home, maybe it's them, it's gonna be about their school or about, you know, so there's just so much opportunity after reading, what does love sound like to you? And then project idea, your version of this book, is it a book, is it a song, is it a play, is it a website, is it artwork? So you might come at this, not using the template, right? You might come at it from the book itself, from your ideas with students, that might be your gateway. And then lastly I have, I have a guide that's a little, it's not project-based learning focused entirely. That's not the right link at all. Let's see, there's such, pardon me for one moment. Actually, I'm not just worried about it. Is that it run me that picture that is on your website? Yeah, that's where they order the trees. Okay, so here's the guide, and this is a Google doc, and that's not the one. Just wanted to straight up there to keep this guide. There we go. Okay, no, sorry, you guys, I'm just gonna say that. So I have this copy of it, and I know I have it digitally as well, so that's something I need to correct. But it basically has information just about the book, and then it has a letter of why, like my first interaction with Salamanders, and sort of like it's one from the illustrator, one from me that's very personal. And then it has science themes and topics linked to the NGSS standards. It has, the NGSS standards are here, okay? And these are things like ecosystem, social interactions and group behavior, adaptation, biodiversity. And then it has discussion questions, pre-reading, during-reading and after-reading, and then also extension activities for each one. So like a question that you might ask in the middle of it would be where do Spotted Salamanders live all year, right? And that answer is in the book and worthy of discussion, but then you might ask, there's an extension activity underneath it that says, ask students to illustrate the tree root homes at the Spotted Salamanders based on the research, right? So you have the entry point for question, and then the activity that you can do with students after. And that's all in here for you. And then there's some links to some of the media, so some of those videos of the tunnels and things like that that kids would want to see. And I just have to figure out online where I have that. So I think that's most of what I have for you. What are your, it's a lot. What are your questions? What did I miss? Quite wonderful. I just have one piece of information on the Come With Me book, which is a wonderful book. And if people are interested in sort of using that as a launching pad, there's another book, either just came out or just coming out called The Breaking News by Sarah Will. And that is an awesome book. That's an awesome book. That starts from the same place. There's been terrible news and the child, the news is never specified, but the child sort of goes on this journey to figure out how to deal with it and how to make their parents comforted. And it's a really wonderful and moving. And it could be if you're into pairing books, it's a nice pair. What's it called again? The Breaking News. You could follow it up with, this one's an old one, but the Silent Grandmother Gathering. Where they have a grandmother, it makes a peaceful, quiet protest in the square and eventually all the women in town and kids join them for making a small difference in the world. And they reported out as like that day there was no news to report. So they made, and they had a lot of kind of ridicule. Like, why are they just standing there? That's so helpful. I think it's like activism, right? Yeah, like kind of like once you get going in one of these just to kind of follow up. Like you can make a difference any age from the first and that one's pretty old. I want to see it. I did find the Google Doc that is the edge Peter's guide and I just need to correct that link. Any questions about the book or writing? There's also things I can pass around if you're interested in looking at the think aloud. Do you see this approach working well with older students as well? Or is it predominantly elementary school students? Well, I think this would work. The ones that have more intensive science subjects, I'm thinking that this elementary sky, that would probably work for a five through eight experience as well, focused on the human threats, the migratory past, the range of the species. I think those all have power and students there are well poised to make a product that could be seen widely and be really impactful. So I think it really could be intentionally. I think we do a disservice when we stop using picture books in other kids. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you last year. And I did a couple like social behavior things and I use picture books and they actually appreciate them more because they look deeper into them than the other kids do. So the kids don't have resistance to using baby books? I use picture books. And I'm with 13-year-olds. But yeah, mentor texts. I don't use them as the source that they're going for. But I use them like for read-alouds. They're really great thinking questions and kind of a launching type of thing. I had a sacred read-aloud time for sixth graders and I would use a wide range of all sorts of things. Great. No parameters there. And they love that time. Everyone loves to be read too. I love when people read to me. So I think we just as educators you need to keep doing it no matter, especially in the upper grades, right, to make sure that that's still. Especially because a lot of families back away from reading a lot of that point as well. So they're not getting that experience a lot of times. It's also practice for those skills that you're talking about. It's that they have trouble, you know, presenting. Well, if they're reading, that's a, you know, an entry into presentation. It's also a shared experience. Like there's real value in like if your class is having trouble with maybe it's bullying or maybe it's anything that you can match whatever the text is to and then do a read-aloud where you all experience it together and dialogue together. You can push through whatever that scenario is. And it could be student-led, you know. I've read this book called Learn Like a Pirate which is all about landing the intentional student-led environment. And he talks about projecting wonder. And so everybody is accessing the text together. So you're getting all sorts of practice and engaging in the text, you know, right there. You're hearing what a fluent reader sounds like. You know, this is a group experience. We talk about how to treat each other. And it's not a threatening when you have an issue in class. If you're using a picture book for it, you know, now you're talking about the people there, but it's so easy to then relate it to what's happening. That personalized it with some things. In my class this week, we had something interesting happen with Salamander Sky in terms of, we've been sort of doing a big theme of community and home. And we're going into birds and nests and downtown Montpelier. And the kids were really kind of like, where is the Salamander's home? Right, because it's a changing home. And so sometimes you can also like integrate into a much larger scene about the community. It wasn't something I was thinking about using the book in that way. And it's just sort of happening. And it was a really good question. And even with birds, sort of, where is their home? Like, is there a nest in their home all the time? Or, so it's been really fun to think about that big idea of home. And that book I was looking at, I used to book home by Carson. Carson Elst. Carson Ellis. Yeah, Carson Ellis. I love that about what defines a home. And what homes are represented more often. You know, I just, I think that's so important that not, not thought about as much. I was at a research presentation about homelessness and they were talking about how many of our students are not homeless in that sort of like traditional sense, but they're like, how there's a good word for it. Housing and secure. Housing and secure and they're doubling up. So they're. People sleeping on other people's couches. Exactly. And what it looks like in rural Vermont is not what you might see, you know, people have this mindset of what homelessness is. And a lot of times we don't know that our students are doubling up. We don't know that they're in the RV and how that, the way that we viewed that concept has been very limited. And in my presentation, we're actually seeing quite a bit of that because you don't need a car necessarily if you can double up and live in the city. And we're seeing that in our district, quite a few families fall into that category now. Yeah. When I taught in Alaska, I didn't realize that kids would have shifts and bed. It took me a long time to learn that I'm like, that's why you're so tired. You only get to sleep in the bed until two. And then get knocked out for basically like the other family living there to sleep. Yeah, I remember recess duty talking with a student and not the student was talking about being in the RV and it was for February. And I had not considered that student as homeless, but that student was housing and secure completely. And how can we be more intentional as educators to know those things earlier than we know them? I just felt like, how am I not doing this about you until now? Anyway, sidebar. But relevant. Is that idea at all? Place. Right. Right, wrong connect. So please stay in touch as you do this work or anything. I am constantly reading, writing, thinking about all of these things. And my contact information is on my website. I have my cards up here that have all my stuff. And I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to think about what you're doing and trying to match it up with existing resources or anything. And in what period of time would you be available for that? It sounds like you're pretty busy. Everybody's busy. Are you signing books today? Oh, I can. Yeah, I'd be happy to. Thank you so much. Thank you. That would be a really good idea, actually. Yeah. Because we all need to know what Katie does. So I'm just gonna read a little bit and just bear with me. So Katie Harfarmer is an educator, teacher, coach, and writer from Vermont. We know that for her. She's the author of three books about education, why great teachers quit and how we might stop the exodus, change the world with service learning, how to create, lead, and assess service learning projects, and change the world's new edition, which is called Real and Relevant, a Guide for Service and Project-Based Learning. She also wrote a middle grade novel, which we love, The Order of the Trees. I'm sure a lot of kids in your class doesn't know this book and have read it, which is right here. Which is a lovely sort of eco-fable, but it's galvanizing children into action and kids love this book. They walk around like this with it, they know this. And her newest book, which we are just enjoying so much right now, Salamander Sky, both published by Green Writers Press. The artwork is amazing. If you haven't looked at it yet, I'm sure most of you have. It's just beautiful. It reminds me of like John Muth, I just love it. So, she, let's see, her writing has been published on CNN's School of Thought Blog, Educational Leadership, Edutopia, Hopping to Post, and the Synapse. You're also, you have a, you're working at U of M. I think you have a fellowship, possibly, at U of M, or is that such a. It's a great, funded effort, really, to personalize education, so. Yes. I'll tell you more. She's a good woman. KED works to elevate the voices of students, teachers and parents, and advocates for children's health, leadership, authentic learning, and deep powerful service for others in the natural world. But for reals, I've seen Katie in action, and what impresses me most about her is the joyous curiosity she brings to all of her endeavors. In her children's books, they inspire kids to believe in their own agency, to take action and become leaders, and not just independent thinkers, but leaders that belong to a team. They inspire kids to learn how to love their place in this world by taking responsibility for it. We are so lucky to have you on our team. So, I just want to mention one thing. We'll be learning about project-based education today, but we also have it in action this afternoon at Bear Pond. We have a U32 team coming from the middle school to talk about their project they're doing in Africa, in Malawi. Malawi? Malawi. Malawi. Malawi. And they're raising money, and they're calling for paperback picture books to donate to a library there. So, it's happening. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. So lovely. That was so nice. Let's start by crying. That's really sweet. It's so nice. Thank you for coming out on a Saturday morning on your very short amount of time off in your very, very busy lives. So that is incredibly gracious of you. So thank you for doing that. And we've put some things on your seats just so that you can keep track of what I'm gonna be sharing. So I wanted to make sure you see the one that has the Salamander Sky cover on it has all of the links to everything I'll be sharing. Because that's when I come to events I'm always like, where's the links? How can I access this later? Because what I'll do is I'll write notes down and I will lose them or not be able to find them quickly right when I need them. So whatever works for you to also just snap a photo if that's easier of the page. But they're all living Google Docs that you can then just make a copy of and modify it at your happy will. So I wanted to get that right away. So yeah, so I'm so happy to be here. I love this bookstore. In fact, on the way in, I always see like five things I wanna get immediately like this shirt. Okay. So I want to turn off the lights. Yeah, that'd be good. So we're pretty good. If it's okay just since there's so few of us to say like what grade level that you work with just so I have a sense and if your children spoke off of that's awesome. Maybe what audience you write for. Would that work for everybody? If you do that real quick. Okay. I'm Diana Costello and I had the pleasure of working with Katie one time at Romney School. I teach third and fourth grade and I've been there for about 13, 14 years. I'm Kim Scott. I teach seventh and eighth grade here at Main Street Middle School. I'm Carolus Copetoni. I'm a children's book writer. I do picture books and middle grade novels. And I also taught in the four wins and elf for a long time. So I have a great affection for this. Nice. You're welcome. Especially Salamander. Especially Salamander. I'm Chris Mahali. I also write for kids. Picture books up to white, A mostly nonfiction. And I also did four wins and elf stuff. I'm Susan Koch. And I am a primary grades teacher. Right now I'm teaching first grade in Montpellier. I'm Melissa Kimball. I also teach first grade I'm at St. Monaco, St. Michael School in Bay. Wait, we can hit that line? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Nice to see you. Thanks again for coming. So I taught at Twinfield and at Romney School for about the past 17 years in various configurations of fifth grade and sixth grade. And sometimes with a focus on math and science, sometimes everything just depending. And then for the last two years, I've been at the University of Vermont at the Tarrant Institute for Innovative Education. And that's a unique incredible opportunity, I think, to engage with schools on a three-year grant cycle when they're trying to personalize learning or launch something like project-based learning or personalized learning plans. And so we enter into this relationship where we co-construct professional development with teacher leaders and help them pretty much take on what they wanna take on but really with the goal of engaging. Welcome, with engaging, hi. With engaging students, primarily in middle grades but I work with a K-5 down in Montecuiche. We don't really have parameters on the work. It's just, how do we engage kids in meaningful, authentic learning? And that's what we partner with schools to do. And so I feel pretty lucky in that job that I get to tell the amazing stories of what's happening in schools. And one thing that my colleagues and I always used to say is we used to say, teachers need their own PR department. Like there's so many awesome things happening and teachers are far too busy to tell the stories of the good things happening in their classes. And it's so frustrating, right? That more positive attention isn't brought. So that's one thing that I get to do in this role and I feel really happy and excited to do that. So if you're interested in, and also this blog is a really dynamic place where practices from the field are shared, reflected on and they're often very dynamic, community-based, project-based learning. So it's taking what's happening in the field and then in a matter of weeks or days writing about it, sometimes teachers come to us with a problem and then we try to find the resources and solve it. So it's a really responsive space for Vermont educators as a platform for them but to also problem-solve and help find resources. So I wanted to make sure I showed that to you. What is the name of this? Yeah, so the link is on here. Oh, except it's not exactly, it's not fully linked on there. So what I would do, sometimes I often do just to find it quick is put in Terrent Institute Blog and it'll come right up. A couple really interesting things to find here is a project-based learning page here, okay? And that has what we'll talk about in a minute, sort of a definition that we've worked up, but then all the posts that go through all the parts of project-based learning. So I wrote a post for every aspect of PBL and then what does it look like out in Vermont school? So reports from the field and stuff and then how to go further with it. So there's like different levels of entry points to get into with that. So I do a lot of writing here as well as partnering with schools. So I wanted to point you right that to you right away. And before we, so this book, I feel like I feel very lucky that it came out recently. It came out about a month ago and now it's Salamander Week. Oh my gosh, it's so awesome. So you'll see this shirt I'm wearing was designed by the illustrator and I carry around, this is Skye. And I've been doing a lot of events at schools and things and Skye's very popular. I just as a side note, the illustrator sent me Skye. Skye had a forked tongue sticking out in the claws. Which is like, you don't even know the difference between the lizard and the salamander. This is why this is important. So the illustrator clipped the tongue off in the claws and so Skye's a little bit more representative. But if you haven't seen the spotted, this guy is approximately the size of an actual spotted salamander, a touch larger. So when I would just held one two nights ago, its tail came to right about here when my bracelet is a nice wrapped around. And I have some photos if you wanna see. Anyway, that's a sidebar. So Salamander Skye came out and this week we've been super active with it. And I was thinking when Jane and I were talking, how could teachers use these kind of books to be a springboard into problem solving in their own communities and action and making a difference. And so we're gonna talk about two different ways that you might have approached that work depending on what your orientation is and where you're coming from. But before we do that, oh yeah, jump in. I talk fast and my brain's a very busy place. So stop it at any point and jump in. Katie, I'm gonna jump in for a second. Because when we were reading Salamander Skye with the first graders, they're totally smitten with the fact that her name is April. Like they're obsessed with it. And it's so awesome that the rain actually came in April. It was still April this week. But that was really thoughtful and helpful. I'm so glad. I can add to that because third and fourth graders were talking about office intentionality. And I said, do you think she intended to call her April because the Salamander's come out in April? And I love that you did that. I mean, everything that I teach was modeled beautifully in your book. And so it was besides, and that's why I wanna see, how do we take this now to becoming project based for learning whether we're saving Salamanders or whatever we're using our picture books for. But it was just a really well-written book for supporting what we do in schools as well. I originally named her May. And then I was just really glad I'd have to call her February. So part of my job at UVM is a lot of work around what is project based learning? How do you implement it? How do you do different aspects of it? And I've just got, if you're interested, I've just got a thousand resources about that. And, but just as a super quick snapshot of it, I like to think about it. Oh, and people define it in many, many different ways, right? I like to think about it in a straightforward kind of way. That it's taking a real world problem or issue, exploring it in teams, now that's certainly debatable, right? Sometimes you have kind of students working individually develop a product or a solution. And I maybe would say that differently now, not a solution, a contribution, right? You're not gonna solve global poverty, but you could make a contribution. And creating something that you present to an authentic audience, an engaged audience that cares, that matters, that it feels important to both parties. So how do you do that? These are the parts that have sort of distilled out from different resources. A driving question. This is that inquiry question that everybody can sink their teeth into for a long period of time. There's lots of information about how to write a really strong one that promotes prolonged engagement and I have a post about that. So that's part of it. Now, interestingly, the kids can come up with those or you can come up with those to meet a certain proficiency or standard that you need to meet. So that's what we're gonna talk about sort of the ways to get at it, right? Like there's a couple of different ways. You can decide on that yourself, how that part be sort of teacher directed or informed, but then what they create is their student choice and voice and creativity. So a driving question, an entry event. This is what teachers do all the time, right? Like snazzy, exciting entry event. The picture books can be the entry event, right? So if you have what you think is a really high, hopefully high quality picture book that you're bringing to the table, you can read this aloud in conjunction with something else or on its own and have that be the entry point for everybody. But it also includes things like field trips. Like if you took your kids out back and you have a vernal pool and you, what do you notice, you guys? That could be your entry event. Your entry event could be a trip to the North Branch Nature Center. If you're thinking salamanders, it can be any way to sort of shake kids out of their regular existence and get them thinking in a new direction. So there's some really great lists out there about different kinds of entry events. I used to do one where I would take a tarp in the classroom and I would just dump the day's trash out. And it was kind of gross and awesome. And they would pick through and be like, hi, gosh, people don't, they don't, there's foil in here. Why is foil in here, the bagels are happy foil, remember? And people just weren't, they weren't putting together that the foil is recyclable from the everyday school snack. So there's all sorts of things you can discover just by looking around the actual school campus. And then teams are researching and developing a product or presentation. So this is where, there's some teaching that happens the whole time. Part of my other, one aspect of my job that I do is as a, we work as a research team with the professors at UVM and we are researching the shifts in practice of teachers as they're personalizing learning. And sometimes a misnomer is like, well, where's the direct instruction? Like, we're not doing direct instruction, but we are, it's just right when the kids need it. And I like to use example of like, if I don't really care about commas, like I'm an over-coma person, okay? Jewish smart knows I'm like an overly, I just, I love them and I use them profusely. But if I'm writing Senator Leahy a letter and I want him to change something, I'm gonna really need to be, I'm gonna need to learn about commas. It's a right when I need to know it moment. And that's when we jump in and we teach kids right when they have that motivation and relevance. So there really is direct instruction, right? It's just right when they need it. So it looks a little different. There's frequent reflection. I did my research for my doctorate about service learning which is a little bit different which we can talk about. But one of the things that came up in it is that the reflection is the learning in a lot of these learning environments. So if there's not mindfully planned regular reflection, we miss out on so many of the benefits of this work. And for me as a fast thinker, I had to put it on the calendar. I had to be intentional about planning it or I just skipped it. So that's just one of the things I always like to point out. And then an authentic culminating event where students share their work to a relevant audience. And that can be anything from, if you're entering into the work, another class, it can be parents on the school board. It can be a focused group of people that are connected to what you're doing. So like for an example, I had some high school students that were doing Shakespeare plays that they had written. And after one that they were studying and they were in touch with a college Shakespeare theater club to give them feedback on their scripts and their performance, right? So it can be during the creation of the project. It can be at the end of the project. I kind of used to think it had to be at the end, but you can get feedback from and work with people on an authentic audience during, even before as you're ideating. So it's just that you have lots of touch points that make it real and matter. So that's a quick and summarizing splash of PDL. You can get back into any more of that as you guys want to. So okay, and I pointed out that, oh, and then I wanted to make a tool for teachers that was accessible in terms of how do you plan for project-based learning? And there's, I think you have one of these at your seats. Does everybody have one? Some of the seats may not have had one, and we don't. I would just have to do it. You have one? No? Oh, oh no. Here, here's one. And when you click through the link, oh yeah, we have paper towels. You can just make a copy of this and then modify it to your heart's content and fill it in. But I just wanted to make something that felt really usable. So let's say you're starting with a picture book or a concept, right? Let's say you're starting with, if you wanted to start with salamander migration and you were gonna get your NGSS standards of maybe life cycles, right? And you were gonna do that. You could fill this in where you are front-loading the knowledge and skills that you want them to have, right? So you would say, I really want my students to learn about the life cycle of amphibians, and I really want them to work on the transferable skill of collaboration. So if you pull those out right away and you front-load them and you put them in here, you're gonna be much more intentional about getting at those. And then it goes through those phases of PBL I was just showing you, right? You see here the driving question. It has examples of each, okay? What is the demonstration of learning that kids are gonna do? What's the launch event you're gonna do? What's the culminating event? And then this one's really helpful, the timeline. Often it's best to go to the very end. Where's the learning fair or the big culminating event you're gonna wanna do? And you look at that on the calendar and you work backwards. That understanding by design, work backwards approach. And give yourself an extra week or two that you think you're gonna need because you always need it. There was some study I was reading about service learning, this one was about, but it takes 20% longer than you ever planned for. Like there's actual research to support that. And then one thing I would always forget is that really nice rehearsal and feedback time. The kids need to practice. A lot of times they're not used to all of this public presentation and they're anxious, right? So if you give them a chance for peer feedback and a chance for some teacher one-on-one feedback, that's important. So there's a blank calendar in there for you if you need that. And then what are they gonna create? So if I'm having my kids do a TED talk, right? They might be writing their persuasive piece that gets evaluated as part of the writing portfolio or their writing standards or proficiencies. So here's where you can list out the different things they're gonna create on the way. So if they're giving a TED talk, they're writing a persuasive writing piece. But then they're also using their presentation skills which is a transferable skill in the actual TED talk they're creating, right? So you can link that there. So there's just being intentional about what they're doing, what you can use for your own formative and summative assessment. Like even like the research notes, you can go in and say, does a student know how to find evidence to support their thinking, right? You can find that from their research notes in your conversations with them. Skaffold is a really big deal in PDL and that's about what supports are they going to need? What kind of note catchers, graphic organizers, one-on-one conversations, mini lessons. There's a lot of different roles that we're finding teachers engaging with this. It's curator, right, the materials. It's providing these scaffolds really clear. Like today we're working on research. Here's the four sites we're gonna visit being very intentional about it. Another role that people are doing is sort of empowering. How can we hand over control to students more deliberately? So what are you gonna do about that problem? Well, how do you think you could find the answer? How do you think you can access this information? Can you call somebody? Can you email an expert? So, being really deliberate about that. Have you heard much talk about bringing misconceptions to light and having kids? Talking about misconceptions early on and then kind of learning about them. Is that, have you thought about that in the Skaffolding and all? I'm just starting to think about it myself. Yeah, I'm thinking about it like I would kind of want them, hopefully, to find it and because it would be meaningful. And then it's not true. Everybody stops and has that reflective conversation because I feel like if we, sometimes, and I used to just, we front load the misconception and then there's, the meaning isn't there as much, right? Or we take away some of their power to discover it. Right, right. Okay, thanks. But then, but your age, I'm just pondering grade one. You know, the NDSS, part of their new process is to kind of bring misconceptions to light because they're very young. Mm-hmm, right. Just sort of put it out there and then have them discover why. But I don't know if you've heard much of that yet. But that makes me think, makes me wonder about first grade and if that isn't different. Yeah, maybe. You know, in terms of wanting to catch it early before it gets too embedded. Maybe it develops, yeah, maybe. Although, there is a lot of research about how service learning in particularly, which has that sort of added societal benefit that's deliberately planned, how that can disrupt existing biases, stereotypes and things like that. Yeah. So if we let the misconception live a little bit and then we're able to disprove it in a really meaningful way, that might be kind of awesome as well. You know, because then it might stick. And I don't want to get you off track. Anyway. Just made me think about when you talk about scaffolding. I know. I've been thinking about it a little bit. We can talk more. I think it's a super cool study though where fourth graders had preconceived notions about elderly people that they, you know, were unpredictable, that they, some various other things I won't say a lot. And those were completely disrupted by working with that population. And I just love that. Same for pre-service teachers with urban youth. So this is power in that. Okay, so regular reflection, there's a spot for that. And then there's a spot for assessment, formative and summative, and considering that. I like to make things that are usable for both. So a nice large learning scale that, and I have, I have an example here to take a look at that has what I'm, what I know I'm going to assess summatively, but that could be a check-in formative every week along the way. So that, and students can self-assess on it. So that I can have those multiple avenues, but not creating a ton of insurmountable processes. And then evaluate it. Oh, and then at the end, one of the things that I learned from experience is you finish a project and you're like, yay, that was great. And we're all tired. And we move on without capturing what was good about it. What didn't work about it? How can we improve? And so capturing that is helpful with a self-assessment, with your own reflection. That certainly helped me to improve. Can I ask you a question? And I'm not a teacher, so bear with me. But how honest are kids with themselves when they do self-reflection? It depends how practice they are. This is my quick answer. It depends how, how common the practice is. And I would open it up to you guys too. I would say that I would like to see students reflecting more, self-reflecting more regularly so that they can be more authentic and represent their true, you know, their true practice. I think it's a better word than honest, but yes. Right, right, but what do you all think? I've had students self-reflecting for years now. Pretty much every week. I've seen hundreds and hundreds, probably thousands now, self-reflections. And for the most part, I'd say 80 to 90% are very authentic and highly critical of themselves. They are so much harder on themselves than what, but I'm also in the middle school. I'm also in that my peer input is kind of controlling everything really. And then you do get, you always get a handful of just oblivious, it's duty. And they're oblivious to social cues and to input. They're just kind of like, that's just how they are and they'll figure it out eventually. But yeah, for the most part, I would say self-reflection is key to a lot of the learning and they are very authentic. They maybe not go into as much depth as you want them to but they recognize that they should. The same experience of being really hard on themselves and really, you know, just critical. Same with eight and nine year olds. They are spot on knowing what they know well and what they need to work on and we actually have them, I have them score their own writing pieces, you know, on a rubric and then peer score it and then I score it with them when we have a conference and they always score themselves so much harder than I would. So there's something to that. There's a lot of power to it too. But it's also the dialogue, you know, that I think is really helpful afterwards. Talking about why you thought that and. Speaking of that dialogue, it's like, it's a project-based learning. I feel like it's a much more in-close kind of, there's a lot of more chances to have meaningful interactions with small groups and one-on-one with students than the sort of more traditional practices. So that can allow for some of those conversations where they're more honest than they might be in a whole group. So I wanted to draw your attention to that template. It's been helpful to me, it's been helpful to me to organize my thinking with my partner, our educators and to really help us build something. It's also really great to do collaboratively. So on your teaching teams, you can build something that everybody can use together, everybody can add resources to at different times and link out to different things. If you're interested, this is a really cool app and resource, it's called Launchpad. And it's like a sort of a Pinterest board for how to organize project-based learning. And I find it very helpful and I can show you some examples there if you want. Okay, so that template's there for you. I just pointed out the blog. I also have some of my favorite books. You can tell how I feel about a book sometimes. This is just an obnoxious amount of sticky notes. But I love this book and it's by the Buck Institute for Innovative Education and it really dives into particular to project-based learning and I do highly recommend it. Various levels, all sorts of things and I could pass it around to you if anybody's if you want to take a look, you haven't seen that one. Okay. And there's also, Buck has a great website as well. And then there's another one that just emerged called High Quality Project-Based Learning. And it's a framework. I just was looking at it last night and I just heard about it at the Deeper Learning Conference in San Diego. So it's a newer initiative. But it's really focusing on how do we make sure project-based learning is high quality, right? There's a lot of people critiquing it in terms of feeling like it lacks rigor. And I sometimes wonder if rigor's not used in an interesting way to sort of replicate some traditional learning experiences. But anyway, so there's a good effort, a solid effort to make sure that the project-based learning has really high quality. So that's a good one as well. And then, so I wanted to make something that was usable to teachers using Salamander Sky specifically for project-based learning. And I wanted to take teachers through each phase of project-based learning and give some ideas that you could just replicate if you wanted to. So this is a site I made and it has, actually, it has a lot of these links on it so that this is another place if you leave and you're like, what am I, what's happening? My website is just, it's katiefarber.com. This is under the Teachers and Librarians section. It's also in the section for Salamander Sky. So it's linked in a couple places. Oop, I almost knocked on Peter. Okay, so I just started brainstorming some driving questions that might be good to go with the book. And I'm gonna get this bigger for us. So what could kids have? A lot of kids are asking these, right? And we'll talk about how to enter in it that way. Like, you might read aloud this book and I'll talk about this approach, but like, it did it with love and with come away. You might emerge the questions. You might let the questions come from you as in your think-alouds and from the students. And you might, when you read it aloud, be asking them, well, what are your questions about this? Well, what are you curious about? And you can sticky note, and I'll show you these in a bit, you sticky note everything they're saying and then maybe you put them onto a chart and then decide collectively what's the question you're going to try to answer. But these are some of the questions I hear. Why does Salamander's migrate and what are the challenges? Why are all amphibians vulnerable and what can be done to help them? So you could look at this and think about where you live and where you teach and try to find the one that matches. Also, what standard are you going for, right? So maybe it's vernal pools. And maybe you want to take an integrated approach. Like, how can we use science art and storytelling to tell a science story that helps nature? I love that question. That one, we did a tell a science story workshop at Birdside Books. And the kids were really interested in thinking about what their favorite local animal is and how can I tell a science story about that animal and raising awareness, helping the animal, learning about local habitats. So there's a lot of possibility there. And we kind of lost the navigation. Now there we go. Oh yeah, okay. And then I think we talked about some of these entry event ideas, but here's a few ideas. All of it is here in a place for you. Come back to. Some product ideas for the end. What can they create? And I said, but it's always better to ask the kids what they want to create, right? A news broadcast that, did you all see the one from, there was one that was just made and shared with me two weeks ago? I'm so excited about it. I hope you can hear it. Well, you guys, sorry about the sound. Are they using a green screen or are they actually standing next to the digital green screen? I was just wondering, do you know, like is it the we video program or do you have any idea of probably the logistics for that? Like we are moving? I don't know if it was we video. I could find out. He's like, I'm done. Well, I wish she could hear her so very much. So she, so they obviously, they had to make these scripts, right? They had to, and they all had different roles. It's just amazing. And I do have this other pretty active Twitter account that I'm just sharing, whatever anybody is sharing with me. And that's where I found this one. I'm sorry that this sound isn't good here. So back to the two reporters, right? I love all the two of you. Yeah. Which is really great. Duct tape, microphone. Yeah. It says April, it's dark, it's raining. I didn't ever, I didn't see that before. Like April, they're like, and then so was the last word. So, April, I don't know if it was so or 50. I think it was 50 to 53. Okay. Thanks.