I just wanted to take a minute and share the last few episodes have been incredible, listening to Kevin Reese Sr talk about his award and all the major happenings at New Bern High School in North Carolina, along with the tech twins who are business and marketing and educators who have turned entrepreneurs. They have a lot of great things going on, then we did a deep dive into the rich history of Ellen Swallow Richards, our foundation for family and consumer sciences education. I am so grateful for the knowledge from Joyce Miles. We then listened to Rachel Grabowski chat about Special Education in the Gen Ed classroom in episode 67. Rachel shares many amazing tools, tips and tricks that she’s giving us to better meet the needs to all of our students, regardless of abilities. Then finally, Chelsey Farias, who happens to be my co-teacher who I share a classroom with during first period and second period. Chelsey talked about being a new teacher, and building cultural opportunities in the FCS classroom. For those of you who have listened to episode 66 and hearing her excitement and enthusiasm for starting off the new school year, let me just tell you, she is thriving and she’s doing amazing work. I am so grateful to be able to partner with her and watch her flourish as a new teacher (00:31)

I’m teaching interior design 1 & 2, financial literacy and maybe mental health and counseling sometimes this school year, but I just came up with PBL assignment on the fly the other day. For those of us who are not educators or not familiar with certain acronyms within the education field, PBL stands for ‘project-based learning’. This is a hands-on activity for students to engage in for my interior design class, as we’re just finishing up our principles and elements of design unit. I’ve gone and turn this activity into a interactive lap book. It’s interactive, not digital. We love our digital interactive notebooks, but no, this is an actual hands-on book that students are creating, and I’m really excited to see what student’s create. I will share this assignment on my website where you’ll be able to download from free. I want you to use it, so if you have interior design and you’re looking for an activity that meets standard and content along with buying you a little more time for a reprieve…Well, I got the stuff for you (2:26)

Students are given a manila folder that you would have for your file cabinet, students are then instructed to fold it into thirds, so it becomes a mini presentation board for them. On the front for the title, I’m just gonna walk you through this assignment, so you have your front cover, so the book is folded and closed up with that title showing. For the title, students will write “what are the elements and principles of design” including their first and last name, and of course, what class period they’re in. They have to include pictures of those elements of design that represents space, color, shape, form, value, texture and line, so students can draw a trace, use magazine cut-outs in. Or, if they have a colored printer at home or something, they can print those images out and I put that down as 10 points, then the title is done and they get to color it and make it as creative as possible.  (3:39)

Students will be focusing on the Elements of Design: color, value, form, value, texture, and shape. Students are including the definition and what are four benefits to each of those design elements. For example, when it comes to color, what are four benefits to color? 1. You are able to change the mood of a room… Great, there’s a benefit. What’s another benefit to color? 2. Color can also help reduce stress and anxiety, 3. Color can improve your sleep, and 4. it could improve focus. These are all areas of how various color can impact good design, so they’re writing that down and then they include a picture of the color wheel where they draw or something along those lines, and have some sort of interactive 3-d element jumping out at us when we’re looking at it, then finally on the inside right side panel of their presentation folder, they will focus on line and texture, and again, they’re always including that definition first of what line is… Or texture, or any of those elements, they’re including the definition first and then moving on to adding the four benefits to each of those designs. (7:06)

My students are also lacking on their digital interactive notebooks… I love the digital interactive notebook as a teaching tool and pacer and I love but students are struggling staying engaged so, I’m trying to apply the hands-on projects and not making the digital interactive notebooks count so much, because I noticed within the last few weeks as we wrapped up our color theory unit, when we were doing our water coloring and creating their own color wheels and drawing, everyone was so relaxed. Students loved it. I was able to put them in pods where they were working together, and students who don’t normally ever even talk to one another, all of a sudden, this lively conversation came about so organic and natural. It was amazing. And so that’s what I’m trying to re-create but staying safe as we are still observing covid protocols. So, we start off doing individual work with our digital interactive notebooks, and then we come together for a big project, and then quiz. (9:04)