Senior Humanities
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Welcome Back!  Let's get to work...

11/27/2018

 
Announcements
  1. Project Leaders (and Evan and Claire and Amaya) can you make the meeting w/ Tirzah and April from Celebrating Healthy Communities tomorrow (wed) 9:30?
  2.  Honors-- Final synthesis for Windfall due Dec. 5th
  3. Ashley’s lit club meet on Thursday during 5th period to discuss Part 1 of The Stranger.
  4. ALL STUDENTS: Check Infinite Campus to see if you are missing a senior project conference grade! Get those done if you’re missing yours.
  5. Film Crew: Have you emailed the pro filmmaker?
  6. Claire/Evan/Amanda: Have we confirmed date and venue for the exhibition?
  7. Amaya: Budget! Review Breeah’s email and let’s dial that in
  8. Stories Group: Do you have trainings scheduled?
  9. Publication: Do we have a final plan for the layout and printing costs, etc…?
  10.  ALL GROUPS must be in their scheduled location for check-ins with Ashley and Lori!
  11. ​1:10-1:35: Project Team Managers meet in Ashley's room to share out deadlines/announcements/needs, etc...

Agenda
Starter (EMAIL RESPONSES TO YOUR HUMANITIES TEACHER)
Review this project’s rubric and evaluate yourself thus far…..(You will complete this rubric NEXT Tuesday)
  1. To what extent do you think you are on track to doing work you can defend as legitimate use of time and productive contribution to the overall project?
  2. What areas of this rubric give you pause or make you question your use of time thus far for this project?
  3. What do you need to do between now and next Tuesday to be able to sit in a conference with Ashley/Lori and look her in the eye and say with integrity (and prove with evidence) that you’ve demonstrated growth and/or excellent work?

Meet as a whole group and get organized!  
  1. Open up THIS DOCUMENT with all the teams’ calendars and individual student task items tables.  
  2. Scroll to your project team’s calendar and task item table.
  3. As a group, review your calendar. Add deadlines for your entire project to this calendar (they are pretty bare bones right now y’all!)
  4. Now, go around in a circle and decide what each individual student needs to work on and then fill in the individual student task items table BELOW your project team’s calendar. Be sure these include deadlines
    1. By the end of this week
    2. By Tuesday, 12/4
    3. By the end of first week back after x-mas break
    4. For exhibition

Get to work!
Today’s meetings
11:30-1:30: Ashley and Lori circulate to check-in on these deadlines/task lists.  Be in your assigned room please!
1:10-1:35: Project team managers meet in Ashley’s room to share out next steps/deadlines/needs/announcements

FRIDAY!  Training + Collaboration

11/16/2018

 
ANNOUNCEMENTS
  1. Senior Project Conference notes due to your Humanities teacher by 3:30 today
  2. Project Managers- Go to Shane's class 7th period to discuss collaboration possibilities.  Talk to Lori or Ashley for more details about this!

Trauma Workshop- 4th and 5th periods in the COMMONS
  • Impact of trauma on brains, bodies, and behaviors  
  • ACE’s Science, including evidence-based practices
  • What we can actually do about it! Strategies/approaches/lessons

Doty serves as a consultant and educator for Trauma Sensitive Schools, teaching about the impact of trauma on brains, bodies, and behaviors. She is trained to help schools infuse trauma sensitive practices while building the resilience of staff and students alike. Trauma Sensitive Schools see a decrease in discipline referrals and an increase in outcomes like graduation rates and higher levels of staff engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

HOMEWORK:
​None, unless you are woefully behind on your project goals.  Have a great break!

Training on Friday!  Read Below!

11/15/2018

 
Announcements
  1. Take the survey Ashley emailed y'all IF you want to work on this project next semester.
  2. Senior Project Conference notes due to your Humanities teacher tomorrow
  3. Workshop 4th and 5th periods tomorrow by Doty Shepherd from Resilient Colorado. See below for details on the workshop.  If you have an urgent task/deadline for your Resilience Project role and need to work on it tomorrow during 4th and/or 5th you MUST talk to me before the end of 5th period today and let me know why you need that time and exactly WHAT your task is.
  4. Project managers, check in with me about a collaboration with Shane's 7th period class!!
  5. Today and tomorrow, during whatever "free" or project work time you have, you should be focused on completing your weekly goal! Get 'er done.

Doty's Workshop will be on.....
  • Impact of trauma on brains, bodies, and behaviors  
  • ACE’s Science, including evidence-based practices
  • What we can actually do about it! Strategies/approaches/lessons

Doty serves as a consultant and educator for Trauma Sensitive Schools, teaching about the impact of trauma on brains, bodies, and behaviors. She is trained to help schools infuse trauma sensitive practices while building the resilience of staff and students alike. Trauma Sensitive Schools see a decrease in discipline referrals and an increase in outcomes like graduation rates and higher levels of staff engagement, satisfaction, and retention.  

Resilience Project Work

11/13/2018

 
To accomplish by the end of the week
  1. Rough draft of whatever your assigned task is as decided today (or other form of substantial progress if RD doesn’t make sense)
  2. Three meetings of project managers (Mon, Wed, Fri at 1:15)
  3. Stakeholder Interview write-ups! Share them with Ashley/Lori
  4. Senior Project conference notes due Friday, 10/16

Announcements
  1. If you’re interested in continuing our Resilience Project work into next semester, please complete THIS SURVEY before the end of this week to let Ashley know if she needs to offer an elective next semester.
  2. Publications team: Consider watching the documentary Happy for ideas on mental health from a cross-cultural perspective!

Today’s Action Items
  1. Share your Docs:  Share your team's google drive folder with Ashley and Lori (we're looking at YOU: Promotions, Stories, Website and Film crews)
  2. Calendar and Objectives:  Did your group finish the calendar AND this week's objectives yesterday? Great! If not:
    1. Make a copy of THIS CALENDAR Document and then create a Three week calendar: Major deadlines, interim deadlines, who is responsible for meeting those deadlines
  3. Individual Goals:  Get working on your individual goal/task for today and for the week
    1. What will you produce/show at the end of today AND this week to show substantial progress on this project?
    2. How will you document that progress?
  4. Questions/Concerns:  By the end of class, please add questions/concerns/suggestions/needs for your group (or others) to the second page of the Resilience Project Team Spreadsheet.​

Let's get to work!

11/12/2018

 
To accomplish by the end of the week
  1. Rough draft of whatever your assigned task is as decided today (or other form of substantial progress if RD doesn’t make sense)
  2. Three meetings of project managers (Mon, Wed, Fri)
  3. Senior Project conference notes due Friday, 10/16 by 3:30

Announcements
  1. Lori's Honor's students meet WEDNESDAY at lunch to discuss Windfall.  Finish that sucker!  Ashley's students meet today.
  2. Wednesday’s schedule:
    1. 1st period Math
    2. 2nd and 3rd Humanities Project work time
    3. 4th period FREE
  3. Tuesday is the Mental Health conference in Ignacio. ALL interested and especially those on the “Stories/Conversations” project team should attend! Check your emails for a message Ashley forwarded you last week for more details.
  4. If you’re interested in continuing our Resilience Project work into next semester, please complete THIS SURVEY before the end of this week to let Ashley know if she needs to offer an elective next semester.

Today’s Meetings
  1. Breeah meets with groups 4th and 5th period
  2. Ashley and Lori check in with every group after they meet with Breeah
  3. Project Leaders meet MWF, figure out meeting time and location

Today’s Action Items
  1. Write down committee roles on the Resilience Project Team Spreadsheet
  2. Create a THREE WEEK calendar: Major deadlines, interim deadlines, who is responsible for meeting those deadlines.  Fill out the linked calendar above with your deadlines and weekly goals.
    1. LAUNCH DATE 1/31: 1 week in January to work before we start working on senior thesis.
    2. Promotion crew: Talk to Breeah today about reserving a space for our launch and working with Teerza for this! Ideally we have a committee of people who want to keep focusing on this, perhaps as an elective, next semester.
  3. Establish your individual goal/task for today and for the week.  Be ready to show these to Ashley/Lori when we meet with your group today.
    1. What will you produce/show at the end of today AND this week to show substantial progress on this project?
    2. How will you document that progress?
  4. By the end of class, please add questions/concerns/suggestions/needs for your group (or others) to the second page of the Resilience Project Team Spreadsheet

New PODS!  Goals and Project Vision

11/9/2018

 
Starter
Get into your project teams and share out one thing you're excited about regarding this team or project OR why you chose this project.

Today's Goals:
  • Decide on what problem your project is solving or what need you are addressing regarding mental health
  • Develop a goal statement that states how you plan on solving that problem or addressing that need.
  • Decide on committees and roles
  • Begin brainstorming ideas!

Next Steps Framing
"People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it" -Simon Sinek
If you want to make change, sell a product, inspire, you gotta speak to the WHY. We scrapped our original plan for problem and goal statements and decided it made more sense for each project team to develop their own specific to their project.  So, the next part of class is devoted to fleshing out the problem your project team is trying to solve and then your WHY, WHAT and HOW (Why, Vision and Mission) to solve that problem ideally in a way that connects to our project's overarching goal of building a more resilient community. 

Problem Statement Drafting
  1. Complete Step 1 on the handout
  2. Write your problem statement on the board under your project team name

Goal Statement (WHAT/WHY/HOW) Drafting
Once Lori approves your problem statement (yup, I am the Queen of Approval) now fill out the rest of the handout.

Committee Roles and Project Brainstorm Discussion
  1. Open up a google doc and share it with your team and Ashley AND Lori
  2. This will be your team's shared planning doc. Title it appropriately.
  3. Decide who will be the Project Team Leader-- this person will be the liaison between other project teams to keep everything connected and cohesive. Will require extra work, but has power.  ;)
  4. Decide what committees  you need to have to divide and conquer this project! (see below for suggestions)
  5. Decide who will be on each committee and fill out the Project Team spreadsheet with that information.  There will probably be overlap here, but each person should have  a primary task.  People will probably have secondary tasks as well.
  6. Discuss and take notes:
    1. Begin brainstorming project ideas! Start fleshing out your "what".
    2. What questions or concerns do you have
    3. What does your group need to be successful? From Ashley? From each other? From the community? From experts/businesses, etc...?

Project Team Committees Suggestions
  1. Film
    1. Filming
    2. Film Editing
    3. Scripting/Storyboarding
    4. Sound Editing
    5. ​Other?
  2. Website
    1. Visual Design
    2. Logical flow
    3. Community Resource Mapping
    4. Other?
  3. Publication
    1. Editors/Layout
    2. Writers (contributing written pieces- personal narratives, research based, other stories )
    3. Artists (contributing artistic pieces)
    4. Marketing/Fundraising
    5. Other?
  4. Promotion/Brand
    1. Logo Design, visual marketing tools
    2. Slogan, catchphrases
    3. Marketing- finding and contacting different marketing options
    4. Counselor Connections (Evan +1)
    5. Other?
  5. Stories/Conversations
    1. Sound editors (editing stories after they are recorded)
    2. Outreach (finding stories that need to be told)
    3. Conversation Facilitators (finding trainings, facilitating face to face conversations)
    4. Story Research (finding models to guide, and research on power of stories in building resilience)
    5. Other?

Project Teams + Stakeholder Shareouts

11/8/2018

 
Starter: Turn and chat with a neighbor, be ready to share out!
  1. What is your definition of "resilience"? 
  2. What are ways to build resiliency?

Whole Class
  1. Share out your starter chats
  2. Let's look at a couple resources and get a common definition.
  • What is Resilience?  (website with resiliency resources for teens)
  • The science of resilience   (Harvard University video- 2 minutes)

Resilience Definitions
  1. The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, change, misfortune, stress.
  2. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
  3. Resilience is a person's ability to cope with living in spite of stresses. Resilience is about coping with problems, and building strengths that protect and promote well-being.

Today's Goals
  1. Understand the various perspectives from stakeholder interviews and drill down on their needs 
  2. Understand the overarching goal we decided on in the steering committee and the process and project ideas that came from it
  3. Choose your project team (at least top 2 choices)
  4. Get some work done!

Project Ideas Overview: "We Are Resilient Together"
Overarching goal (rough draft): Build a more resilient community through multiple student-led projects with community partnerships meant to provide much needed mental health resources and form stronger connections.
  1. Lori gives overarching idea and the process we used to  come to this (root causes, stakeholder interviews, partners, steering committee yesterday....)
  2. Student innovators present specific ideas (Acacia, Alma, Ava, Cady, Evan, Charlie)

Some More Ashley Thoughts: Resiliency is about fixing the fence-- if you can help people develop strategies to bounce back from stress and hard times, you're hopefully avoiding having to pull them out of the river later on. However, BOTH prevention and intervention are needed and these project ideas get at both. Moreover, a more sustainable solution is one that helps people and communities be resilient. AND a more sustainable solution is one that can live on beyond our time. The resources we create AND partnerships we form to continue our work and share our work through their networks, will ideally ensure that. 

Stakeholder Conversation
Get in 3 groups, ideally not with anyone from your interview group.
You need:  "Getting to the Root" handout, pen/pencil
  1. Read aloud pages 2-3 in Getting to the Root handout, about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
  2. Share out main takeaways from stakeholder interviews
    • How does your stakeholder group define the problem?
    • What are their needs? Vs. What are their wants?
    • What are their assumptions and values?
    • What solutions would they support?
    • 1 enlightening/inspiring quote
  3. Discuss and take notes on:
    1. Common themes, solutions, needs/wants
    2. Key differences
    3. As you discuss, fill out PAGE 4 of the Getting to the Root handout

Project Groups Survey
  1. Film
    1. ​Major tasks:  Filming/Editing, Scripting, Sound Editing
    2. Consider this project if...
      1. You like the process of designing and editing film
      2. You enjoy collaborating with others to produce a polished final project
      3. You can work efficiently on a complex task to hit a deadline
  2. Website
    1. Major tasks: Design, Logical flow, Community resource mapping
    2. Consider this project if...
      1. You enjoy making connections in the community
      2. You have skills in visual design
      3. You are good at designing logical flow
  3. Publication
    1. Major tasks: Written publication, Research/data, Visual art, Layout
    2. Consider this project if...
      1. You like working on an independent piece of a larger whole
      2. You have mad editing skills
      3. You like digging into research and data
      4. You love the written word
      5. You have skills in layout and design
  4. Promotion/Brand
    1. Major tasks: Logo, slogan, consistent messaging, publicity, Fundraising (Acacia and Amaya?), Counselor Connections (Evan +1)
    2. Consider this project if...
      1. You love creating a consistent and powerful message
      2. You are good at getting many people on the same page
      3. You have skills in visual design
  5. Stories/Conversations
    1. Major tasks: Gathering stories, editing stories, providing models, facilitating conversations, setting up recording booths
    2. Consider this project if...
      1. You love making personal connections
      2. You want to share your own story
      3. You think you know what makes a powerful story, and how to elicit that from other people

Work Time
  1. Link interview write ups to Stakeholder Spreadsheet
  2. Finish interview write-up if it is late
  3. Senior project stuff
  4. Honors discussion on Windfall

Stakeholder Discussions

11/7/2018

 
Reminder
Interview Write-ups are due! Make sure they are linked to the Stakeholder Spreadsheet

Today’s goal:
Understand the various ways stakeholder groups define the problem in order to develop a cohesive problem statement to drive our solution

10:00-10:30
Breeah from Celebrating Healthy Communities to present on ways we could partner with them!

10:30-11:15 Interview write-up share outs:
Get in groups, not with anyone from your stakeholder interview group.  Go to Kyle, Lori’s, Commons.
You need:  Getting to the Root handout, pen/pencil
  1. Read aloud pages 2-3 in Getting to the Root handout, about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
  2. Share out main takeaways from stakeholder interviews
    1. How does your stakeholder group define the problem?
    2. What are their needs? Vs. What are their wants?
    3. What are their assumptions and values?
    4. What solutions would they support?
    5. 1 enlightening/inspiring quote
  3. Discuss and take notes on:
    1. Common themes, solutions, needs/wants
    2. Key differences
    3. As you discuss, fill out PAGE 4 of the Getting to the Root handout
  4. Based on what you heard from Breeah, what do you think about the possibility of partnering with Celebrating Healthy Communities?  What ideas do you have about how we could do this?

HOMEWORK- ​None!  Unless you didn't finish your interview write up...then you need to do it...

Project Goals

11/6/2018

 
Today’s Goal: Get the wheel’s churning for our class’s goal for this project!

Announcements
Wed, modified schedule. 1st and 2nd ALL with Kyle. 3rd and part of 4th, ALL with Ashley and Lori. We’ll give you most of 4th period off if you’re efficient and productive!

Starter: Fill out as much of page 1 of the handout as possible

Whole Class: Let’s get a class version on the board!

Project Goals: Individual brainstorm on Project Goals
After talking with Ashley yesterday, it seems like there's widespread general consensus to focus on Durango schools, with a possibility for a focus group to work with other schools in the county. 
  1. What are all the different things that a project on this topic could aim for?  What are the different goals it should have? List as many as you can come up with.
  2. As of right now, what do you think should be the goal(s) of this project?  What do you need to accomplish in order to feel like this has been a successful project?

3 Small Groups
In your group, try to come to consensus on three goals.  Once you’ve done it, phrase them as formal objectives, and write them on butcher paper:
  1. By the end of this project _______________ (stakeholder group or groups) will know/be able to________________.
  2. By the end of this project, we will feel _________________.
  3. By the end of this project, we will have created/communicated/designed/implemented (circle one)______________________.
  4. Ultimately, we will feel a sense of success if we ________________________.
  5. We will know if we’ve improved sustainability in a holistic way in our community if ______________________________.

Critique/Comment Process
As a group, move to the next group’s station.  On the butcher paper, comment on the following things:
  1. Where do you see overlap with your objectives?  Where are the major differences?
  2. Which objectives here would your group endorse?  Which do you think are not important/accurate?
  3. How do these goals relate to Sustainable Development? How can we ensure they DO?
  4. Save the butcher papers for Thursday's class!

Work Time
  1. SCHEDULE YOUR SENIOR PROJECT CONFERENCE RIGHT NOW
  2. Schedule your interview and write when it is schedule on the STAKEHOLDER SPREADSHEET
  3. Refine your interview questions
  4. Interview Write Ups- Due Weds, November 7, start of class
  5. Senior Project Research- Don't forget...you should be working on this in your spare time.  You need to have notes on 3 sources, and the MUST be complete before your conference, which is due before Thanksgiving break.  See the resources linked on the Senior Project page of my DP for more details.

HOMEWORK- Finish those interview write ups!

Scope + Interview Write Ups

11/5/2018

 
STARTER:  Project Scope
  1. How far-reaching do we want to work on this issue? Animas High School? ALL Durango schools? All Durango High Schools? All of Durango, both adults and kids alike? All of La Plata County? All of La Plata County Schools?
  2. Do you think we need to narrow our scope to one demographic of people (i.e. high schoolers) or one region (i.e. Durango v. La Plata County) or do you think we can break into focus groups and some people can work on a solution for high schools, while others can work with the homeless population, and others adults, etc…? Or will that water down our impact?

3 small groups
Share out your starter responses and try to come to consensus on the scope.  Some additional things to talk about in this discussion:
  1. Where do you think you can have the biggest impact?
  2. Who do you think could needs our efforts the most?
  3. What are the benefits of a large scope?  Of a narrow scope?
  4. What are the drawbacks of a large scope?  Of a narrow scope?
As a group, write down what your group would like in terms of scope, and a few sentences of your rationale.

Whole Class
Share out what your group decided on with regards to scope. Elect one person from our class to meet with representatives from the other two pods to come to consensus on scope.

Work Time
  1. SCHEDULE YOUR SENIOR PROJECT CONFERENCE RIGHT NOW
  2. Interview Write Ups- Due Weds, November 7, start of class
  3. Senior Project Research- Don't forget...you should be working on this in your spare time.  You need to have notes on 3 sources, and the MUST be complete before your conference, which is due before Thanksgiving break.  See the resources linked on the Senior Project page of my DP for more details.

HOMEWORK
As needed: Work on interview write up or Senior Project Research.
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