2017 Power Up! Summit

My colleague, Cindy Hally, was recognized as one of the Lights On After School Champion for her work as librarian and holding makerspace for students before school. She was invited to attend the Power Up! Summit and bring a guest. We attended together and were able to have many powerful takeaways to use with our students throughout the school day and for after school groups.

Loved how they honored Cindy

She really is a champion for students

Some of our favorite sessions included how to help students in groups to develop belonging and become comfortable with other students outside of their known friends. The getting-to-know-you activity helps establish common connections between the group members by the leader sharing information about themselves until someone finds a connection with themselves. Then they link arms and the newly joined person explains the connection and begins sharing about themselves. By the end of the activity, all individuals have joined in with something in common. Another activity was using a deck of cards and having students take a card without looking at it. Then, without talking, students had to form groups that made an odd number. Once all groups had matched up, it was time to discuss the different sizes of groups and how it was not easy to always find a group. 

Another great session was the early coding activities. The Nampa team had several unplugged activities that develop student understanding of programming from the basic to more advanced skills. In addition, the coding of cup stacking was engaging and helped students understand the use of flowcharts in programming without actually labeling it as such. Cup Stacking Code! This example is much more complex than the one we were using. The simplified version could be used as early as pre-K. https://csedweek.org/files/CSEDrobotics.pdf

It's amazing what you can learn when you are open to new ideas!