The Nuts & Bolts: A Commentary on the Various Strategies and Systems Used

I hope for this unit to be an opportunity where students feel affirmed and inspired by how
and what they learn and by what they can do. In order to be so, this unit focuses on two aspects
that I have determined to be important in this process: providing clear access to the content and
learning through differentiated instruction, a constructivist curriculum and a focus on growth
mindset; and then creating opportunities to share their learning with their overall community.
Differentiated instruction is an integral part of this unit because as Tomilson and McTighe
(2006) argue, it ensures that the classroom has powerful knowledge that works for each student
(p.3). It allows educators to be the warm demanders who maintain high expectations that may
look different for each student but also have the supports so all students can meet those
expectations (Delpit, 2012). The classroom can then become a place to try to equalize the
inequity in our educational system and be a place where the subtle message from deficit mindsets
are actively fought against. To try and ensure that knowledge works for each student in this unit,
I focus on: creating space for the different ways students process their understanding, scaffolding
their learning, and including multiple intelligences within the unit.
The unit includes many spaces for students to process in the way they wish so they can
access the content in the best way for themselves. For students who are incubators, the unit
purposefully slows down. These students I have observed process inwardly and may not
necessarily show through immediate writing or speaking. On four out of the five days of the
week, there is time for individual reflection. Also, during the discovery learning on Day 2, there
are many reiterations of the same question so students can take the time to figure out their
thinking process during the activity. They are not forced to make an answer, but can test their
hypothesis repeatedly and all of this processing can happen with no outward expression.

However, these students are still held to the expectation in sharing their thinking with me on the
reflections. On the other hand, for students who process verbally, each day they can process with
their partner or in whole group discussion. Furthermore, for students who process visually or
through touch, on day 1, the lesson plan includes videos and a gallery walk and on day 3,
students work in pairs to move models of various packages to test their understanding of a
concept. Lastly, even in their reflection, students have opportunities to choose the best option of
either bulleting, drawing or writing to reflect. Nevertheless, there are days when there arent
options and they must write such as in the exit tickets for Day 1 and 5, so students are
continuously practicing the expected skill of writing (Delpit, 1995).
Since each student walks in with a different educational background, there are bound to
be gaps in understanding. In order to close these gaps, this unit includes scaffolds that can help
all students access the enduring understandings. For students who have never thought about
ways to keep an object safe, students will have access to exemplars of what the egg drop
container can look like by discussing and studying various models of packages. The discussion
on both Day 2 and 3 will help students connect their background knowledge to create this
container whether it is through listening or the optional note-catcher. There will be an optional
note-catcher available for students who wish to write down what each building material is used
for and its pros and cons, naturally evolving into a brainstorming page for students when they
must begin constructing their container. Also, since the students are in groups of two, they
always have a time for each day where they check in with each other before making large
decisions, becoming a natural way that students can help each other to close those gaps of
understanding. Lastly, for students who come in with a fuller understanding because they may
have done this project before, there is a challenge for those students to only use three building

materials while other students can use up to five building materials. In doing so, each student is
held to a high expectation while being provided equal access to the content.
Just as students walk in with different educational backgrounds, each student also has
different intelligences that are not always measured in school (Gardner, 2006). Incorporating
opportunities for students to showcase these different intelligences creates ramps for all students
to access the content. This unit incorporates six intelligences: Having to use force diagrams to
make a hypothesis about the precise speed and force needed to break a helmet sparks the logical
and naturalistic intelligences. The ethnographic study of the use of helmets sparks the linguistic
intelligence, the team building activities spark the interpersonal intelligence and the
incorporation for reflection sparks the intrapersonal intelligence.
Alongside differentiated instruction, the constructivist curriculum pushes me to create a
curriculum that engages student voice in building the day to day curriculum. Admitting to
students that I do not have a final answer forces me to create a space to listen and include
students in building the day to day curriculum, creating a greater access to the content since that
gate is not simply controlled by me, the teacher, but together the class controls it. Also, in doing
so, as a teacher, it constantly provides me with opportunities to check my biases and work
actively against imposing dominant culture for without these checks, I could easily perpetuate a
deficit mindset (Milner, 2007) if I only include my voice. Also, by including student voice in the
classroom learning, the classroom can become a safe place. Jane Addams said it best when
speaking on the Hull House: Give these children a chance to utilize the historic and industrial
material they see about them and they will begin to have a sense of ease in America, a first
consciousness of being at home (Oakes & Lipton, 2013, p.73). Although she was referring to

immigrants, it is not too far of an interpretation to say that this can apply to urban youths of color
who may also feel displaced and oppressed though their roots are in America (Emdin, 2016).
By providing for a way for the classroom to become safe like a home, students can start
to feel safe and known, helping students accept school as a part of their own identity, preventing
the disidentification that may arise when students of color experience stereotype threat (Steele,
1997). This is especially pertinent at The Workshop School because more than 90% of the
students are of color and qualify for free and reduced lunch. Furthermore, this has already
started at The Workshop School. For example, a student shared in an interview that he was
surprised when first coming to The Workshop School because he did not expect to be using skills
that he used in his neighborhood when he worked at the local auto body. When seeing that he
could utilize these skills for school, he knew that he could make it at this school. In order to
create more of these moments, since I am not a native to the neighborhoods many of our students
come from, a constructivist curriculum challenges me to continuously include as many student
voices in order to let schooling be an empowering part of their identity.
Specifically, in this unit, the design of the unit by beginning with essential questions and
enduring understandings, automatically makes the teacher become a learner and show the class
that I do have the answers to our essential questions. I recognize that after our experiment, my
mindset about the purpose of helmets could not match the science. Students could be right in
saying that helmets are unnecessary and do not provide as much support as people may think. If
this were to be the situation, it provides a wonderful learning opportunity for students to then
change the final performance task to not be a PSA but to petition to helmet companies or write an
article to various biking organizations about their research to challenge the usage of helmets.

Not only does the teacher not have the final answer to the questions, but there are many
ramps for students to bring in their background knowledge to create a classroom think tank
where the teacher and students are all learners. Starting on Day 1, students and teacher together
create norms for safety by building on everyones background knowledge about what it means
and how it feels to be safe. Then, on Day 2, students provide exemplars from their own lives of
where they have seen the content we are discussing for this week: safe environments for objects.
On Day 4, students with teacher guidance will begin to think of what they believe will be
important to write down and observe on testing day. Moving forward in the unit, when students
have to do an ethnographic study of the number of people wearing helmets in their own
community, City Hall and University of Pennsylvania, they will explicitly be bringing in
research from their own communities, and be able to make larger observations that allows them
analyze their own communities. Furthermore, the idea of this unit came from a comment that a
student made. This will be told explicitly to the students at the start of the unit so students can
see how their mindsets are such a relevant part of school.
The final component to ensure that all students have access to the content is by
incorporating messages of growth mindset. This is particularly important because by
incorporating growth mindset into the curriculum, the classroom can become a place where
challenging work does not cut off the access to the content, but creates safety and a hope and
belief to improve in the classroom (Dweck, 2010). In this unit, the various performance
assessments are set up so that students are continually reflecting and building on their project.
The students are heavily encouraged to use those practice eggs to figure out what could be
improved. Then, after the initial egg drop, students are given a challenge in the second part. As
students come to realize that they can apply what they understand to figure out the more

challenging situations, students will understand that even if tasks may seem challenging, they
hold the ability to figure it out. Not only in the assessments, but growth mindset begins on Week
1 through a team building activity, the Human Knot, twice in order to see how after reflecting on
their norms and what worked, they are able to improve their time. On Day 2, during the
discovery learning, students are given four opportunities to change answers based on their
previous observations. Even in this activity, students can see how they are able to adapt what
they just observed even if their first guess was wrong to figure out the correct answer for the
next opportunities. Through the continual message of growth mindset, students will build a
confidence so that challenging tasks in this classroom are never reasons to give up.
After being able to fully access the content, students through their culminating
performance task are then given the task to share this access to their content to their school,
neighborhood or city community. Delpit (1995) refers to this empowering process: Actual
writing for real audiences and real purposes is a vital element in helping students to understand
that they have an important voice in their own learning processes (p.33). In sharing with their
community, students begin this realization and understanding of how schooling and education
can be a relevant and powerful lens and medium to share ones voice.

Questions & Concerns:

1. I have not yet created a rubric for the final egg drop challenge nor have I decided
if I will grade the first part of the egg drop challenge because I have not yet decided what
should be graded. Should there be a gradual increase of what students are kept
accountable to over the unit or should they be held accountable to all components from
the beginning? For example, should I grade on collaboration, function and reflection of
the egg drop challenge from the beginning or for the first one, should I simply grade on
collaboration and reflection and then add on function for the second part of the
challenge?

2. There is a lack of formal writing instruction such as a lab report in this current
plan for the unit. Am I not teaching the explicit rules of the dominant culture by not
including this formal writing instruction?
3. Most of this unit focuses on discovery learning where students through their
experiences and reflection will come to realize a lot of the points with some guidance
from me. However, I think of Delpits critique. Am I asking too many questions without
providing enough explicit instruction? How do I know when to explicitly explain
something and when to push themselves to discover it?

Works Cited
Delpit, Lisa (1995). Other peoples children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom. NY: The New
Press.
Delpit, Lisa (2012). Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other People's
Children. New Press, NY, NY.
Dweck, C. S. (2010). Mind-Sets and Equitable Education. Principal Leadership, 10(5): 26-29.
Emdin, Christopher. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood-- and the Rest of Y'all Too: Reality
Pedagogy and Urban Education. Boston: Beacon, 2016. Print.

Milner, H. Richard. (2007). Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working through
Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Researcher 36(7), pp. 388-400.
Multiple Intelligences Oasis - Howard Gardner's Official MI Site. (n.d.). Retrieved August 12,
2016, from http://multipleintelligencesoasis.org/
Oakes & Lipton (2012) Teaching to Change the World. Paradigm Publishers, NY.
Steele, C.M. (1997) A Threat in the Air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and
performance. June, American Psychologist 52 (6), 613 - 629.
Tomlinson, C. & McTighe, J. (2006) Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by
Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Alexandria, Virginia.