by aghuzt
The sandbox is a place of creativity, cognitive “ease,” and social interaction. There may be some room for this type of thinking in a classroom
Syvlia Duckworth’s drawings are becoming a favorite of ours, due to her playful approach to illustration, and the variety of ideas she covers in the drawings. She recently illustrated some of our content —12 Rules of Great Teaching and the Characteristics Of Effective Technology Users In The Classroom.
In this drawing, she takes some of Angela Maeirs‘ ideas on communal interactions and unifies them under the idea of a “Sandbox Manifesto.” Embedded in this thinking are a lot of the ideas that we promote consistently at TeachThought, from learning through play, to student-centeredness, to interdependence, and “messiness.”
These are the characteristics of a playground, where reduced formality and increased focused on enthusiasm and togetherness yield a tone of possibility. There is potential, then, in bringing these characteristics to your classroom as well. Some may not translate directly, depending on what you teach (content, grade level, etc.), but if you squint a little, you’ll see the connection.
We’ve included some examples for each below to jumpstart your thinking, but note–bringing a “sandbox” approach to your classroom is as much a matter of tone and purpose as it is tips and strategies. Without the right frame of mind, you can check every box and still miss the point.
As a teacher, if you’re not being playful and creative and innovative, you’re just “doing what you’re told,” and risk conditioning your students to think the same way.
Bring A Sandbox Approach To Your Class
1. Sharing is caring
Help students make their thinking visible. Share skills and resources in project-based learning.
2. Mess is good
Use inquiry-based learning, where there is no standardized beginning and ending point.
3. Imagination is your greatest asset
Design thinking in projects, creative writing, or non-creative writing that might benefit from creative thinking.
4. Sand is for filling buckets
Use the resources around you to create something new–a digital photography portfolio to create an eBook for children, for example.
5. Hugs help and smiles always matter
There is a tone and atmosphere to exceptional learning circumstances, and people and their emotions have to be at the center of it all.
6. Take it to the community
Use place-based education. Publish work in the local community. Consider problem-based learning solving local challenges.
7. The community means both friends and strangers
Digital citizenship is about people and their connections, not friends and what they “prefer.” Create projects that require students to work together with those that may not be their first choice, and then help frame that work so both can be comfortable and successful. Also, help students “think globally” by realizing the way they impact total strangers in a scenario-based learning project, for example.
8. You have one job–be remarkable!
In a “Sandbox approach,” the goal isn’t to prove you have “mastered” the standard, but that you’ve let your truest “Self” shine through. Imagine how this one alone could change a classroom! A digital video project where the big idea is to illuminate the part of themselves no one seems to see!
9. You are the master of your fate and the captain of your soul
Help students take control of their own learning–self-directed learning, for example, or a Maker Education project where the work can’t survive without them and their cleverness and ingenuity.
10. Play is the work. Play on purpose. Live the manifesto
Yes, we can learn through play–but it’s also true that play can be the goal, not just the means. Playfulness with an idea, theory, tool, or group is the sign of a mind at ease, in control, and thinking creatively. Play is both a cause and an effect of great learning! Help students use ongoing and personal platforms–blogs, businesses, learning simulations, video games and more–to make play a habit.
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