Episode 8 | Patterns, Abstractions, and Debates
It has been recording, by the way.
Nate:The whole time?
Ben:No. No. I I do have one thing I would like to talk about this episode, but I don't know if I should start with it.
Nate:Oh, boy. I was hoping we would because my brain's kinda mashed potatoes and thought maybe if you led the way, it would help.
Ben:Okay. Because then there's a secondary thing that sort of came up today. But the the one thing I confidently would like to talk about is calling you out from last episode.
Nate:Oh, boy.
Ben:So welcome back. We never introduce ourselves, but I'm gonna start now. I'm your host, Ben.
Nate:Is this where I introduce myself? Yeah. I wrote this down too that we should introduce ourselves at some point. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where I got the idea.
Nate:Nate.
Ben:The other host. Welcome to unprofessional development. Elusive
Nate:Lady Hoff's
Ben:request.
Nate:Also per my the elusive Lady Hoff's request.
Ben:Also per my request for the first few episodes. If you recall, we did do an a whole episode. Were we recording when I was just going through random songs we could use? I don't think we were recording.
Nate:No. I don't think so.
Ben:That was not an episode. Anyway, I have one thing to call you out on.
Nate:Let's hear it.
Ben:Last week, and I didn't bring it up last week only because we were on a a time limit, and I didn't wanna throw us off. You said the word abstraction probably four times within a minute and a half.
Nate:Woah.
Ben:Yeah. And I think I taught you that word. Oh, no. And I'm not sure you used it totally correctly.
Nate:Oh, boy. What was the context of
Ben:We were talking about our systems at the school and and as a district for managing waste. Yes. And you mentioned something about creating an abstraction to remove, you know, our waste from our conscious minds. Not directly Yeah. But something of that essence Mhmm.
Ben:Is the way you use the word.
Nate:Or that the where stuff comes from and where it goes isn't is abstracted.
Ben:Like Yeah. Is abstracted.
Nate:It's not in front of us, so we don't.
Ben:Right.
Nate:Okay?
Ben:Right. Am I correct in assuming that may be a word that you learned from me?
Nate:I think I'm recalling a conversation about website design
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:And system design.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:But that that okay. But I I don't think that's related because well, that might not be related because if I remember right, the conversation with you, the abstracting was a good thing in that it's making the system more, seamless Mhmm. Or, maybe removing noise so that it works better
Ben:Okay.
Nate:Is what I remember of the word abstraction or abstracting there. I think the sense that I was trying to communicate was not in a positive light of that word word disconnected is probably a better word.
Ben:Disconnecting. Okay.
Nate:Yeah. Or that the the ideas or the the the actual stuff is abstract because it's not in front of us, because the system or the American consumerism or the ease the ease of just throwing stuff away and it goes away is abstracted. But okay. That's where I'm ready to say, like, okay. I shouldn't say that.
Ben:No. I I was mostly just worried that you learned that word from me in the programming sense, but then used it in a different sense to communicate something sort of different than it is. Okay. So I would love to go through my understanding of the word abstraction, especially confidently now knowing when when you said we are abstracting these systems of managing our waste, meaning we're disconnecting them from the user so we don't have to think about it or worry about it.
Nate:In a negative way.
Ben:In a negative way.
Nate:Well
Ben:Which I think in regular English, making it abstract, it's a perfectly fine way to use that word.
Nate:Sure.
Ben:Right? But I was worried you took the way that I explained it a while ago and applied it in a in a way that is not quite what I meant.
Nate:Okay.
Ben:It prompted me, I think it would be a meaningful conversation to try and go through what abstractions we have set up for our school in the programming sense Oh. To get a better understanding of of the system we work within.
Nate:Before we even start, I am starting to question even if disconnection from systems is bad in or in abstraction is in how I apparently I was about to say allegedly, but, no, I think I'm on the record.
Ben:I think that one's on
Nate:the record. Because, like, in I I do wanna be disconnected from where the poopy water goes. And yet
Ben:You should know. Right?
Nate:Knowing is actually wonderful. Yeah. Because especially when knowing that some of it is used to power the compressed natural gas city buses that Yeah. I mean, I read.
Ben:Yeah. And you would want to know if it's, like, going into the river. Right. Right?
Nate:Yes. But So there's a level of, like, I do want it is quite pleasant to not have to worry about that.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:To not have to worry about where that goes and how it's dealt with. But knowing and then being able to trust and having, even met, talk to some of the people that take care of this stuff Yeah. In trash or compost or feces systems. Like, oh, wow. That's so so cool.
Nate:So, yes, I think I was using the word abstraction if I incorrectly use it. I I I In terms of
Ben:regular English, it was fine.
Nate:I recant.
Ben:It was fine. It was fine.
Nate:But I think, yeah, the problem with in our school and then also in my home of where did this plastic come from, is this ever gonna turn into value again? Oh, well, I'll just throw it away. How abstracted that is seems problematic. But Yeah. Hit me with this, abstraction programming language in
Ben:our school. Okay. So they're sort of two concepts that I think are worth comparing to each other so that we can understand what abstraction is. When you are writing code, oftentimes you are writing something that needs to be used multiple times and so it's not generally worth writing the same bit of code over and over and over when you could come up with some system that could be applied in multiple contexts, which is different, which is what we would call an abstraction. Come up with some system that can be applied in multiple places Or even if you're only using it once, logically, it might make sense just to manage all of this elsewhere so that the the actual thing you're making can be simpler.
Nate:I don't think I understood the second part of that, but can I put some words to the first part? Yeah. Like, making a a repeatable you might have said the word repeatable. But to make a model that can then just be utilized again Yeah. A chunk of
Ben:code implemented in multiple contexts.
Nate:But designing it in such a way that it is yes. It makes sense for this instance, but there's probably gonna be other ones that are different, other Right. Situations that are different. So code it that it has some agility built in. I'm I'm probably trying to get too many
Ben:You jump into more words. Yeah. But but let's take an example. Let's say you want to make a website that shows out, what sporting events are happening that our students might be a part of.
Nate:You're saying that because I
Ben:Just an example. Just an example.
Nate:It's I did I gotta go back. It doesn't work. It did something wrong with the DNS settings. This happened last time and it took me like two weeks to figure it out. I'll Anyway.
Nate:I'll get it.
Ben:Anyway. So so let's imagine you're trying to create some kind of component for your website that shows information like a schedule. Who's playing where? The information about that because particularly in our context, we have students playing sports in different places for different teams. It's not all the information is centralized.
Ben:So if you're just trying to make this little component for your website to show this schedule, you probably don't want all cluttered up within how you're coding the UI to also be go get information from this school, grab information from this website, grab the list of our students, compare to filter all of the games to only games with our students in it. Having all of that sort of logic in one thing probably is just gonna feel cluttered when at the end of the day, you might have to update it so that there's a period somewhere you forgot to put a period. It's gonna be a lot to scroll through. So it might just make sense to make an abstraction just to create a layer that does all of the grabbing and sorting information for you and then feeds it down to the actual component that you wanna create for the website, the actual visual schedule.
Nate:Kinda sounds like you made a middleman, but in a good way?
Ben:Yeah. Because because, like, finding data is maybe a single idea. You could create an abstraction just for finding the information and work on that and keep it isolated so you can make sure that piece works well.
Nate:Oh, but that's different than displaying the data that needs to be displayed. Finding the data and displaying the data aren't the same thing.
Ben:They, I mean, you could put them all in one place, and then it's probably gonna be a little confusing what's going on when you're trying to read the code later.
Nate:But if you would abstract it, that means you found the data first that lives somewhere, and it can be displayed. Or maybe it doesn't need to be displayed Yeah. And you have a separate thing.
Ben:But the abstraction that gathers the data, whatever you decide to call it, that piece, you can just focus and you can create that and it works and it functions and it does its thing independent of whatever context you're about to apply it in. So an abstraction is something that functions on its own that may be useful in multiple contexts but may exist just to simplify something else.
Nate:The word on its own feels the phrase on its own feels like, oh, no. We don't wanna isolate. We wanna integrate. We wanna collaborate. We want to so it there's almost like a, I think, realizing an awkward bias to is it really better to be on your own for an an abstracted chunk of code?
Nate:This this,
Ben:Like, should it be isolated?
Nate:This digital being on its own. However but I but I despite that, almost subconscious bias that I'm feeling, like, oh, no. That, yes, you do have to talk about code as if it's, you know, a human being, which maybe I tend to do.
Ben:Very interesting.
Nate:And thinking but thinking about the the t chart of that overlaid with a student or an individual, a member of our school community. It is important to be able to carry your own weight and do something in isolation. Yes. Working on a team does not mean watch your teammates work. What is my role?
Ben:And Right.
Nate:Give your own roles. And and when that role overlaps, that's the beauty of the collaboration stuff. But if you do chunk them apart, which sometimes need to be done, feel like this task needs to be done or this aspect of the project needs to be done to have those distinct abstractions.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:That's one. I'm gonna try to get three more in the next minute and a half.
Ben:Woah. Slow down. Slow down. Slow down. But it it is interesting.
Ben:Like, normally, we don't want things to be too isolated. But if you're trying to design a system with multiple different moving parts, you probably wanna be able to identify, like, which part has gone wrong when something goes wrong.
Nate:It can't just be a mush.
Ben:Right.
Nate:A hole. Right. Is it nodes? If I'm thinking about this graphically, is it nodes
Ben:If if we were to make a diagram of the system Yes.
Nate:Yes. Please.
Ben:Yes. It would be a node. Okay. An abstraction would be a node.
Nate:K. And then the line between nodes
Ben:Is the implementation or the I think something like that because the line shows how nodes are related, right? Yes. So you might have a component on your website and it has a line coming from your data component which you never see on the website but it puts information into the schedule component which is visual and on the page that you're creating. So all that's to say, I said we were going to compare two different things for the sake of understanding what what we do, some systems we have at school to help us. So there's the abstraction which is creating something specific with functionality that operates and works on its own.
Ben:The other thing that is worth comparing it to is a pattern. If you're coding, you might have a pattern like I'm gonna do all of my setup right at the front of the file and then I'm gonna create the actually function the actual functionality that I want and then I'm gonna return that at the end of the file. You might follow some kind of a general pattern that is a repeatable process but you do have to remake it and redo it every time. I'm gonna let you process that one for a second.
Nate:For some reason, the first thing I thought of was, like, a five paragraph essay. Not that I'm a fan of five paragraph essays. But there's a reason There's
Ben:a pattern.
Nate:That this you you hook, you lay out an argument, you land the plane. Yeah. And, I mean, at its worst, it's formulaic and terribly boring. At its best, like, that's you still are using a format, but doing it in a surprising way or in an interesting way. Or like, oh, that's that's that's messing with me, and that might change my mind Yeah.
Nate:Kind of way. So that got me thinking about your when you said the alright. I'm sitting down to write some code. I'm gonna do this first. Then I'm gonna do this thing because that's just the flow of the code.
Nate:And then it does this thing at the end where, like, if I understand correctly, if you switch the order of how it was written, doesn't actually matter in the code file itself. Like, the code will still function, but for things like troubleshooting or Or
Ben:for the for the
Nate:sake of of an x coder?
Ben:Exactly. Especially for the sake of handing off to someone else. It's very useful if you follow a pattern at least consistent through the project that you're making. So that if you're jumping around through this file, you understand how it works. You have some pattern that you can look for in the next file that will help you understand that file or component or or whatever it is.
Ben:So I'm thinking about the difference between abstraction as a node on the system graph and a pattern as a pattern of how nodes could be connected.
Nate:Color coded.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:Part one, part two, part three, a repeatable outline.
Ben:So here's what I'm thinking, to to bring it into our context, and if you think of ideas of abstractions or patterns that we use in our teaching, I would love to hear them. But but here's what I thought. Every project that we do, we follow the pattern of we start with an episode doc, which is episodic learning. It's hopefully pretty deep science inquiry. We're asking questions.
Ben:We're trying to come up with with answers that connect them to other things. Like, we have the episode doc. It's a document that guides that journey.
Nate:The mind mapping.
Ben:The mind mapping.
Nate:Outlining.
Ben:But every module that we do, we start with an episode doc, and then we give the students a design brief. And the design brief lays out what they should produce to start implementing this knowledge.
Nate:My gut is that the episode doc is an abstraction and the design brief's a pattern. But I haven't I haven't not that it needs to be that simple, but that's the first.
Ben:See see, here's my thought. The pattern is the structure of the module, episode doc design brief.
Nate:Okay.
Ben:But the episode doc and the design brief are abstractions.
Nate:I can't help but think the design brief is a pattern due to the design thinking process, which is a pattern, a flow of, in our situation, frame, find, play, plan.
Ben:Right.
Nate:Make sure.
Ben:So we have this pattern that we want the students to follow while they're working. Mhmm. Understanding background knowledge, finding research, coming up with ideas, producing something, getting feedback. We have this process or this pattern that we want them to follow. So what structure do we use so that we can do the same thing in different context?
Ben:We give them a design brief that on the front has some kind of invitation to work. Oh. And on the back has instructions for what to do in each portion of the pattern.
Nate:I think you convinced me that the design brief is an abstraction because I can click file, make a copy, change the title,
Ben:add a new context.
Nate:And and depending on how ambitious I wanna be with guiding or facilitating or how, like, intentionally open ended
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:I will add or remove. But you could hot swap design briefs quickly. In fact, that is what I do. Yeah. That is what we do.
Nate:Yeah. Alright. So File.
Ben:Copy. Update and Or I
Nate:look at, like, oh, Tom just made a cool one. I'm gonna, like,
Ben:I'm gonna copy that?
Nate:He abstracted that slightly different oh, and Woah.
Ben:Woah. Slow down. Slow down.
Nate:I'm not keeping time anymore. He he can I say that, though? He abstracted the pattern of design thinking such that I wanna make a copy of his abstraction. If I do
Ben:Oh, yeah. You want to implement his abstraction.
Nate:Ah, okay. Which means make a copy of his design brief and modify it for my next project.
Ben:Right.
Nate:Woah. Thanks, Tom.
Ben:Shout out. At some and and this is this is also a conversation I I was thinking we should maybe have with a whiteboard at some point to start coming out with what is can we make a system diagram of the way that we teach and use that to identify what patterns and abstractions do we implement to keep our sanity. Maybe it's to keep our sanity. Maybe it's, you know, to add efficiency so that we can do the things that we do.
Nate:I think it's to keep our insanity.
Ben:Valid. Valid. So we have a pattern with the structure of a module. Deep science learning, apply it into a project. We have a pattern with how students should approach projects, the design thinking process, which we break down into the phases frame, find, play, plan, make, share.
Ben:We have an abstraction of a design brief to give a common structure to how we give instructions. We have an abstraction called an episode doc, which is a template that we can use to guide their learning, and they know what to expect.
Nate:And I I mean and to build context. Yeah. Because, like, the design brief is guiding learning too. Yeah. It's our what kind of learning the design brief is more of applying, if you will, or synthesizing to get into a little bit of Bloom's
Ben:taxonomy. Oh.
Nate:Woah. Do you think he will just can you sponsor this episode? This episode sponsored No.
Ben:It's not. You sound like a professional right now. I don't know how I feel about that.
Nate:He'd be a I'm sorry. He he's a dead guy. Right? Bloom?
Ben:I think so. Should should I Google him?
Nate:We should reach out and, like, see if he wants to
Ben:Reach out to his children?
Nate:I don't know. Might be a bad idea.
Ben:Who what was his first name?
Nate:Bloom. Bloom.
Ben:Bloom Bloom?
Nate:Alright. Taxonomy. His name's Taxonomy Bloom.
Ben:He he has the same name as me, except he used the full thing, Benjamin Bloom.
Nate:It's a nice ring. Yeah. Is he still No?
Ben:No. Is it been it's been a I
Nate:would imagine it's been a while.
Ben:It's been since 1999.
Nate:Oh, maybe not quite as long as that. All that to say, like, the can I repeat a little bit? I'm I'm crystallizing. If we're thinking about what we do as programming.
Ben:I mean, I just wanna I wanna step away from programming a little bit.
Nate:Sure.
Ben:That is context for, like, what do what do these words mean Yes. And then take it just back to systems thinking.
Nate:Sure. Because yeah. It it's obviously we're not saying, like, what we're doing is coding. Right. In systems thinking, using maybe more correctly than I have before, the word extract attraction and patterns.
Nate:Our patterns are a design thinking process, and our patterns are, I mean, experiential discovery learning kind of stuff. And our abstractions, which are play calls, tools, repeatable modifiable, but repeatable, flows Yeah. Are the episode doc and the design brief. Got it. And And I think
Ben:we have some more than that.
Nate:Oh, unidentified ones?
Ben:Unidentified. Like, I have I have the playbook Ah, yes. Which I think of as a as a set of abstractions for what should we do with the students in the classroom to push them along to the next step in in their journey.
Nate:So then our x q competency builders would be
Ben:Oh, that would be an abstraction.
Nate:Those are more like in the moments. Oh, we need help developing this skill more explicitly. Yeah. Let's call in this
Ben:Let's do this practice
Nate:activity.
Ben:Which we can apply to a science context. But it
Nate:but I I in a sense, that is an abstraction too because it's, you're practicing a skill to try to make it transparent for the purpose of doing that same skill more mindfully, metacognitively in the project.
Ben:So the pattern might be something like
Nate:Oh.
Ben:Start a project to make a parent what we need to practice, use a competency builder to practice that skill, return to the project. That could be a pattern. But the competency builder itself, that node, is an abstraction because it's a it's a defined practice. Maybe, like, one of them I know is is making sense of data that doesn't initially seem connected. You could do that in science.
Ben:You could do that in math. You could do that in English.
Nate:You could
Ben:do that, heck, in art Mhmm. To understand, like, what patterns are you seeing in these art pieces from this time frame. That would be awesome. And because that abstraction has been created of of here's a practice of interpreting different sets of data in collection with each other, that's a useful abstraction because it would be really difficult to try and come up with a way to do that every time that we wanna compare trends or patterns, right, or data. Right?
Nate:It's something you have in your back pocket that you know you can just pull out and modify, tweak, adjust, or just Yeah.
Ben:Oh, I I think if it's an abstraction, you can pull it out of your back pocket and apply it to your context. And there's a pretty obvious way of, like, how it applies to Yes. New context.
Nate:So, I mean, dude, think pair share is an abstraction.
Ben:Yes. Yes. Classic.
Nate:Got it. I still think we do these things to stay insane.
Ben:Maybe.
Nate:I I think the it's realizing I mean, I think, personally, the purpose of the system and the order and the repeatability is for the sake of the unpredictability, is for the sake of the divergence. If Is, like, if this had there has to be enough semblance of order, partially for plausible deniability, parse part parse, partially for, like, holding down a job. But I think at its core, it's in order to be ready for a kid with a crazy idea that just might work or a new community partnership or a, like, a plot twist in the project, a new direction to where, like, yep. We could do this thing. Yeah.
Nate:Knowing that some group is gonna absolutely explode this, other groups are gonna tank, but the system is there such that regardless, we can full steam ahead. Yeah. We can tear the roof off.
Ben:So we have this system knowing that we've been using these tools that will make your crazy idea possible without completely derailing the whole classroom.
Nate:Yes. I don't think it's to stay
Ben:Maybe not to stay sane, but the train needs to stay on rails.
Nate:Yeah. Yeah.
Ben:And and if we wanna allow for divergent pathways following student interest
Nate:Gotta be really good at building tracks.
Ben:Your tracks might need to look a little different. The system might need to look a little different.
Nate:You I gotta allow your train to, like, turn upside down every once in a while. Yeah. Some looped loops.
Ben:Yeah. Anyway, that that's all I had for that. It is is probably honestly an invitation. We should just stand around a whiteboard sometime and try and diagram out our system of teaching using that framework to identify the repeatable things that we do.
Nate:That feels like, for some reason, it hits me as a terrifying proposition. Like, I kinda I kinda don't wanna understand.
Ben:Wait, aren't we like on a team to help other teachers understand how they could teach place based education, do project based learning, use a museum mindset.
Nate:Sure. I I like design briefs a lot, and we should maybe circle back to, like, how did we ever start making episode docs? Oh my goodness. But there I think there's a level of, like, I don't want I I don't think I wanna open that up and poke too hard for fear of, like I kinda don't wanna know.
Ben:You don't wanna know the system that we use to teach?
Nate:I'm having a hard time explaining this.
Ben:Okay.
Nate:Maybe for fear of ruining it. Maybe for fear of overanalyzing. Maybe for fear of oh, okay. I'll get I think I know what it is. It's for fear of, like, oh, just do this.
Nate:Oh. It's for fear of, this is it. Follow these steps. Now we're back to a district that hands you a curriculum and, which I you you know, that's not I'm not accusing you of, like, oh, we're Right.
Ben:Right. Right. Right.
Nate:I think that's why I I feel of an aversion to I like talking about let I'm gonna start a podcast, by the way. I like talking about what we do. Uh-huh. I like talking about projects. I like talking about wild things that happen.
Nate:And I do like talking about systems, but the idea of, like, a definitive map of what our system is Oh. Maybe, makes it too I don't I don't want it to be set in stone because it's it's not again, you're not that's not that's you're not, proposing that.
Ben:Right.
Nate:But I would feel uncomfortable to say this is our system because
Ben:Nate. Nate. You're forgetting something.
Nate:Okay. Go ahead.
Ben:That's why it's on a whiteboard. Oh,
Nate:okay. Let's go let's go get a whiteboard. Where's the nearest one?
Ben:Right? Like like, we spend a lot of time around whiteboards because it's useful for erasing and changing and and doing over. Right? I don't think we should ever try and publish, like, the system of how we teach. I'm just thinking as an exercise for us to identify, you know, repeatable things that we could maybe explain to others, share with others, but also hopefully, if we're if we do a good job with this, identify gaps in places where maybe we we should be setting up another abstraction or finding a pattern to
Nate:Or getting rid of an abstraction.
Ben:Consistent or getting rid of an abstraction. Yeah.
Nate:Okay. That was a big sigh of relief. Okay. That It's
Ben:on a whiteboard.
Nate:Think I could handle. Man, there's some parallels really knocking around in my brain right now on how do you communicate the, heart of what we do. And there is there's gonna be definitive things. I'm not at all saying, like, it's just whatever goes, there is no actual logic or rhyme or reason because Right. Because they're they're they're definitive.
Nate:This is so, and this is a value, and this is an aim. It's not just this mushy, ununderstandable thing. There's clear values, clear goals, clear place based education using a design thinking, process in, in a museum mindset. Yeah. I I butcher,
Ben:like, our things.
Nate:I butcher that. Those are
Ben:our things, though.
Nate:Yes. Yes. I'm a little frazzled, so I usually have that a little more. But those those are our things, and then there's clear values that come out of that with, so we do projects. So we focus on community partnerships.
Nate:So we Mhmm. So those things are those aren't just, like, well, whatever goes. And then the order of, like, there there needs to be order in our spaces. It's not just a complete free for all. Yeah.
Nate:So whiteboarding those and how does this flow and how does this actually promote and propagate and, allow for growth in these things. Great. But the risk is becoming I don't know how it says other than fair sick with it of, oh, great. That's what we're supposed to do. So it's like this and like this.
Ben:There's some kind of way that it should be.
Nate:Yes. And then also but, like, but missing the heart. Like, having the letter down, having the system down, the alleged airtight system, which actually it's not about it's not about design briefs. It's not about following this exact process even, but these are the processes we found in the system, the abstractions, the patterns
Ben:Mhmm. That seem to be cooking. Can I just make a statement? And because I think it's gonna make you uncomfortable.
Nate:You already have.
Ben:Well, here we go.
Nate:Oh, no.
Ben:For my next project, I do not think I will give them a design brief.
Nate:I feel okay about that. Okay. That
Ben:It it felt like something I have to admit to you because you and I have invested so much time
Nate:Oh.
Ben:Into creating what a design brief is and brought it to, like, I think, a very good point. Yeah. And my my next one, I'm just not gonna do it.
Nate:While we're at it, I have a confession to make.
Ben:Okay.
Nate:In the last six weeks, my design brief utilization as an abstraction has been very low.
Ben:Like, you've you've printed them, but, like, the students aren't really going back to them.
Nate:Nearly as much as we did in September. Right. Which bothered me for a little bit until I realized maybe we've kind of internalized the thing and the products that are being produced and the conversations happening and the things being built and the documentation of those on our showcase slide, which is oh, showcase slide is another abstraction. Right? Yes.
Nate:Of we publish this way, and it kinda looks how we published last time.
Ben:Oh, yeah. I'm not doing that either for the next one.
Nate:Well, that bothers me a little bit. But to say on the design brief end Yeah. Knowing what the next project is kinda makes sense. I guess the showcase kinda makes sense on that too. This the deliverable and the learning.
Nate:Deliverable is kind of a weird word. I wish I didn't say that. The
Ben:I don't mind it.
Nate:The learning, the maybe the artifact of learning feels a little more museum y.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:They're like, hey. We made a thing and we wanna share it. If this is we did something worth sharing. Uh-huh.
Ben:To me,
Nate:that's the heart of the showcase slide is we made something cool. Check it out. Yeah. And where your next project is going seems of anything, to not have a design brief and a showcase slide for. That would be that'd be it.
Ben:But there is a showcase.
Nate:Sure.
Ben:There there's, so my next project, we are doing
Nate:Well, how Well, we don't want the students to know. Right?
Ben:There this isn't coming out until two days before we start.
Nate:You're not gonna tell them about the
Ben:None of them know about the podcast either. Yeah. Can I say what the project is?
Nate:Yeah. I think what I'm actually sour about is the spilling of the beans of the
Ben:spilling of the beans that that yeah. We don't even need to talk about that part.
Nate:I do want to anyway, so go ahead.
Ben:Okay. So the next project we're doing bioethics debates. They are debating some topic, some ethical topic around biology. Most of them are like medicine focused but they're doing debates And there's not there's not much of a product with that. Like, a debate, a performance of a debate is not much of a product for putting on a slide.
Nate:You could do video, but I'd that no.
Ben:Right. No. Right.
Nate:Part of the goal too is, like, argue a point, disagree with your opponent. Okay. Cool. We disagreed pretty well. Like, I think you're wrong still, but we can disagree in a healthy way.
Nate:And feel free to change your mind so we don't need to, like, have video of, like, well, you said this is not a gotcha. Right.
Ben:Right. So the the reason I'm moving away both from the design brief and the showcase slide is because I've I've met with some people who have a company that I don't think we should name because I think where they're at, they're not trying to, like, grow unexpectedly. But a platform that we can invite the students to give them they're not called assignments. We give them topics to study or work through. And then as they're submitting their thoughts, reflections, or anything they've produced, it automatically builds into a showcase website for them.
Ben:And then the the last page on their site is their argument with their main points, what they expect the other team to say, their rebuttals, and their conclusion. And that is a public showcase. Ah. Or at least the site
Nate:But it's almost like making making the showcase without realizing it?
Ben:Yeah. So normally, we have a slideshow called the showcase slides, and everyone or every group needs to create a slide, put what they've made on it, try and make it look pretty, and then you can flip through and see what everyone made. This is like inherent to doing the work while you're, you know, pasting in your thoughts, uploading finishing assignments. They have to share their main points with the other side. So when they share their points with the other side, it gets added to their portfolio.
Ben:And then they just click a button, and they have a a public little website.
Nate:Is that thing you showed me?
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:Before staph infections practice last Friday? Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that thing. Yeah.
Nate:Okay. Okay.
Ben:But I I think it kind of whatever the design brief was, it's kind of inherent to having the topics in there. I don't know how I feel about the verbiage, but, like, what would be an assignment or a task, they call a topic. So as you work through the topics
Nate:Topic one would be like, here's five articles. Pick an interesting one. And those five articles are potentially divvied up between more of a health care costs, a patient's rights thing, a, I forget, is doctor assisted death
Ben:Oh, yeah. On there? That's one of one of the things they could debate.
Nate:Yep. I'm hoping to add sustainable death mostly because I I I just really wanna visit a crematorium.
Ben:Yeah. Yeah. They can they can debate the virtues of sustainable death.
Nate:So imagine these different topics, tasks, if you will.
Ben:Uh-huh.
Nate:And then they before you realize it, you're at the end, and there's a showcaseable thing. Yeah. Showcases in my brain are very a very visual thing.
Ben:Yeah.
Nate:Where it's like, there's text here, but it's not the thing is the image. The thing is the, you know, the product, the process of you making the thing, preferably you, like, smiling. Yeah. You voted on one today where a student had, like, two
Ben:Two pictures of themselves they might wanna put on the showcase slide and
Nate:One of them was kind of this, like
Ben:a vote of which one to use.
Nate:I wanna share this. This has tickled me. The Yeah. The one photo was, like, a fairly kinda attitude, eye roll, do I really have to do this kind of photo, which is great. Like, yeah, it's fun.
Nate:It's playful. It Yeah. Yes. The other one, I think, was a a team member candid shot of students working diligently developing a product. This is for the Yeah.
Nate:Donations across the street at the food pantry. Like, the the look, the posture of care and craft going into what was being made, not to mention just the glow. The look on the student's face was something like, I'm making a special thing, and I'm gonna give it away. Yeah. Is what the photo communicated.
Ben:Mhmm.
Nate:And it was so funny. Student wanted option one. I'm like, what about option two? No. I don't like that photo at all.
Nate:And a friend walks by. Oh, this second photo's great. Another teacher walks by. Hey. Pick one.
Nate:Oh, that second. Wow. That that's a great shot. And the student, you know, obviously, digs in her heels in light of, you know, a la photo one. Uh-huh.
Nate:All that to say, I think when I hear the word showcase, I think of visuals. Mhmm. I also think of using visuals to persuade, whether that's honestly or dishonestly in our, you know, media context, disinformation context.
Ben:Right.
Nate:But to use a you the use of powerful visuals to make a point
Ben:is absolutely a skill worth practicing, and I think we should do it often.
Nate:But is not?
Ben:But I don't think is a necessary component especially when you're doing something like, you know, we're we're debating each other. That's gonna be a live event. Like the visual aspect of it, you it's gonna be there when we're performing the debate Sure. In front of an audience. Sure.
Nate:So we should bring rats?
Ben:I hope so.
Nate:Wait. You almost lost
Ben:a debate. I did almost lose a debate.
Nate:Did we talk about this?
Ben:I don't think so.
Nate:Can you tell can we tell share that story?
Ben:Sure.
Nate:Tell me the
Ben:story. So well, it it starts last year when this kid was in my class, and we were doing this debate project. And the kid did didn't wanna debate anyone. And, like, I think for for good reason, we gave him a lot of support in in bringing him to the point where he would be willing to get up in front of the class, perform a debate. And so, like, to make it happen, you said you wanted to debate him.
Ben:And the kid who's a
Nate:Somewhat facetiously and, you know, like, not not in a mean spirited way to him, but, like, in a in my typical kind of executive fashion. Yeah. I'll debate that kid.
Ben:Yeah. And then sort of I I think the support system around him before him noticed, like, this is actually gonna be a good avenue to make sure he's comfortable in getting up there in front of the class. And so you you worked with him to, like, flesh out each other's main points, and the kid's a vegetarian. And so the debate was about whether or not testing should be allowed on animals, specifically medical testing, which I think for for for a lot of people, taking the the side you would assume the vegetarian takes of, like, no. We can't test medicine on animals would be a pretty tough side to debate.
Ben:But you worked it up to be the the theatrics of the debate and to, you know
Nate:That's where we yeah. We leaned on some visuals.
Ben:Right. Lean on some visuals, lean on some stories, some anecdotes for the, like, telling of the two opinions that you could have. Yes. And so you were both collaborative towards each other in helping the other side build up what their argument was gonna be.
Nate:We did build up a bit of dramatic tension Yeah. And showmanship together. Yeah. Oh, dude.
Ben:So to build up the showmanship of about, like, you have chickens, he brings up
Nate:He puts a picture on the slides.
Ben:That you wouldn't want anything to happen to these little babies, would you?
Nate:Meanwhile, he has pet rats from another student
Ben:Oh, yeah. As his, like, prop assistants. Crawling around his shoulders. Yeah. Like, look at how cute and friendly these are.
Nate:We couldn't possibly, which, like, which some people did I okay. In in all this, I had talked to a a friend that does medical research
Ben:Uh-huh.
Nate:Here in town.
Ben:Uh-huh.
Nate:And she's, like, pointing out, like, okay. These arguments are the the the logical issues with the arguments, which sure. Like like, I guess realizing that we're not trying to break logical fallacies. But maybe if the point here the learning there really was, we're gonna be we're gonna debate each other, and we're gonna have fun. Uh-huh.
Nate:And it's gonna be it's gonna be a bit of a spectacle. Yeah. People are gonna come over and be like, oh, I should go watch this.
Ben:We're we're gonna make some type of entertainment that also communicates, like, very valid sides to an issue. Like, it's you weren't harshly trying to tear the other person down Yeah. But you were collaboratively figuring out how you can have a back and forth that demonstrates what different people believe, and it was incredible.
Nate:He emailed PETA, and so I was like, I got an email back from PETA, and here's what they that was that was a cool slide. Yeah. Yeah. He'd oh, the I wanna say, like, oh, the sucker puncher bringing up my chickens. But, like, that was But, like that was part of
Ben:the show.
Nate:That was
Ben:Because then you came back with, you know my plan for the chickens, and then showed a picture
Nate:of the
Ben:can of chicken noodle soup.
Nate:Oh, no. No. No. No. No.
Ben:No. No. No, mister Langel.
Nate:No. And by the way, student, I caught I caught a picture of you eating a burger the other day. Here it is. And I throw that up on the slide and everyone, oh.
Ben:Woah. And he says, but, mister Engel, that was an impossible burger.
Nate:The photos of he and the lunch ladies all grinning. Yeah.
Ben:Yeah. What a what a incredible time. So It was good. I I
Nate:was there. You were there. But there was a follow-up debate that I don't know much about.
Ben:Oh, yeah.
Nate:Well, a year a year later. Go ahead.
Ben:Yeah. This year, they're doing a project in the next grade where they are doing debates. And I catch wind that he has he does not want to debate against anyone. So I said, I'll I'll debate him.
Nate:He had to know he wasn't gonna get away with that.
Ben:I don't know. I don't know. His his how stubborn he was in refusing, I think, was was getting his teachers pretty frustrated and and ready to throw in the, like, I I guess we can't make you do the project.
Nate:Sure.
Ben:So I was like, I'll debate you. And I've and I found him, and I was like, hey. Remember when you debated mister Lingle? Like, yeah. You wanna debate me?
Ben:No. Wait. I I I heard a little about your argument. You you said that, you're you're debating whether or not animals should be allowed in schools. It's like, yeah.
Ben:What what side are you on? I don't know yet. Well, if you want, I have a puppy who's very kind and friendly I could bring in to help the pro animal side of the debate. And he said, I'm good. And he walked away.
Ben:No. Yeah. Yeah. So it took a a few days of being as persistent as him in the, I wanna debate you. I'll bring my dog to school if you debate me.
Ben:And eventually
Nate:This is just like in passing whenever you see the kids. Like, hey.
Ben:Oh, going out of my way to pass him. And and then upon enough refusals, just, I'm excited to debate you. You're not debating me. Hey. I'm I'm excited to debate you.
Nate:I'm not sure.
Ben:I don't I don't know.
Nate:Yeah. Progress.
Ben:Progress. I'm so excited to bring my dog in so you could use him in your debate. Acceptance.
Nate:Yes. Oh, man. Just the sigh. The sigh of the sigh.
Ben:So we we worked through some some slides. It it was a simpler format for the debate. So he just had some main points and I gave some rebuttals and
Nate:You argued for no No dogs
Ben:in school. No dogs in school.
Nate:No dogs in school.
Ben:And brought my very cute puppy. And so we get up and I think he would have done better had this started a few days earlier and we had time to Yeah. Practice Run through.
Nate:Do a
Ben:little rehearsal.
Nate:Sure.
Ben:So he he was feeling very uncomfortable about it and was, like, ran out of the classroom when it was time to to perform. And then I think probably the biggest point towards his debate is I found him with my nine month old Karen terrier. Looks like Toto. I looked at him. I said, I'm excited for a debate.
Ben:And I handed him the leash, and he was like, okay. And he came up and
Nate:After he had left the room.
Ben:After he had left the room. Yeah. Like a couple of times, he he tried it as, like, sneak out, get away, make sure it didn't happen. Yep. And I gave him the dog, and he was like, okay.
Ben:I'll bring the dog up. So then we we had we had the debate. Yes. He's he's not the kind of guy that would have improvised something but like while he didn't bring it up everyone in the room knew the dog was what helped him get up there and in the end we had the the audience vote like who won the debate? And they were like, well, should should animals be allowed in schools?
Ben:And the audience is like, yeah, of course. Look at this. And then the teacher asked the kid, who do you think won? And he just looked kinda sheepishly around and said, I think we can tie. So I narrowly lost the debate, but he said we should tie.
Nate:So good. Doesn't matter how good the design brief is Right. For that to happen.
Ben:Where do we go from it? Do we do we just okay. And with that
Nate:Oh, can I say it?
Ben:Yeah. You can say it. I don't think I've ever You can say it.
Nate:You haven't said it. Well, maybe I have. Class dismissed.