Atlanta Falcons for the WIN

Jan 25, 2017
2 min read

Day 2: They have sketched and begun the graphic designing. They have sent their saved copy to Kristy Tillman Head of Communication Design in California. As a leading industry professional,she will critic their work and based on her recommendations the design teams will edit accordingly.

I have a very energetic group of future engineers. More than half of my students are boys and they require a lot of hands on instruction to keep them thriving. Well, we are currently studying Georgia Regions, state symbols, measurement, consumers and producers, engineering, graphic design, nouns and adjectives, video production, and more! Whew... that is a lot. Did I mention I teach 2nd grade? SO how could I get a group of 2nd grade (mostly male) students to "buy in" to so much rigor? I focused my attention on what motivates them. It is an important tactic that classroom teachers forget all too often. MY students love sports. Strategically I created my latest STEAM unit based on the Falcons making it to the Super Bowl. The students have to create a new logo for the team. They have to work to redesign after talking with industry professionals and will have to pitch their design (shark tank style) to a group. The magic is that in creating this new uniform, they are learning and mastering all of the above standards. Through each task (this is a week long unit), they are learning new material, applying it to their background knowledge (information they already knew) and blending the two in order to apply the information to the task. As they progress I will update this blog.

Day 1:

Deconstruct the problem and task