What I did on my summer vacation

This is a typical writing assignment at the beginning of the school year for my students. Now it is my turn to write about my Kenan Fellowship experience at PlyGem. This summer, I spent 5 weeks as part of an internship/professional development fellowship. I did not have any specific expectations as to how this program would unfold, but I was open and ready for an adventure.
When I met Lee Clark-Sellers in her office, she described her vision for her business unit and identifying new market and product opportunities. She gave me the book “The Innovator’s DNA” and I read through it. The book really framed my experience and my learning from Lee. The main qualities of innovative people include Challenge the Status Quo and Taking Risks. These are certainly not qualities that are used to describe most teachers. However, this fit my personality and experience to a T.
During my time in the office, I had several projects for PlyGem. I learned about self-healing materials and contacted some scientists to learn more about their research. I had never heard about self-healing concrete before and it was amazing to me to see how it connected to the human body’s ability to self-heal its bones. That ties directly to third grade.
Another project I undertook was to dig into a big construction project and firm database to help the sales team identify leads. I understood how my ELL (English Language Learner) students feel when they are confronted with new vocabulary. I had to figure out the context and make connections to understand the construction market vocabulary. The database is huge, the user interface is lacking intuitiveness, and the data was not meeting the specific searches that were created. After talking with the sales team, the distributor, and the database support team, I was able to identify several ways to use it and some enhancements that were needed.
The biggest part of my internship was the time I spent on developing my product for Kenan Fellows. I had learned so much about construction, materials, testing, engineering, and innovation during the month. I needed time to put it all together and gather my many divergent thoughts and ideas. I was able to have that time to think and put it all together in between the projects. My idea for the finished product is very different from my first thoughts. I needed time to think, research trending areas in education, and talk to the other Fellows.
The main “glue” for the project was the collaboration and sharing with another Fellow. Our ideas came together and in one morning we were able to sketch out a collaborative, innovative, safety standard-based, engineering project that is integrated into 3rd Grade Social Studies Standards. The Next Adventure of the 3 Little Pigs and their Families Move to Hamlet” was born.
Using the Essential Questions for Social Studies, our unit will be based on the story of the 3 Little Pigs. Each building challenge will be structured around a topic, such as building on the different landforms and regions in NC. What are the different challenges for homes/living on the coast versus the mountains? Why?
By having a focus with a yearlong project will help my students plan, revises, and think about a lot of solutions. Our goal is to share our buildings and tests and plans with the other Fellow and her 3rd grade students. This cross-town collaboration will provide a real-world example of working with people in other countries, or across town.
I can’t wait to introduce this to my students in just a few weeks.