Mushroom Management

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Mushroom Management
Group 4 Robert Atwood Yvette Dix Susan
George Rick McDonald
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What is Mushroom Management?
Mushroom Management is a problem-centered way to
design curriculum that can be found in Tracy
Kidder's book, The Soul of a New Machine . Kidder
uses the metaphor of the stages encountered in
growing mushrooms to show the research and
development process used in a problem-centered
approach to education. This approach entails the
following stages Put Them in the Dark this
stage is used to engage students interest Feed
them manure in this stage the teacher gives
them the information they need, teaches them
skills theyll require, and lets them research
and begin interpreting the information they
acquire Stand Back and Watch Them Grow this
stage allows the students to use the "manure" to
make informed opinions and resolve problems Chop
off their Heads and Ship Them in this stage
culminating activities are used to link the
pieces together, to show real life applications,
and to allow students to assess what theyve
learned
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Classroom Applications

• Robert Atwood
• Yvette Dix
• Susan George
• Rick McDonald

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Rob Atwood
Application of Mushroom Management in My
Classroom I used this approach one particular
time before I actually knew about this model.
The following is that lesson with some changes I
would make if I did it now. I am looking for
another topic which would lend itself to this
approach which I could try with my current class.
Put Them in the Dark The problem which we
dealt with was the design of a desert habitat for
our school. We had funding and needed to come up
with some designs as well as decide where on the
campus the habitat would be located.
Feed Them Manure We studied Arizona habitats,
specifically the desert and its flora
and fauna. If I were to do it again I
would have students do mini-reports on various
flora and fauna with a goal of
having the students become experts on their
topics. This would include
information about their flora or fauna as well as
the practicality of
including it in our habitat. I would also like to
provide real world experts in desert
flora and fauna and in landscaping for the
students to ask questions of.
Stand Back and Watch Them Grow In this case
the students did a great job developing various
plans for certain areas of the school to be
redeveloped as desert habitats. This included the
layout of the area, the particular plants we
chose, and even what animals/birds/insects would
be attracted to our new habitat.
Chop Off Their Heads and Ship Them The layouts
which the students developed were
given to the landscape architect as input. The
students also were able to help install the
actual parts of the habitat during and after
school and on some Saturdays.
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YvetteI actually use an approach very similar to
this for most of my projects thanks to TechWorks
which was purchased for us by our school district
last year to use in our technology classes.
Below is one of my favorites

• Put them in the dark We have a discussion about
  fairy tales and word web some of the things that
  are found in most fairy tales. We discuss where
  fairy tales come from and how there can be
  different versions of the same story.
• Feed them manure We read some of the versions of
  Cinderella that have come from different
  countries and theyre usually amazed at the
  different versions. I show them the websites
  theyre to get onto to read different fairy tales
  and they can find some other fairy tales that
  have common themes but are told differently in
  one country than in another.
• Stand Back and Watch Them Grow They break in to
  groups, find fairy tales the meet the criteria
  weve established, they are to list the
  similarities and difference they find, and make
  Venn diagrams to compare and contrast the
  stories. They are also to discuss in their
  groups why there could be so many versions of a
  similar story.
• Chop off their Heads and Ship Them The students
  make PowerPoint presentations to show what they
  found to the rest of the class. We have a
  discussion at the end to make sure that the
  students made the connection that fairy tales
  were originally oral stories and this could be
  why the premise is the same but the details are
  different.

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Mushroom Management--Susan

• My classes are all Resource students and most of
  them are so dependent on being told what to do
  and how to do it, that it is very hard to get
  them to perform on their own. Here are several
  lessons I have done that were kind-of-like this
  teaching model. In all three, the students
  didnt know what they were supposed to do, but
  were given group assignments, small clues to
  guide them, and little instruction except to work
  together.
• The first, Mixed-Up Fairy Tales, students drew
  character names from a bag, then wrote and acted
  out their own story. I invited a class to come
  watch the final performance.
• In Party Time, they were to work in groups that
  were named specifically for items/supplies to
  plan a party (such as pizza, cups, music). At the
  end of the week I surprised them with exactly
  what they planned! They were shocked and wished
  they had planned bigger.
• What is That? was a geometry lesson, where each
  table was given a box of scraps of paper, straws,
  cardboard tubes and other odds and ends. They
  were told to build a free-standing structure.
  Later, the highest one received a prize and
  they were displayed in the front office. Their
  imagination was awesome!

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Rick McDonald
Application of Mushroom Management in My
Classroom I have gone away from group work,
though I am planning on using it in an upcoming
online course. This experience below worked well
in a course five years ago, but the next time I
tried it some students clearly dominated the
process and other students seemed to do little
work.
Put Them in the Dark Students formed a
miniature advertising agency. Each group then
chose a product and were required to develop two
separate ad campaigns that appealed to two
separate target audiences, but were for the same
product.
Feed Them Manure First, we worked on improving
the students skills in Adobe Photoshop and
Illustrator, used to create the ads. Second, the
students and I brought in examples of good
advertisements and examples of poor
advertisements. We spoke about what made the ads
good or bad. We also spoke extensively about what
audience the ad was targeting for their
marketing. Finally, we looked at the various ads
and discussed how the designer may have created
them.
Stand Back and Watch Them Grow Students worked
well together on this assignment. One group
created a truck that was a combination of several
vehicles. They then created advertisements
targeting backpackers and outdoor enthusiasts.
There second target was farmers and ranchers.
Chop Off Their Heads and Ship Them The final
projects were pitched to the rest of the class
and critiqued as if the class were the clients,
i.e. executives from an automotive company.
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Reflection and Process

• Robert Atwood
• Yvette Dix
• Susan George
• Rick McDonald

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Rob Atwood
Brief reflection about the presentation on the
topic and the process to build it.
I like the idea of constructing a PowerPoint
presentation as a group with some slides
requiring individual work and some requiring
group input. In our group Yvette really got the
ball rolling by coming up with a presentation
which was great stylistically and was ready for
slides from individuals and some group work to
finish it up. That allowed the rest of the group
to concentrate on getting our individual slides
done and to think about content for the group
generated slides. My fourth graders actually do a
good job with PowerPoint presentations
individually, but I could
also see the advantages of having groups work
together to accomplish a task and then use a
template to create a group presentation. The
template would require individuals to prepare
some of the slides and the group to work together
to prepare some slides. It is a good combination
of group and individual work and it is a good way
to have students present their learning.
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Yvette

• I love to use PowerPoint and all the new things
  that you can do with PowerPoint in Office 2003
  are AMAZING! I really like the idea of having
  our entire group collaborate on a presentation.
  It was fun and easy and we all had a chance to
  express our ideas. I can really see how a project
  such as this could be used in a classroom to
  teach collaboration.

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Susans Reflection on PowerPoint
I love PowerPoint! I could (did) spend hours
trying out all the different animations and
effects that can be applied. I have never added
music to a slide before. My introduction to this
application was at Glendale Community
CollegeFall 1999. I made a PP about Assistive
Technology and I have been hooked ever since.
It is easy for students to create and the product
is so impressive, that students love it, too. I
wish more teachers would allow the students who
have difficulty writing, fulfill report
requirements with a PP presentation instead. I
encourage students in my classes to use this
medium whenever possible. Working as a group to
present a complete set of slides is different. I
was a little confused how this would work out,
but I think it will be fine. After all, how can
you go wrong with mushrooms
as the theme?
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Rick McDonald
Brief reflection about the presentation on the
topic and the process to build it.
I am not a huge fan of the PowerPoint
presentation. Too often I find these lead to long
boring lectures that are barely more than a
repeat of what is written on the slides. However,
as a group activity, creating this presentation
has worked well. We all have had a chance to
provide input. We learn not only from our own
ideas, but those of our group. This group is
working effectively and all members are
contributing. That makes the process enjoyable,
in contrast to other groups, that I have had
where two or three members work hard, but the
forth drags behind and has relatively little
impact on the end product.
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References

• PowerPoint Web Tutorial, Resource Retrieved from
  http//www2.nau.edu/edtech/newtutorials/powerp/ind
  ex.htm