October-November 2020: What's Been Happening At PDC!?!

   A Journey Through The PDC Universe

    In the realm of academics, our students have been pressing forward with all of their might, individually & within a group setting. 

    On Planet ELA (AKA English/Language Arts) students are brainstorming, compiling interesting content, developing paragraphs, writing essays [realistic fiction & personal narratives], and revising essays line-by-line. In the Seas of Math, students are diving into decimals & geometry while also swimming through multiplication and division reviews. 

    During their travels through the countries of South America, students learned to spell and locate all 14 countries. The weeks before Christmas break, students will be digging away at different World Histories while stopping to take in the countries of Europe. Google Earth has been such an amazing tool to use in our travels around the world. One of our students LOVES trains and everything having to do with trains. He and his teacher (Ms. Jen) enjoy traveling all around the world checking out different train stations and following the tracks throughout a country.

    In the field of Science, students have been journeying through the microcosmos. Additionally, in Biology, they have been gaining a better understanding of just how connected LIFE on Planet Earth truly is. #academics

Day-by-day, year-by-year the development of PDC's academic curriculum is occurring. A part of the PDC vision is a replicable academic, social-emotional, and vocational curriculum. Additionally, we seek to publish a PDC educational board game.

    Now, there is one particular realm within the PDC universe that has truly been amazing to visit, daily. This is the Land of Zen. Zen, by definition, means a state of calm attentiveness. The Land of Zen has two most interesting provinces. Every morning, in the province of Calm & Concentration, students and staff engage in stretching exercises focused on releasing stress and tension. After stretching exercises, students and staff either do guided breathing exercises OR mindful activities focused on directing the mind toward the movement of their body and/or their mind (self-awareness). 

Calm & Concentration

    Peaceful Warrior Training also occurs in the Land of Zen. In this second province, students learn about themselves (self-awareness), about harmony, and about being at peace and having an “inner smile,” which is a state of contentment and gratitude. They do this through the process of what we call “silence,” “gathering,” “flow,” and “condensing,” as taught to Sifu Ramon Diaz by his teacher Sigung Jorge Gonzales, D.O. Assisting is NASM-Certified Personal Trainer Diane Simmons, owner of Healthy Movement: Cypress Taiji.

Sifu Ramon & Laoshi Diane

    The Land of Zen is very important at Paradigm Development Center. Why, you may ask? Because many people on the autism spectrum experience mild-to-severe anxiety, difficulties managing their emotions, and other mental health issues. In addition to these, social identity and communication challenges also directly contribute to an inability to focus, decreased concentration, racing thoughts, and low self-esteem. Our daily visits to the Land of Zen have proven to be beneficial for this particular student population because it allows for a consistent, safe space to dig deep into self-awareness, develop a calmer mind, bring detailed attention to one's surroundings, and it allows for the genuine ability to "be still" and sit in this stillness. #socialemotional

Part of PDC's vision is to expand the Peaceful Warrior program to include people and families from in and around our community.

Thermostat Minds

Calm & Concentration is a daily session that occurs at 9:00 am every morning at Paradigm Development Center. During these sessions, students and staff work on self-awareness, concentration & focus, and emotion regulation. These very important abilities are achieved through guided breathing exercises and yoga.

Friday morning (September 11, 2020), during Calm and Concentration, my students and I discussed the spirit of the work we do in our morning sessions. We are attempting to connect our minds with our bodies and to gather our intentions in a constructive manner, to prepare ourselves for the mental, emotional, and academic challenges of the day.

We talked about how many of us wake up with feelings of exhaustion, negativity, and resistance to the challenges that the day promises to serve up. We all connected with this reality as it is common among some people who wake up early, or that have their days planned out by parents and caregivers.

Then we talked about an analogy for the successful setting of our intentions and the bringing together of our internal resources for the day. This analogy was the contrast between Thermometers and Thermostats.

Thermometers can be useful in what they do. The students identified that Thermometers take the temperature of the atmosphere that they are placed in. They can tell us a concrete number to represent the heat or cold that we experience in that environment. 

Next, we discussed what a Thermostat was. Thermostats not only tell the temperature of the atmosphere but they control other resources that can bring the environment to the desired temperature.

To bring home the analogy, I asked how useful it would be for someone to use a Thermometer to tell them that the room they are sweating in was 125 degrees. Without a way of adjusting the environment, this measurement would not relieve the suffering of anyone sitting in the room. Only with a Thermostat would the reading of the extreme temperature be useful, as the Thermostat has the ability to change the environment to a more suitable temperature. 

Our minds are much more useful when they play the role of the Thermostat. We do need to recognize when there are uncomfortable environments, unsuitable for productivity and enjoyment of our days. Then, we must bring our resources together to tame our environment and make it suitable for the challenges that the day will present.

This is ONE of the purposes of our morning Calm & Concentration session.

- Mr. Loren Marvin

Co-Founder & Lead Teacher @Paradigm Development Center

Downtown Houston: A Great Educational Setting

School Year 2019-2020: PDC's First Field Trip

On September 13, 2019, PDC embarked upon quite the experiential adventure into downtown Houston. We parked in the Phoenicia Market & Cafe garage. One of our teachers had a discussion with students about the realities of parking in downtown areas of cities. These realities include the difficulties of finding parking, the costs associated with parking in downtown, and the moral dilemma attached to parking in a "for customers only" lot. After this conversation, they took the elevators down to the market and cafe to meet up with our other group. Before they ventured into the market to peruse the scrumptious array of decadent foods, desserts, and drinks we stopped by the cafe stage to pose for silly pictures. FUN! After everyone walked around the market, thoroughly impressed by food items from countries we have not yet learned about, we sat down to eat.

After filling our stomachs, we pondered two questions. Should we go to Discovery Green park and run the risk of overheating, unnecessarily, OR should we go on over to The Shops @Houston Center and browse through the shops. Our younger students really wanted to go to the playground, so we all decided to play and relax in the park. [Check us out walking over to Discovery Green]. After we walked over to Discovery Green, we stopped near the water spouts for a bit before continuing onto the playground. On the way to the playground, we all took a moment to recognize the clouds in all their glory as they shaded us from the powerful rays of the Earth's sun. We saw people walking their dogs, young moms with young children, and corporate workers eating their lunch. PDC staff & students settled in and slowed down from the hustle & bustle of the school week. #BreatheInBreatheOut

After this relaxing jaunt in the park, we headed over to The Shops @Houston Center. which is a mall. Road construction required us to go down a block before we could cross the street. Once we entered the building, we jumped onto an elevator and pressed "M" for the mall. We thought something was awry when we continued to stop on floor "4" even though we kept pushing "M". We didn't know what was going on so we all stayed on the elevator which continued to rise up and down retrieving and discarding people. We finally stepped off onto the ground floor. We then walked across to another set of elevators and pushed "M". To our surprise, we again ended up at floor "4". Well, needless to say, we were all a little beside ourselves and took this as an "opportunity" to ask someone where the mall was. This person told us the mall was on floor "4". So, we learned that the elevator buttons and the floor number may not always line up. #RealWorldExperience #PayAttention

We walked off of the elevators laughing at ourselves! 

We began our trek through the stores in the mall. After a bit, we sat in the food court area for 30 minutes and talked. Then we, again, walked the mall heading toward the sky bridge. Sadly, the sky bridge entrance was closed. The students were really looking forward to going across the sky bridge. A teacher said, "Let's go find out why it is closed". Everyone walked up to a super nice security guard and we asked him why the sky bridge was closed. He said, "Because it is going to be torn down". A teacher asked, "Is there another sky bridge nearby"? He said, "Yes" and told us how to get there. Some of the students wanted to check out one more store, so we decided to do that instead of walking over to the other sky bridge. We will check that bridge out next time. 

After all this walking, we were all ready to head back to Paradigm Development Center. So we did! 

Past Downtown Experiences

~~~ In previous years, our students were taught lessons about the Metro rail and they rode the Metro rail from the Northline Metro Transit Center to various stops in downtown Houston. One of these stops included our field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts to enjoy Vincent Van Gogh's special exhibit. Our students have walked through & ate lunch in the Houston downtown tunnel system, many times. Our students have observed transient people and learned about some of the different reasons they may be without shelter and money. And our students have walked up Main street, through different shops, checked out different murals, and learned how to cross the street near Metro rail crossings. Last year, at the Houston Hobby Center, the students enjoyed a wonderful visual and music performance. And after one of our lunch adventures in the downtown tunnels, we all walked over to the police museum, then relaxed next to one of the many downtown water fountains. Downtown Houston has been a great place for our students to learn about one-way streets, public transportation, sky bridges, reasons for the lack of public restrooms, and how to use parking meters. They have also practiced ordering and paying for their lunches.~~~

                    

                     

Computer Science: Scratch, Coding, & Projects

An Introduction

In our efforts to introduce all of our students to the foundations of Computer Science we have participated in multiple “Hour of Code” sessions. These activities have served as a basis for each student gaining an understanding of how coding can be strung together to make and control things in an animated, game-like format.

We have designed small projects, using MIT’s Scratch platform, to both teach and provide an environment for them to show their mastery over more and more complex programming concepts. Scratch allows us to use the elements of coding for anything from animating a story to creating playable games to share with others. In doing so, students are able to use their own creative and expressive abilities to bring their imaginations to life in many fun but rigorous ways. The end products become instant gratification for them, but also instant proof of their individual levels of mastery over the taught concepts.

Scratch uses a structure of “building blocks” that represent the numerous commands that would be expressed through written code in other platforms or languages. This way they do not have to be bogged down with the tedious discipline of proper syntax, just to have one little error make their programs not run properly or at all. Because they use “object-oriented” representation of real code, they can assimilate to other languages later, using the same logic from their building blocks. The students have covered programming fundamentals that include queries, conditional statements (If-Then, If-Then-Else, When _ is pressed-Do), Boolean operators, Wait commands, communication blocks for sequencing events, Loops, Conditional Loops, and more.

As we are always looking for multiple ways for our children to express themselves, this is one serious way that also gives them the confidence that they can take on such daunting things like the world of Computer Science. In comparison, much of the regular education world is not being exposed to this growing field of expertise, and their students will have to desperately catch up to ours some day.

Projects completed during the 2018-2019 school year include customized video games, student name animation, story-telling, a click game, and the students animated a life goal.

Summer Workshop: Robotics

Paradigm Development Center (PDC) had a three-day Robotics workshop! The workshop dates were June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. Students engaged in the design engineering process while building and programming the Mindstorm EV3 robot.

Introduction to Robotics

Here are the lessons and activities they completed over three-days:

Day One

Day one was started with a short video on some of the specific and relevant 21st-century applications of Robotics in the United States and around the world. Students dived in by asking great questions that led Mr. Marvin into a Robotics introduction (what it is and how it is being used today). Then, they worked on trainer robots to get a better understanding of the use of specific parts such as the "brain", cables, gears, types of motors, and sensors. Then, they built a robot using EV3 Mindstorms.

Robot Parts

motors
allows the robot to move.

• electric 
• pneumatic
• liquid

gears

used to transfer motion.

sensors 
measures or detects physical properties. 

gyroscope sensor
a tool that can measure the "rate of change" or if it moves in a direction it can tell you have fast it moves in whatever direction. For example, our telephones have gyroscopes that allow us to change the direction of our screens.

push button sensor 
when the button is pressed scream all day until it is unpressed. Right now this thing can't do anything without an electrical feed going through it.

wheels 
round wheels and a spherical wheel.

microprocessor
tells the motor what to do.

The students disassembled two robots down to parts gears, shafts, tires, and cables.

Student question: How do robots know where to go? 

An Introduction To Sensors

Teacher (Mr. Marvin): "What are the two most important things you need to be able to see as a human being?".

Eyes. Your eyes are connected to your brain by an optic nerve. A robot's optic nerve is a cable that can send a signal to the robot "brain". Every robot has to have a brain. The microprocessor is the brain.

Motors and gears that have sensors can be used to control robots. If the motors do not have gears you can use pneumatics like air pressure and tubes to move the robot. After movement is accomplished, then one may ask, "How does my robot know where to go?". Just like the human body, robots need sensors (senses).

Day Two

A Programming Lesson

The students built their robots with a light sensor. Then, the students added intelligence to their robots by programming them.

Mr. Marvin walked the students through the online Mindstorms platform programming tabs. A student said, "That looks like what we did last week in Video Game Design."

Mr. Marvin covered basic programs and, briefly, covered complex programs (that use Physics and Calculus Algorithms). 

The K-Turn

Objective: Learn and program how to tell the robot what to do.

The K-turn, also known as the three-point turn is the standard method of turning a vehicle around to face the opposite direction in a limited space, using forward and reverse gears.

The students were told the objective was not to get it right the first time. The goal is to figure out what they needed to change to cause the robot to do what they wanted it to do.

Questions to ask: What does the robot need to do? How can we move the robot a specific distance?

Students performed Math calculations in order to go from the circumference to distance. Students learned and applied knowledge about the relationships of the circumference of wheels to distance traveled.

Here is a run-through test for the K-turn.

Day Three

Students performed mathematical calculations using (a-b)c to program their robot motor outcome value based on the distance to objects. 

Mathematical Relationship

(a-b)c is a relationship between things. Mr. Marvin talked with the students about variables and assisted each student through the mathematical calculations. He reminded the students, "Just like yesterday, we changed the numbers around to have the robot perform a K-turn. Today, we are performing the same operations to program the light sensor that will allow the robot to follow a black oval-shaped track".

Students built the black oval-shaped track with the understanding that they couldn't make the corners too sharp or the robot (light sensor) would have problems following it. 

Student question: Do we have to do Math all the time?

Teacher: The computer does the math, we only set up the relationship. We have to tell the computer what relationship we want to use for our numbers. For example, (a-b)c is the algorithm for speed adjustments based on distance.

Light Sensors

Mr. Marvin told the students a couple things about light sensors. He gave them a better understanding of what light sensors do. A light sensor has a light and a sensor. The light emits light and receives light. The sensor processes the percentage of light return. It knows how bright the light is and it processes the percentage of light return. With this understanding, students input their numbers into the Mindstorms programming platform.

The students performed a run-through to test the light sensors. 

On the last day, each student was given a certificate for successfully completing this workshop. 

Camp Daily Schedule

Inclusive STEAM + Nature Summer Camp

The schedule for both weekly camp sessions

July 22-July 26, 2019 from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm

July 29-August 2, 2019 from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm

The goal of each Camp Paradigm day is to nurture your camper's social, emotional, physical, and intellectual functioning with positive, fun, and challenging activities. 

At 10:00 am, each camp day will begin with fun, interactive group games and activities that focus on Self-Awareness, Awareness of Others, and Awareness of the Natural World. The keyword is Awareness. 

On Mondays & Wednesdays at 11:00 am, Karen Bunch Stirling will guide your camper through 20-minutes of low-impact yoga exercises and mind-calming activities. Additionally, on Mondays & Wednesdays, campers may create expressions of art that also calm the mind.

On Tuesdays & Thursdays at 11:00 am, your camper will participate in REFIT® exercises with Sara Tracey. REFIT® is a cardio dance, toning, and balancing exercise class. Moves that are set to music will impact every part of the body, including the brain!

Every camp day, at 12:00 pm, your camper will eat lunch. Each camper should bring their own lunch. 

Every camp day, after lunch, campers will engage in camping, survival, and independent living skills games and activities such as: Can opening without a can opener & how to maneuver through automated phone systems. 

Every camp day, at 1:00 pm, your camper will be guided through a fun, yet challenging STEAM activity. They will build & program a Mindstorms EV3 robot. They will also design & create their own personalized video games or complete an Hour of Code activity. Each camper will learn & exercise problem-solving, teamwork, and creative thinking skills.

Every camp day, at 2:15 pm, your camper will engage in nature education activities such as journal art, wood art, a nature scavenger hunt, building boats "that float" with items from nature, and nature walk. All outdoor games and activities are dependent on the weather.

On Fridays, your camper will end their week writing (or speech-to-texting) about their camp adventures in their personalized camp journals. Each Friday will also include a special guest and musical activities (Fun with maracas or "Name The Genre" game). 

*Please note: The schedule is subject to change due to weather or for other reasons.

**Additionally, if and when the weather permits, we will engage in outdoor activities (i.e., camp games, water balloons, a scavenger hunt, confidence course, water sprinklers, etc.)

Additional Information

During PDC's Inclusive STEAM + Nature program, campers 
10-19 years old will engage in group activities focused on awareness of self & others, Technology + Art activities, Lego robotics, yoga, physical activities, and nature-related activities. In addition to the regular STEAM + Nature Education activities, campers will also engage in camping, survival, and independent living skills. 

Camp t-shirts are sold separately and are optional. 

The cost is $300 per camper plus a $50 supply fee. The total camper cost covers materials for science & technology activities, recreation items, educational worksheets, hands-on activities, and the services of a yoga and fitness instructor.

To register your camper in the STEAM + Nature Summer Camp, fill out the application here.

Have questions? Call (281) 402-6677, email houstonpdc@gmail.com, or visit the PDC website.

www.paradigmdevelopmentcenter.com

Summer Workshop: Video Game Design

Paradigm Development Center (PDC) had a three-day Google CS First Game Design workshop! The workshop dates were June 13th, 14th, and 15th. Students engaged in Computer Science and created their own personalized video games. 

The Basics

Here are the lessons and activities they completed over three-days:

Day One

• Introduction to Computer Science
• Basic video game coding concepts (Moving the character smoothly with the arrow keys)
• Scratch computer programming language
• Customize projects with add-ons
• Projects Completed: Game Storytelling & A Racing Game

Day Two

• Programmed the game character to follow the mouse pointer
• Learned then programmed "Events" coding blocks to tell the computer when to run code
• Learned then programmed "Control" coding blocks to keep the characters within the boundaries of their game
• Learned about X & Y axis (the position of the game characters on the screen)
• Learned how to insert Text, Sound, & Color-Changing features using the Motion, Looks, Sounds, and Sensing coding blocks
• Learned how to code "Winning Conditions" (What happens when their game character wins.)
• Customized projects with add-ons
• Projects Completed: Maze Game & A Platform Game

Day Three

• Learned about Randomness, Variables (things that change), Problem Decomposition (breaking a bigger problem into smaller steps)
• Programmed their characters to move in random directions and bounce off walls
• Used a timer (variable) to keep score
• Watched a short video titled: 7 Game Design Mistakes To Avoid
• Customized projects with add-ons
• Project Completed: Escape Game
• Edited and further customized previous projects

Vocabulary

variables, values (x & y axis), program, code, application, condition, platform, operators, and statement

On the last day, each student was awarded a certificate for successfully completing Google CS First Game Design. They were also encouraged to continue developing their games and practice their coding skills with Hour of Code activities.

Staff Spotlight: Karen Stirling

Bringing Life To PDC!

Karen is the Yoga, Art, and Nature Education teacher at Paradigm Development Center (PDC). She is also an avid naturalist and animal lover. Her heart for the wellness of others and the Earth is valuable and effective within the PDC school environment. She has inspired us to see things in the Earth that need to be seen.

Due to her vision and effort, this year PDC will be hosting Monarch butterflies migrating from Mexico. Karen has spent hours taking courses and researching which specific plants would be most beneficial to host the butterflies as they migrate through Texas destined for Canada. She taught the students how to recognize eggs and distinguish larval (caterpillar) instars of Monarch butterflies. She also instructed on Monarch anatomy, possible extinction due to environmental factors, lifecycle, and migratory patterns. She walked each student through the cold stratification process and talked with them about how important milkweed is to Monarch butterflies (Milkweed is the only food Monarchs eat.). During this hands-on activity, she showed them how to successfully cold stratify milkweed seeds.

Monarch Butterly / Sensory Garden 

The Project

Karen is leading the planning, organizing, and building of the PDC Monarch butterfly/Sensory garden that will be hosting migrating Monarchs. Thus far, she and her volunteers have planted Pentas, Lantana, Black-Eyed Susans, Copper Canyon Daisy, Blue Porter Weed, Jasmine, a variety of milkweeds, Pineapple Sage, Cherry Queen Autumn Sage, and Salvias. They have also planted a Gala apple tree and a Ponderosa lemon tree.

A couple weeks later, after all the plants were planted, Karen decided to dig some of them back up so she could put more dirt down. She was concerned that a strong rainstorm may flood the plants, so she raised the plant mounds by two-feet and installed garden fences around each mound.

We will write a follow-up blog post highlighting the garden building process. Check out pictures and videos below!

The Importance of a Calm Mind!

How We Start Our Day

At PDC, stretching and calming exercises happen every morning at 9:00 am. The students and the teachers gather in the recreation room on exercise mats and are led into stretching and breathing exercises. On average, most students take two to three weeks before they are able to sit still for 10-minutes without being distracted.

Why do we do this?

We have designed the beginning of our day as a form of therapeutic pre-scheduled maintenance called “Calm & Concentration”.  We realize the importance of our students’ physical/proprioceptive needs as well as explicitly practicing interventions that help them to regulate emotions.

What we do?

We start each session in the morning by focusing our attention on how the mind can interact with the body by doing a light set of stretching or Yoga poses. We focus on being present with and controlling our bodies while challenging ourselves through balancing and building muscle strength that is required for a long and healthy life. The tension and rhythm of the stretches give our minds plenty to focus intently on while we also practice breathing smoothly and appropriately. As we do balancing poses, students are challenged by engaging both sides of their body and the associated parts of their brains that control their dominant/non-dominant motor controls. For many of them, this is the first time in each day that they are paying “attention” to the intricate details of what goes on in their bodies. 

After stretching, we practice 10-minutes of concentration meditation. The students are asked to find a relaxing position to stay in for the whole 10-minutes (usually sitting or lying on their backs). They are then instructed to focus all of their attention on their breathing and how each part of their body responds to every moment of the in and out breaths. For instance, they may focus for a few breaths on how their toes may tighten on the in-breath and loosen on the out-breath, or whether there is any tightness at all in their toes. The key is to stay focused on the interactions of the breath with the body for as many continuous moments throughout the 10-minute period.

We have designed this activity to be advantageous for the cultivation of long continuous focus necessary for learning complex activities and reducing mental disturbances throughout the day.

- Loren Marvin, Lead Teacher