Please post a comment about Section 3: Teaching Students How to Solve Problems. What do you think about the 4D's? What ideas do you have for developing evaluations of process skills?
I can feel it. There's a change. The conversations are different. People are excited. Rooms are transforming. On a Friday before school starts, I have now spent two weeks talking to teachers, teaching classes, visiting classrooms. This year feels different. Of course, the new hardware helps. Projectors, SmartBoards, soundfields mean that the technology is in the classrooms now. Teachers sound excited. I have been so impressed by the turn out at the summer trainings. In my conversations, I hear teachers asking great questions and wanting to try new things. The stereotype of teachers who won't change, who are stuck in the dark ages. That isn't true here. These teachers are doing great things already. I can't wait for the kids to arrive. This will be a whole new world for them. All day, everyday, connected to the world, interactive classrooms, multisensory lessons. This is going to be great!!
Dave, I like your comment about not letting our ceiling be our students' ceiling. How true! We need to stop thinking that we need to have all the answers in order for our students to figure things out. I think I learned this best through the iMovie projects that I had my students do. It was great because I had a general knowledge of the program, but then learned to allow my students to take on the role of experts and teach me what I didn't know. Students that might not have otherwise connected with me or the class were allowed to take on a leadership role and were proud to teach me something. In return, I learned a lot more than I anticipated, along with forming some great relationships.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of giving the students only partial information and having them form the questions that they need answered in order to move forward. I loved that the students asked for what the teacher was already wanting to teach. What a great way to get students involved.
I also liked the idea about having students grade themselves on their positive attitudes and independence. This is definitely something that I will think about incorporating with my class!