Honestly 21st century teaching has become synonymous with being in touch with student needs. And that’s not always academic. Take now for example... or last spring... or two years ago in the fall. We are getting ROCKED in this area. And we aren’t the only ones, nationally or globally.
There is an effect. This is NOT business as usual. The 4 C’s are exceptionally useful. It’s common sense put in writing. I might argue that connecting with students is our needed 5th C. Our *best* students don’t want to show their faces. Our *top* students don’t want to talk in class. Our *incredible* minds are afraid of being wrong in this virtual environment. There is quite a bit of nurturing to just get kids to do work. Again, it’s not business as usual. For me, the shift has been probably easier than that of (some of) my English-teaching colleagues. Making our skills apply to real-world issues is more naturally part of the AP curriculum. It’s mostly non fiction— which makes this natural. We can use our skills to solve problems and create debates that use the tools of the class. That can be a little more difficult when reading, say, Lord of the Flies. But that means creating access and equity in ways we haven’t. Curriculum should be designed to allow students to explore and play and learn— with guidance. It is, after all, THEIR assent into adulthood that we are nourishing. Let them make mistakes and get guidance. Traditionally, lecture notes and tests on content that may not be skill based have pushed young people into adulthood with maybe a little grit, but little in the way of being able to know how we learn best. Can we please just focus on skills and let kids access the right tools for the job? Let them play and explore a little? Isn’t that how we learn *anything*?? Have I hijacked this post into a rant about a fifth C? You betcha. I am doing breakout rooms right now as I type this and its clearly a thing. I feel much better about teaching virtually than I did. We are learning. But we need a little connecting (or compassion) with our kids right now too. And that’s something I need to get more intentional with. I care. I just don’t know how to leverage that into improved connectedness in Zoom yet.
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... we look at Innovative Learning this week. And that makes sense. It’s our *why* we are here. With every ounce of my being and my intellect, and my experience, I want to shout from the rooftops: EVERYTHING I READ SUPPORTS THE NEED FOR TRAINING IN TRANSLITERACY. We are getting that now, in our cohort. In fact, Sir Ken Robinson’s work in “changing paradigms” and our viewing in “Did You Know...” support the idea that our truly important work will be in “intellectual athleticism” (remember that one?) nimble adjusting into different ideas, mediums, and fields of thought.
So that need exists. No doubt. And I think we all feel it more than ever right now. And in using my Google-Fu while searching around for case studies (BTW, those are proving difficult to find for me— at least recent, distance-learning examples of class interaction) I came across an Edutopia article on digital learning. Somewhere in the top two ideas were this: “Repeatable Systems.” And doesn’t that ALSO ring true right now. Be innovative. Be flexible. Adjust to this schedule. Adjust to that in person learning. Less class time. More classes. Here are 200 new digital tools. Learn them. Make sure kids feel connected. Provide meaningful feedback but teach ten classes. Don’t burn out. Kids need you. We value you as educators. Teach morality. Make sure equity is in the forefront of your planning. Make all of your learning available online. Update grades weekly. Contact families that have kids missing from Zoom. You have 160 students. Get to know them. This is barely hyperbole. And it’s hardly the stuff of a “repeatable system.” Note: I promise this isn’t a complaint! More than ever, I feel this is my calling. This is our crisis and I am prepared to meet it head-on. This is more a big picture/“realist” view of where we are at, and how our learning feeds this view. One of the reasons we all feel how we feel right now is because we know kids benefit from systems and repeatability (which is the whole premise of EduProtocols, right?), yet systemically we are changing everything. You ever made an INCREDIBLE meal for dinner while being creative and going off-the-cuff but then struggle to repeat that success— because the recipe was all jumbled? (This happens often with my smoked mac n cheese recipe) Our lessons will look a little like that until we slow down, get systematic, get clear, pick tools that work for US in our system and allow kids space to move between tasks with skills we build— and repeat this in our classroom. That list above is not doable in the ways it was a year ago at this time. But real growth can happen for our students— and not in a classic, high-stakes test way— if we focus not just on what is knowable, but what elasticity of mind can do for them in their lives. We can model that a little bit in our practice and be open about that process. Share with kids the challenges and the success we have. And that idea— that we can make something of this moment in history— might be the most important thing we can do for our students right now. |
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December 2020
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