I love summer. As an administrator, I have a 12 month contract and work through the summer. And I absolutely love it. I spend the first part of each day reading through twitter, and all of the links and blog posts that come up in the tweets of those I follow. I compile those that seem most useful to me or my colleagues and then add links or descriptions to our faculty PD moodle pages. Once I've done all that, I move on to the day-to-day parts of my job (the parts that are actually in my job description!). This is a great way to start the day. Because the daily grind, the constant stream of emails, the phone calls to return, and hours and hours of meetings and planning can make it difficult to remember the bigger picture: how can I be the best teacher and administrator at the best school with the best learning? Starting each day by reading posts and ideas from great teachers from all over the world helps me keep the focus on learning. I, in turn, can help spread that to my whole school. Once the year gets started, I rarely have the time in my schedule to spend a block of time just reading and thinking about what I've read. So I really value the time I can have in summer to engage in the ideas out there. And I really value the opinions and ideas of all those teachers who are willing to put their ideas out there via blogs and twitter to keep the conversation moving.
We just finished our tenth grade seminar, which ends the year with a series of days on the ropes course. On one of the last days, we asked the students to go back to a previous challenge, one that had been pretty hard for them when they first tried it, and try it again now that they had completed even more challenging obstacles. They flew right through it. So we made it harder by loosening the footcables and the support ropes. They had no problem at all. In fact, they were begging for harder obstacles to try.
It reminded me of when I first got Guitar Hero. I played that thing constantly. I spent (some would say wasted) hour and hours sitting in front of the TV with a plastic guitar in my hands. I started out unable to finish even one song, but by the time I got bored with it and moved on to other things, I could play the entire game through on the expert level. And when I would go back to the easy level, it was kind of boring to even bother.
I think maybe there's something to learn about teaching from video games like that. Here are my ideas, but I'd love to hear others:
1. Scaffolding is absolutely essential. If the first task is too hard, you never go back. I have a string of computer and video games (and exercise routines, for that matter) that I never even bothered to try a second time because I was too frustrated at the start. As teachers, we need to be able to see where are students are at the start and meet them there.
2. There has to be some kind of goal to attain. Goals have to gradually become more challenging. I think this is the most important one of all. In Guitar Hero, I wanted to be able to play a song. Then play all the songs on easy. Then play on medium. Then beat my friends on medium. Then get perfect scores on easy. Etc. I stayed engaged in the game and continued to play even after I'd met the first goal because there was always another challenge out there to meet. But I was setting the goals for myself. I want to figure out a way as a teacher to help my students find the value in what they are learning and set their own goals for growth.
3. It has to feel at least a little bit fun. I know there is a lot of controversy about edutainment--and I HATE the use of technology or games or whatever just because teachers think students will enjoy it. But there has to be some way for students to feel learning is worth their time. One thing I did this year was free choice for class novels. Students could choose their own books to read. This isn't flashy or techy or even a new idea. But because they could choose their own books, there was a connection with the material. That helped students enter into conversations about the role of reading in our lives, and the ways that good readers' minds work, and the purpose of storytelling. I believe that if I had simply assigned one book to the entire class, I would never have gotten the level of growth from my students that I saw--because they didn't have any desire to attain the challenge.
I just started reading Daniel Pink's new book, Drive. I'm still in the first chapter. But I think there's a lot in there that speaks to my Guitar Hero experience. No one paid me to play or to improve. I don't hang out with gamer friends, so I didn't even receive status or bragging rights. But I certainly felt an intense motivation to continue to improve my ability.
As I move into summer planning mode, I'm going to look for ways I can incorporate a carefully structured and scaffolded set of challenges into presentation of new material. Maybe it will help my students to want to become experts.
And, for anyone who still hasn't seen it, check out this video:
Wallwisher is an online sticky-note wall that many people can contribute to. It's fast and free. I can imagine many uses for it, especially outlining and brainstorming collaboratively without having to have special software.
I think my favorite thing this year was SCORM authoring using UDUTU. This free web-based program lets me make interactive lessons that my students can access through our moodle. I made lessons about sentence structure, thesis development, MLA citation, etc. and when students turned in writing, I could direct them to the specific lesson for a reminder and practice.
I like it because I can have all students working on targeted practice, which allows me the time and space to work one-on-one with those who need more.
I don't use the graded quiz features of the lessons, though. The assessment comes in the form of the revised writing.
I need a place to compile all of the things I'm learning from other teachers.
Today I saw a really cool idea from a twitter post: http://www.mapskip.com/ I'm thinking our English or Literacy Skills class could do some cool reading/writing activities using this.
Maybe a local history project in the future as well.
