They first learned to own the learning, and now I see a second big change in the way my students perceive learning and school. They are willing to experiment with how to organize themselves and to evaluate if it worked or not. Owning the learning AND owning the learning environment are two separate things. I believe having both perceptions in play is essential for students to maximize the learning potential.
Ann Michaelsen offers evidence from her own Norwegian classroom about the learning effects of student blogging and tweeting. You’ll find quotes from the kids, exciting news about the EduBlog Awards, and some excellent tips on using WebNotes and Twitter to quickly review and comment on student blog content.
One of the most important things we can do is teach our students how to use social media wisely, and how social media can be used for social good. In grade 11 English this semester, we’ve chosen to create a social media campaign to raise awareness around modern slavery. It’s not enough for my students to learn about slavery, they need to do something with it, specifically “real world” projects that matter.
I’ve nodded sagely as people discussed whether students should help create their own assessment rubric. Of course they should. Why doesn’t everyone do this, I wondered? It just never occurred to me to do it in MY classroom. It wasn’t that I didn’t think my students could do it. I somehow didn’t get my thinking from the “should†to the “I’m doing it.” Until this week.
I remember feeling incredibly disrespected. I had worked hard designing, assigning and grading a project that got him to learn what I wanted him to learn, and he just threw it away. And, how dare he throw it out in front of me.
What I failed to see was how disrespected he was.
Sometimes new learning experiences, just like gifts, don’t work as we expect they will. You probably won’t end up implementing them just like someone else did or the way you originally imagined you might. But in the end, if you’re making a change for the better — if you’re helping students take steps, even baby steps, to becoming more independent learners, that’s progress, and progress is what really matters.
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