Our job as educators is to be thought-provoking instead of thought-providing, says Wisconsin principal Matt Renwick. One-to-one technology is only as good as the meaning students make with it. Our students will make meaning if what we present is meaningful to them. This means taking advantage of strengths that may in the past have been seen as problems. “Talking†and “arguing†are fine examples.
Primary teacher & connected educator Kathy Cassidy summarizes the first year of one-to-one Apple iPads in her classroom of six-year olds. Cassidy offers a crisp summary of each aspect of the experience, with lots of great photos!
As the new school year begins, teachers can change their “stuff,” says Becky Bair. That’s the easy part. But if they haven’t changed their teaching lives to fit the needs of today’s students, then their classrooms will never become places where powerful learning is always going on.
As a new book by Kaplan and Owings clearly demonstrates, many schools are mired in an education culture that’s a poor match for the needs of today’s K12 students. They need a culture re-boot – a process explored in detail by the authors and summarized by PLP Voices reviewer Sister Geralyn Schmidt.
“There should be no one prescribed way to help students achieve their goals,” says elementary principal Matt Renwick. “Yet to refuse to learn more about teaching practices that have large amounts of evidence to support their use, and instead stick with what we feel comfortable with, is at best being obstinate and at worst neglectful.”
The days of students reading only books, writing only on paper and becoming literate in an isolated classroom have past, says primary teacher Kathy Cassidy. Even in Grade One, students need to learn new vocabulary, new mediums of communication, and new ways to connect with the world.
Pulling children out for extra help can be a tricky area to navigate, writes Arwen Kuttner, reflecting on her first year in a support teacher role. “Elementary age children walk a tightrope between craving the individual attention I can give them, and the fear that others will think less of them for needing that attention. I have to normalize the experience and make them feel good about coming.” Here are some ways she works to accomplish that.
Taking the posture of a learner first, educator second requires us to understand that we will never arrive at the place of “super educator.†The truth is that even if we solve the problems facing us as a profession, the solutions will only give way to new problems. Now more than ever we need to become the learners we have always wanted our students to be. We do not need information about teaching and learning. We need revelation.
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