Posts
Touching Students’ Hearts
This is always a pressing goal.
Students need to feel valued and need to value others. Each year I try to impress upon them that they are incredibly powerful beings who are capable of making an impact on the world - right now.
In addition to day-to-day interactions, I show them examples of other young people who are doing just that. Malala is a powerful example. But I also show them that impacting the world can happen in smaller ways, too. Georgia orphan's mission: Make others smile moved many of my students, and the little boy’s simple actions are no less great than Malala’s.
I also use videos such as The Butterfly Circus to encourage students to see value in themselves and others. Some students are moved to tears.
The students are also encouraged to figure out what they are going to do with their knowledge as they learn in class. Currently, they have been investigating standard of living. I need to expose students to what others experience so the students may appreciate what they have. But more importantly, they need to be moved to consider how their new understandings are important and what they can do: What is their role in the world? What influence can they have? How can they make people’s lives better?
Already, this year, I have started down this path with my students. But I need to continue to move my students - to touch their hearts - so they are empowered to their greatness within and blossom as leaders.
Redesign the Classroom
I want them to collaborate. I want them to have choices. I want them to be curious and lead their own learning.
I think that a redesigned classroom can help facilitate those expectations.
The school district designed my classroom just like all others: one size fits all. They put in individual student desks and those lovely, hard, industrial chairs. There is a front of the classroom, defined by the projector and SmartBoard.
I want my students to be more comfortable in the classroom. I want better work surfaces to replace the desks. I want the classroom to have learning stations that are unique from one another: tables, “work benches,” multiple monitors/tvs from which they can present, places to investigate, places to create, and at least some cushions for those chairs, if not more comfortable spots in which they could choose to learn. I don’t want there to be a steadfast area of focus in the room - the front.
I want to sit down with my principal to talk through my reasons and my ideas. I’m hopeful that my physical classroom can start moving in the direction I would like it to.
Global Connections
I need to do a better job facilitating interactions between my students and the world. There is great value in the students realizing they are an influential piece of the world.
The students maintain blogs, but there is little interaction with them. I have encouraged parents to interact on the blogs with comments, but they seldom do. I need to push myself to tap other resources, such as social media and colleagues, that will generate a wider audience for the students’ blogs - so their sphere is influence broadens and they can see the impact of their positive digital footprint.
Another avenue I have to force myself to take is Skype. I have been hesitant to utilize Skype with my students because it is very much an unknown to me. I can often be very cautious and meticulous in getting myself familiar with something before I take the leap and challenge myself with the risk. This school year I have established a class twitter account (@Mr_dEsClass) through which I encourage and facilitate student tweets, but I feel it is high time I push my classes into Skype.
If you have three pressing goals you want to accomplish by the end of school this year or, if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.
This post is inspired by Share #YourEduStory. The prompt from @bjornpaige was “What are your three most pressing goals between now and the end of the school year?”
No comments:
Post a Comment