I Will Not Give Up On My Dreams

Image used with permission from Jamie Johnson Photography. Visit the website HERE

Have you ever watched an old movie that had a schoolhouse scene in it? You know the type... where the teacher is standing at the front of the room and the kids are all dutifully writing what the teacher is saying while sitting at their desks?

Sitting.           

At their desks.

So much has changed in the field of education. We have one-to-one devices in schools. There are online programs and textbooks that students can access through their phones. There are even online educational platforms that can organize and facilitate remote learning for students outside of the actual school building.

But what about inside the classroom? The modern day elementary classroom has become a dynamic, hands-on learning experience. Students move around the classroom, adding a kinesthetic component to their learning.  It is the case in the high school classroom however, that the paradigm shift from passive learner to active learner has not fully taken hold.

But why not?

As a math teacher, I understand that there are a LOT of standards to cover in a year. And I understand that each student is unique, requiring differentiation of the material. I also know that doing it any way other than the way we have always done it is scary. There. I said it. Change can be terrifying.

But what if we could do all of these things in an effective way that got kids up, moving, and challenged them to the point that they stayed engaged for the ENTIRE class period? Would that not be incredible?

My dream is to teach lessons and incorporate into those lessons opportunities for the students to get up and work individually and collaboratively with their classmates. They might be working remediation problems, working through homework or even watching a video tutorial of the lesson, created by another student. Whatever they are doing, my dream is that it will not be passive.

At the end of the 2016-2017 school year, I was awarded an Institute for Innovation grant to help me work through  some of these dreams. Over the summer and the first few month of the year, things have been changing in my classroom. I have received some of the hardware required to help me get my kids up out of their seats. the first installation came in September: the boards.

  

 My grant covered the cost of getting new, full-length boards installed on two walls. My third wall has the previous dry-erase boards mounted. If you look to the top of the boards, you will see there is wiring hanging down. That is for 4 projectors that are currently being mounted.

With these, I can show graph paper, problem sets, or remediation video on one location while having students work in another. My ability to differentiate just grew!

I admit it. This is all really scary. And it is a lot of work. Some days, I feel like I am driving a runaway freight train with passenger cars full of teenagers. I may have one idea for the direction that a lesson will go, and then halfway through I realize that it will not work the way I planned it. So we punt. But some of our best class days have come from punting.

I've had one class get into a heated discussion about why the way a problem was worked was acceptable, despite it not being the way I taught it. That discussion carried over in to the next class period where the students actively worked problems on the board until they came to the reason that it wasn't a general principle, but a solution that was problem-type specific.

I had another class that was struggling with a certain problem type. One student from group A was so comfortable with working at the boards that she went from group to group and taught everyone.

This week, we all stepped out on a limb and each student recorded him or herself teaching a problem from the review. They uploaded those problems to a Canvas discussion board (Canvas is our classroom platform) and then each student watched the videos and made comments. For this first attempt, we decided that the comments should be about the video production, so that we can make sure that our videos are well-made and will be helpful to students.

And of course, there are days when they have to sit and listen to me teach a bit. Some days more than others. But as the year progresses, I am getting more accustomed to working in this way, and the kids are getting better about moving around.

Over all, I am just so grateful to be able to do this with these kiddos. I cannot express strongly enough how amazing it is to have the opportunity to not give up on my dreams. And in that  part of my heart where all the teacher dreams originate,  I hope that my kiddos learn that they don't have to give up on their dreams either.

And one final note: I would like to say a sincere "Thank you" to Jamie Johnson for allowing me to use her incredible photograph for this first posting. I fell in love with this photograph because I thought that it perfectly represented what I am trying to do. If you would like to see more of her work, please click this LINK .

Until next time...