Week of August 18

                Thursday Thoughts August 18

I was talking to a colleague the other day and we were reminiscing about a time when elementary school was fun for students AND teachers.  We were able to teach the basics while challenging our students through fun activities.  When my former students contact me now, they still talk about the economics unit where they made and sold their own products.  They talk about the scripts that they wrote to change a particular story into a play (that was performed in class).  They can even remember the different roles that they held in our classroom "city".   I was proud to tell my colleague that we are striving to get back to those good times here at Medlock.  I am excited about our students' opportunities to do more with STEAM and technology and I love the fact that we encourage student creativity.  I believe that this will be the year that we can get back to the joy of teaching and our students will truly enjoy learning.

Staff Spotlight

This week I would like to shine the spotlight on Pam Martin.  It was a couple of weeks before Pre-planning that I called Pam and told her that she would be moving to First grade.  While I anticipated that we might lose a Kindergarten classroom after the 10 day count, I needed Pam to move grade levels due to the resignation of a First grade teacher.  No one wants to be told over the summer that they need to move to another grade level.  Teaching a new curriculum and bonding with a new team can be quite stressful.  But Pam took it in stride and immediately began working with her new team.  She has connected with her grade level and her classroom looks like she has always been in First grade.  It is easy to be positive and have a good attitude when things are going your way; however the true test comes when the unexpected is thrown at you.  Pam, thank you for what you are doing for our students.  It's going to be a great year!

12 Things That Will Disappear From Classrooms In The Next 12 Years

By Terry Heick

April 16, 2016

TeachThought.com

The classroom is changing because the world is changing.
That may not be as true as we’d like it to be–the pace of the change in education lags awkwardly behind what we see in the consumer markets. It could be argued that there’s been more innovation in churches and taxis than there’s been in libraries and schools, which is a special kind of crazy, but logical: “fields” that are dependent on consumer habits are far more vulnerable to disruption. Education, being more or less perma-funded by governments and misunderstood by the public, is more built to resist change.
But that doesn’t mean change isn’t happening (e.g., flipped classrooms, BYOD, maker movement), and that more isn’t on the way. So below I’ve collected a list of those ‘things’ most likely to see disappear from the classroom over the next 12 years, with technology, and technology-based thinking being the catalysts for change. 12 years isn’t really very long, but the pace of change isn’t linear. The difference between 2004 and today will likely be surpassed by today and 2028.

Whole Class Instruction/Direct Instruction
In what universe does standing up in front of 30 people to “teach” something make any sense? Are they all learning the same thing? Who thinks that is a good idea? Are they all ready for the same content in the same way? Is their genius going to shine through that whole class instruction, or is that simply the easiest way to express stuff. To “cover” it. (You might hear yourself say: “We went over this last week. You should remember.”) 
Personalized learning and whole class instruction are enemies. This change has been long over-due. Technology isn’t even necessary for this.

Letter Grades
Of all the ‘movements’ in education recently, the get-rid-of-the-letter-grade seems to be both the least ambitious and most likely-to-succeed. And the merits of getting rid of letter grades altogether seem clear: By removing the iconic carrot stick, the whole climate of learning has a chance to change.
In the meantime, grade backwards form zero if you have to, and consider these  alternatives to letter grades if you’re ready to make some real noise in your district. (Remember, the last two districts I worked in wanted me gone. Proceed with caution.)

Tests
Grades are the hell spawn of tests. Tests are the wiggling maggots of a stagnant curriculum map and dated way of thinking about learning.

Passwords
Not sure how technology is going to work this one out, especially in a classroom, but fingerprint scanners are a kind of metaphor for new thinking.

Traditional Schedules
One size fits all instruction makes about as much sense as one size fits all schedules. Or having X number of classes for Y number of minutes. New interactions = new thinking.

Computer Labs
20 years from now, computer labs may be replaced by Maker Labs and classrooms will become more like Google Rooms/computer labs. (See: 20 Classroom Setups That Promote Thinking.) For now, the idea of one or two rooms full of computers is slowly being replaced by laptop carts and Google Chromebooks.


Gender Labels

Less sure about this one. Clearly millennials and generation Z think differently about gender than boomers and generation X, but it’s less clear how that change ‘sticks’ as they begin having families and switching jobs and dealing–as a culture–with social change, increasing globalization, and so on. It may be a bit premature to say gender labels will outright disappear, but some kind of change seems to be happening.

Common Core Standards
Knowledge and information are being increasingly organized in new ways. Organic search, social referrals, blogs, RSS-based ‘digital magazines’ like feedly and Flipboard) blogs, and other technologies are becoming the new normal for content organization. Books (still seem to be) by far the standard for organizing ideas, but as even what we think of as a ‘book’ changes, the new for a
How about an uncommon curriculum with uncommon standards? But how can we know what they’re learning and how will we know what to teach?

Teacher’s Desk
As long as the teacher is the front of the room–or the center–content is secondary, and students ancillary. Technology allows students to directly interact with ‘filtered’ (e.g., textbooks and handpicked essays and librarian-selected picture books) and ‘unfiltered’ content (e.g., YouTube, Google, etc.) social networks, peer groups, digital archives of their own work, experts in the community, mentors, and more.

Student Desks
And as the daily interactions students have shift from teachers and ‘elbow partners’ to the world itself, rows of desks no longer do the trick.

Filing Cabinets
These may already be disappearing in your school. ‘Good riddance’ I say, but sometimes I wonder if things weren’t easier to find in filing cabinets than on Evernote.

Textbooks
This one should’ve placed higher. Textbooks really aren’t the evil they’re portrayed to be–they’re compilations of content that students need to master from a skills and basic knowledge perspective. The problem is that schools for too long have pursued skills and basic knowledge, and one-size-fits-all books–like whole class instruction–are the opposite of the critical-thinking based and personalized learning environment students need to thrive.