Skip to main content

Less Physics Mo Problems

Why am I writing this personal entry? Well, it is not an attempt to gain any sympathy. It attempts to show what is possible if a clear intention and goal serve the learner's needs.  In May of 2022 just near the end of another fantastic school year, I do not remember what happened. But, I was unable to finish the school year and was unable to teach the following year.  Why? On May 21st, 2022, I fell down a flight of 16 stairs (luckily carpeted) from the 2nd to 1st story of our home.  I was found at the bottom of the stairs. I was found foaming at the mouth. This would lead to a 2-month hospital stay which included an induced coma because my seizures would not stop, several rounds of lumbar punctures, and relearning basic physical movements like something as simple as being able to roll in the hospital bed. Simply put, when I was admitted to the hospital, I was diagnosed as being “critically ill.” Please take a moment and read those words: critically ill. They are not terms that are

What Elements Build Your Classroom





This post is part 2 of my constellation construction. Read part 1 here.
Once I had a vision for my classroom, or the why for my classroom, the next step was to consider what it would look like in the classroom. The Institute calls these “learner look fors”. I have a vision, but what evidence would I look for from a the perspective of an outside observer.
  • Students propose and engage in different forms of learning- modes, methods- based on their needs
  • Students' interests and strengths drive their connection to the content
  • Feedback drives next steps of learning and conferring is happening face to face and digitally 

The vision and look fors are things we are working towards. The next part of the “what” is  what elements would be considered key parts achieving that vision in my classroom.

After determining the “look fors”the next step is to find elements that align with the look fors. The honeycomb has many elements that are considered part of a learner centered ecosystem. With nearly 40 identified elements in 4 different focal spheres, no classroom model can intentionally focus on all. So as a part of the process, I was asked to focus on the essential elements to my vision from the different levels. Those levels are:







  • Students propose and engage in different forms of learning- modes, methods- based on their needs



  • Students' interests and strengths drive their connection to the content


  • Feedback drives next steps of learning and conferring is happening face to face and digitally




Before choosing the elements, one really needs to understand what they entail. From the Interactive Honeycomb one can get more information on what an element entails, including resources for implementation. A key to this step is thinking intentionally and not overextending the vision.


After elements were chosen, I was asked to think about how they connected in my mind to build a physical representation, a constellation of elements. I'll address how they are connected in the next post.




Before thinking about how an element will be implemented, the teacher really needs to understand what each element entails. Once identifying the elements, the teacher needs to understand what the element entails. I was asked to reflect on my current level of understanding of each element. This is where the resources from the Institute come into play. For each element they have rich pages that address why the element is important, what the element entails, and resources that address how educators can implement practices related to the element.


This is really important to understand. Before you can design how to implement a practice, you need to know what it is. It's not enough to choose elements to implement, educators need to know what the practices entail before looking at how to implement.

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Twitter Cards for Blogger

So, I’ve been seeing people with beautiful Twitter Cards in my Twitter Stream. They make it clear that there is a web page to visit and give a quick preview of what would be found. Something like the one below: I’ve been wondering how to get one of the cards to appear when I tweet out a link to my latest blog post.  Since I use Blogger, there is not a simple button to click to turn this on.  I had to find a way to paste new code into the HTML code of my blog.  It took some searching from multiple sites to get a completely functional.   This site though was quite helpful.  But, I’d like to walk you through my process and hopefully it helps a few out. There are a few types of Twitter Cards.  Two that at most frequently see are the basic summary card and the summary card with large image.  Below you can see the layout of each, but realize that they both have the same content pieces. This is going to look like a lot more work than it will actually be

Personalized Learning Tasks and Roles

Yesterday, I read a great post by Jim Rickabaugh dealing with the roles of learner and teacher in a personalized learning environment by looking at tasks . The roles were set up on a continuum. This article timed perfectly with a reflection on part of Students at the Center by Allison Zmuda and Bena Kallick on idea generation and task development I had in mind. These two works are the focus of my reflection here. I think a key misunderstand teachers have when it comes to digging into personalizing learning is that for planning purposes, we no longer begin with standards but with student desires.  I believe like all good instruction, we need to start with the standards.  Think about it, standards are what we want all learners to know and be able to do as a result of passing through our educational system. That is why it is essential that we make sure that standards are representative of what we believe is important for learners to be informed and productive in their futur

Pear Deck 101 + Q&A

  Last week, I presented as a part of Pear Deck’s Pear Fair 2020. My presentation was Pear Deck 101 for Google Slides. During the presentation, there was a live chat. Many people said it went too fast for a 101 Session. Luckily, it was recorded so it can be rewatched.  Also, many said that they wanted to know how to build a Pear Deck first. I structured the presentation to show what Pear Deck was before showing how to make one. Perhaps that wasn’t the best structure. But, I’m going to stick with my philosophy of showing what something is before showing how to make it. The presentation, which can be watched below, was structured in several different sections What is Pear Deck? Providing an overview of the experience from the Teacher and Student perspectives. How do you build a Pear Deck in Google Slides? How do you start a Pear Deck presentation? How do you end a Pear Deck presentation? Here is the Slideshow I shared during the session bit.ly/pearfair101 Time really flew in the sess