After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content. The point of this post is to take a step back, reflect, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School, as expressed through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them. I don't take many "yay me" moments. But after 20 years, I'll soak this one in.
I was listening to the IMMOOC week 1 podcast on the way into work and was struck by something George Couros & Katie Martin were discussing. It was in relation to the peer review process for Katie’s new book Learner Centered Innovation . They were discussing the idea of feedback as a key during the creation of the book. Since the book is a physical published product, critical feedback after the fact would not be useful to the creation process. But critical feedback along the way, was essential to produce a quality final product. That led me to think about all of those end of course surveys I have taken and used to administer. They are being given after the fact. How does this information help inform the process during the learning process? Simply put, it doesn’t. The feedback is too late to affect the intended audience. When, George brings up the idea of timely feedback, we need to take it to heart. But, we also need to be aware of the type of feedback we are ...