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.
There were two different components I want students to report out on at the end of their personal learning project. I want students to be able to provide information as it related to their question or goal. The other report I wanted was a reflective piece on the process itself. I could see this being very doable as a “poster presentation” where students stood by a poster and reported out to a public audience. I like this idea but wanted to change it up for a couple of reasons. Due to the tight time frame in which I laid out this project, I wasn’t able to advertise and get enough of a public presence to attend. Without that audience, I would need to rely on students as the audience. I wanted all of my student to be able to experience the projects. So, I decided to find a way to make this poster presentation a little more virtual using augmented reality. Not familiar with augmented reality? Take a look at this clip from th...