According to many definitions of good teaching, I don’t qualify:

There are likely a multitude of sins I have not listed.

Here’s what [...]]]> According to many definitions of good teaching, I don’t qualify:

• I don’t clearly state objectives
• If I do state them, they are as fuzzy as all get out
• I have a hard time measuring student progress
• My course syllabus changes almost daily
• I never use tests
• I constantly stray off topic

There are likely a multitude of sins I have not listed.

Here’s what best summarizes my teaching approach:

Me can be swapped for students. Thanks D’arcy for the graphic.

This is what I want for my students.  While I have many shortcomings, I’m good at finding smart people who are willing to spend time with my students and share what they know.  I’m also blessed to have a number of people in my network that willingly comment on my student’s blogs and encourage them to reflect and learn.

As I work with teachers in K-12, I’m bound to work within a structure that values grades, systematic growth, accountability, and to certain degree uniformity.  Without going into all the details of the implications of these values, I don’t discount them all and work to extract the aspects of these ideals that are most beneficial to students. Some days that’s hard.  Many of them are designed to insure that students are getting a quality education.  All well meaning but at times become so convoluted that teachers sense frustration and stress in trying to work in this system:

How is it that we have so many passionate dedicated educators and so many really failing schools?  The problem is, that you put a good person in a bad system, the system wins every time..  We need to change the system.
Chris Lehmann…Ignite Philly

I don’t feel accountability as much as I feel responsibility. I’ve been blessed to experience the power of networked learning. I want that for my students.

In 6 weeks, they’ve already talked to Jeff, Kristin, Rushton, Wes, Kenneth, Melanie, Sophie, Sandi, Kyle, Nicole, Darin, Mavis, Anne, Maria, and Chris.  This group represents a vast variety of expertise and experiences that I alone could never offer. I’ve got plenty where that came from.

At times my job feels too easy. Sophie, a fantastic 9th grade teacher in our division once told me after implementing some social media in her classroom:

You should see the stuff the kids are doing on the wiki. I get the webcam set up today so we can start using Flixn too. This is so great. I can’t believe everyone isn’t doing it. Even the Alt ed kids in period two have it going on. Talk about engaged learning. I could be sitting at the back quilting!! They are helping each other, going above and beyond any expectations I have.

Okay, I’m not likely to start quilting  I will enjoy room service.  The reason it’s easy is because not only do I outsource like crazy but also I am totally passionate about the work I do with these students and want to provide them with the best possible experience and often that means finding others who know more than I do. That’s not very hard.

I do constantly question whether or not I need to be more structured.  Do I need to be able to define my outcomes more succinctly than this?

Students will learn that:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

I do provide rubrics, build criteria together, emphasis and utilize descriptive feedback.  Providing supports and the odd insight best describes my role.  I’m of total confidence they are learning. Just read their blogs.  I’ve read, listen and thought  more about assessment than most and yet it still baffles me. Mostly because the kind of assessment that makes most sense (immediate and descriptive feedback) isn’t really valued in schools. Then we want to deconstruct outcomes into minuscule bytes that only cloud the real learning that matters. I love Chris’ goals for his school:  Thoughtful, Wise, Passionate and Kind

Simple.  Meaningful.  Necessary.  Education has become very good at making the simple very complex.  That just seems wrong to me.

Wednesday’s class was one of those classes that make you glad you’re an educator. Once again, I prove that my greatest strength as a teacher is my ability to outsource and maximize my network.

In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas [...]]]> Wednesday’s class was one of those classes that make you glad you’re an educator. Once again, I prove that my greatest strength as a teacher is my ability to outsource and maximize my network.

In the early stages of this course there’s no question that students feel overwhelmed. They are introduced to many new concepts and ideas that are pretty foreign to most. I wondered if a few of my students from previous sessions would want to share with my current students what, if anything, they learned and are using today.  I have spent a fair bit of time with Kyle Lichtenwald so while his responses were excellent, they were not all that surprising since he and I are fairly connected. Darin Janssen and Nicole Little were students in my Winter 2008 class. Both showed quite a bit of growth in the class and were two that continued blogging.  They shared some powerful lessons about many of the themes I’ve tried to focus on throughout the class:

• Learning is social and connected
• Learning is personal and self-directed
• Learning is shared and transparent
• Learning is rich in content and diversity

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the work I do is that the more you can point to others who are doing the right work, the more powerful and applicable it is. Darren’s student voices is a great example of this.   Alan November has apparently discovered this as well. In other words, “don’t take my word for it, listen to these people”.

Listen to these three students share their discovery and application of networked learning.

Everyone once in a while you try something and it turns out far better than you imagined.

Photo: The Blonde, the Contrabass and the Microphone #5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brtsergio/1275188911/