Thoughts As A Teacher

What To Look For In Classroom Innovation 1. COLLABORATION = INNOVATION First of all the classroom needs to be set up for collaboration, with flexible seating, and in groups, so students have the opportunity to learn from their fellow students.  Students should be given a choice and the best choice students can have is coming up with the essential question (EQ) which determines the direction learning will go.  Too many times the Teacher comes up with the EQ and in so doing takes the choice away from the student in the direction the learning would go (should students not have that choice?).  Reflection should be given, so all learners involved uncover "how to get there from here."  Creativity happens next as the learners take what they have uncovered and apply it to the real world.  As creativity happens, problems are uncovered which leads to new questions being asked; this will lead to innovative solutions (necessity is the mother of inventions).  Finally, s

How can we create or build on conditions currently in Public Education to support innovation?  As a World Geography Teacher, my students have to learn the difference between weather and climate.  Weather is what is going on right now.  Climate is what has historically gone on during a continuous span of time.   For a classroom to change its climate, there has to be a history of changes over a continuous span of time.  It's not going to happen overnight. As a Public Education Teacher, it's challenging to turn a classroom climate from "one of conformity to one of innovation."    Also, as a Public School Teacher; I have to do this within "the system" I work in. Many things are geared towards standardization in Public Education; State Tests, District Tests, even Campus  Tests and all the instruction that is geared towards the majority of the students passing them; especially the state standardized tests.  Here in Texas, we have the STAAR; a mere handfu

Student Choice = Empowered Learning  The hardest thing for an Educator (any Educator; Classroom Teacher, Administrator, Para-Professional and so on) to do is give up control so Students can be empowered.  For many, the Pedagogy is too radical.  For decades (if not centuries), students were expected to sit silently taking notes in graveyard style rows while the Teacher lectured on and on.  They were to take this information and through "drill and kill" memorization; regurgitate it on some type of standardized test (Campus, District, and State level...even though this type of "learning" was on the bottom rung of Blooms Taxonomy). The question is; what do all these "old school" pedagogy have in common?  They all focus on where students are weak and almost ignore where they are strong.  Basically, it goes something like this; students take some type of standardized test.  Standardized tests show where students are weak.  Students are put into s

Do SOMETHING Different!!! Henry Ford had a saying; "If You Always Do What You’ve Always Done, You Always Get What You’ve Always Gotten." Ford was no stranger to being innovative or trying something new.  Many times he failed, but ultimately he succeeded with the Model T , that used the mass production method and made it possible for the average person to own an automobile.  If he had not been willing to take risks and be innovated, then perhaps we might still be driving "horse and buggy" and the automobile would still be the "rich man's toy." Education needs men and women who are not afraid to take risks and be innovated.  Too many times there is a fear of being innovative and doing something "different" because we don't want to stick out  (because let's face it; conformity is a steeped tradition in Education).   We want to stick with something every Teacher does because "that's the way it's always been