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| Looking Into The Future |
It stared with training about "how to" create a video on Day 1, provided by #techsmith, then morphed into a thousand conversations about all things learning and teaching.
Steve Kelly and and Zach Cresswell, were sitting at a table having brefkast next to me, the next thing I know we're talking about flipped instruction and standards based grades with bacon fat dripping from our hands and chins. If you are going to start the day to talk about impactful things, what better way than with bacon fat coating surfaces of your body. That's the kind of PD I'm talking about that happened all day everyday of #flipcon13. It wasn't always bacon grease, sometimes it was cream cheese or mayonnaise, but the conversations were amazing.
We sat as colleagues, really talking about grading, assessment, what is best for students, what our classrooms looked like and what they could look like, what we've tried and succeeded, what we failed at and what we want to try. The hundreds of us present and the hundreds of us virtual all thinking, I mean really thinking about what is best for our students. This is an understatement of reality: it was powerful. Lots of conferences have been in the career timeline I've followed, none like this.
Those of you at #flipcon13 recognize that the singularity of purpose was intense and exhausting.....and rewarding. Singularity of teachers, regardless of discipline, grade level, technoskill: the purpose was to explore, question and seek. Words don't do the experience justice.
So, now what?
I'm sorting through my notes/websites/jottings to figure out where my students can go........
...more of them and less of me....
I flipped last year and implemented standards based grades in my biology classroom, what will be different and be upgraded?
Things to do:
- project/problem based learning....gotta do some
- make it more relevant
- create dissonance in their brains so they will ask some questions and seek some answers
- be asynchronous
- give students feedback to aid in their learning
- build relationships
- more.......
I process slowly.
Needing time on the mower, weeding the garden, cleaning toilets: it is going to be while until I've sorted my thoughts for this next year.
But the cool thing is, I'm looking forward, moving forward, thinking forward.
Thanks #flipcon13 and all the people who are part of PLN.
Great post Mark! Everything is better with bacon IMHO. #BetterTogetherw/Bacon From the virtual point of view, it was just as intense following the discussions. I was lucky enough to be attending with 11 other educators, so we had conversations in between sessions and at lunch. The overriding theme was what is best for our students. How do we reach every one of them? What's the best way? Loved it.
ReplyDeleteStacy......everyday (for a few more years anyway) I look into the eyes and minds of the small monkeys that make my life more interesting. I watch them attack the world with curiosity and wonder. I want to make sure they have been reached and make the most their education. As I listened to Brett Clark speak of his relationship with his own children's educators, that was courageous. I work and teach in small town America, these are my colleagues and neighbors....but these small lives and minds of my children deserve the very best. So, your question, how do we reach "every one of them"....there in lies the task and challenge I've undertaken.
DeleteI don't have 3 little monkeys that walk into my classroom everyday, but 100 giant, older minds.
These 100 monkeys belong to someone else, don't they deserve the best too?
Of course!
Thanks for being part of a great PLN!!