Class Oct.26-Who Owns the Learning?

Well walked away from class tonite with several different emotions, relief that next weeks homework is working on our Major term projects.  Disappointed because I really needed the feedback from my "Top 10 Tips for Digital Photography"  homework assignment was not happening.  UGH I was looking for that not so immediate feedback.  This is too bad because I would like to know how am I doing with this latest assignment.

I can understand that life happens as we all are forced to succombe to it's challenges, oh well maybe a cyber comment on my assignment.(AL?)

Even taking this feeling of disappointment back to my own classroom is really just helping me along, as this is the same feeling that my students feel when I do not give them the immediate feedback that they need and so willingly thirst for on a daily basis.  These immediate moments are really the teachable moments that Ruth Culham and Lucy Calkins mention in their books on writing.

This evening felt very informative and for the first time I did not walk away feeling extremely overwhelmed.  Mark and I had an extremely good opportunity to explore the similarities in our personal research through a very focused discussion regarding Grown up Digital, by Tapscott.

The discussions that I was able to partake in with my cohort members were quite enlightening to me.  through face to face discussions I can say quite confidently that we are all discovering the underlying elements of how to teach to this generation of hyper-tech kids.  I am planning to develop another mini project based activity, as we have done for our Universty class, to craft my skills and really increase the learning in my classroom. 

Al talked tonite about a point that really had an impact with me, that was WHO OWNS THE LEARNING? - just by introducing this idea during class my mind began to race and I started to realign my teaching style to this thought, it was great, but I did develop a headache from the overload. (haha)  Keeping this in the back of my mind, I will now bring this back to my classroom and continue to improve my role as the facilitator rather than the in the forefront teacher, another to view this is to lead from behind, I see the role changing greatly, to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge by the students to be highly motivational this is what is lacking at times in my own "teaching".  From this discussion I am able to take back to class an improved appoach yet again, that is to guide the students on the discovery of the needed knowledge and then help the students learn to organize and  represent their newly acquired knowledge into their writing and personal learning.

I even flashed back to how I modelled my daily teaching back when I taught Core French, it was highly motivational for the students as this is how I taught everything, project based, that's why the student's enjoyed me as the teacher.  (Or so they said!)

So it is safe to say that there were many connections tonite in class for me!

While I was at school today I aborded several discusssions with fellow teachers regarding technology for this generation of learners.  Some teachers felt that it was "beyond them" and were just attempting to keep up.  Other teachers had valid questions such as how do the young learners sift through the bull shit that is very often found while they are researching online.  I attempted to answer this with great confidence that today's 21st Century Learner have an innate skill at "sniffing" out the BS.  as they are always questionning the validity of what they are seeing and engaging in.  However I am finding that the difference between what is real and real looking next to impossible to distinguish anymore and some of my Grade 2 students are expressing the same question,  this is good critical thinking IMO.

I recently (last year) had a take home assignment that worked real well, they were to interview a grandparent about what life was like for them when they went to school.  I remember doing this with great success as we touched on many "fun" bits of learning. Such as how to conduct an interview.  Well atleast for a 7 year old !

Fun is a great motivator.

Back to talking with coworkers...meeting the learning needs for this group has to be from the ground up, what I mean is that teachers need to make a shift in the early elementary classroom as far as how we teach, and carry on with this shift through their entire educational experience to send these young learners into the world.

There were other comments that intrigued me, such as,  the need to present back to my staff all of the wonderful learning and discussions revolving around student learning. Also the need for teachers to be taught how to use all of the technology that is underused in our schools (well atleast at some schools) so this brings me back to a point in our discussion with Al tonite, that is regarding our Final projects about the Research on the 21st Century Learner we are all doing, it is a good approach to take that I am providing Professional development for my staff about the qualities that make up a 21st Century Learner and what we need to do teach this newer style of learner and all of the other isms that come along with these hypertech kids.

Well I come back to the title of this post.  Who Owns the Learning?-we all own the learning.  Teacher and the student in a symbiotic relationship.