Written by Thanks to members of Cohort 21 for another inspired day of instruction and support. The breakout sessions were robust and I enjoyed learning about the various action plans presently underway in our schools. Thanks to Adam Caplan and St. Clement’s School for hosting our third F2F session. Thanks, also, to Garth Nichols (Greenwood College School) and Justin Medved (The York School) for their continued leadership and organization and for extending the opportunity to facilitate the Action Plan Support Group “Breakout” session. Our group had fun using Padlet to share and exchange resources and strategies re. our individual action plans. The second half of the session provided an insight into the roles Coursera, MOOCs, and Scale-Free Schools play in driving discussion about the future of education and learning. All in all, a productive day of enrichment.
Take Aways and Applications:
My action plan is well underway and what first began as a singular class experiment, is now a grade-wide project. Colleagues in the English department are onboard and all ENG4U classes are participating in this curriculum design project. Students have been sharing ideas across course sections and are already involving parents and siblings in some of the discussion and debate.
Next steps will involve setting up individual student blogs (WordPress) via WhippleHill, our Student Information System (SIS). Students and teachers will access and contribute to each other’s blogs on class home pages. As the project continues to evolve, these blogs will be made public. It is our hope that at that time, other schools will contribute, comment, and participate by adding their voices to this discussion about the future of education.
In the meantime, classes hope to gather research on personalized learning, curriculum design and implementation. We could use some guidance here as we are hoping to pull from a diverse range of resources. We are presently sifting through the various resources available via Cohort 21, member blogs, and Diigo posts. We welcome other ideas, too.
Not sure how much of this particular virus in education has come north but I was already aware of some of it in my last years of teaching. I said earlier, Shelley, that I hope your project becomes “viral”, and it will need to I fear if it is to alter the course (literally) of corporate-determined curriculum in our country.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/09/a-warning-to-college-profs-from-a-high-school-teacher/