A Quick Reminder from Philly

5 thoughts on “A Quick Reminder from Philly”

1. 

   find your Javi. there’s one in every town. soaking it in.
   learn to soak it in. notice the unlikely… be.

   Posted by monika hardy | June 28, 2011, 8:41 am
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   • 

     I love your response, Monika.

     Posted by johntspencer | June 28, 2011, 9:46 am
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2. 

   “Ed tech echo chamber,” is a familiar phrase from you but there is an aptness to it. There is a difference between gathering for professional development and professional validation. I think both activities have value. We need to grow and change, we need to believe this growth and change is positive. I need to know others share my beliefs.

   This has not been as smooth a year as I hoped. “I have an interest in integrating technology into the learning environment to support collaborative and differentiated learning within a flexible classroom design.” This is my Twitter profile statement. It packs many expectations into twenty-two words. I felt more successful last year. This year I felt aspects of integrating technology worked better but generally I failed to move social networking for learning forward. I Skyped considerably less and none of the on-line collaborative projects I attempted worked. There are other reasons.

   My twenty-four students collaborated about as well as the previous year’s group. I focussed on collaborative work flow routines and I think I made progress there. I did not make nearly enough progress differentiating learning. I perceive it this way because I believe differentiation will only be viable if teachers actually shift a share of the responsibility for learning design onto their students. I find I cannot anticipate twenty-four people’s differentiation needs. I need them to problem solve and offer directions for their own learning. Some people will never be able to do that and I will have to micro-manage them. I struggled with that familiar micro-management because it often deafened me to the voices of those young people ready to assume control of their own learning.

   Some colleagues praised my efforts to create a flexible studio design in my classroom. I am not sure administration shared their confidence. I’m ending the year without my tables and in the fall I’ll be confronted by rows of desks. That feels like a huge step back simply because it creates the impression that teacher-centred, solitary learning is the default setting in my classroom. The tables proclaimed the reverse.

   I had troubles this year and ending it with a conference of like minded educators might have been just what I needed. But I sympathise with John Spencer’s remark because conventions have mostly become redundant to my learning and growth. The discourse should move me out of my comfortable paradigm, not simply reverberate with accepted beliefs. I want my own learning to be transformative.

   Posted by stangea | June 28, 2011, 9:35 am
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   • 

     John, well-said.

     Alan, I love this:

     The discourse should move me out of my comfortable paradigm, not simply reverberate with accepted beliefs.

     It’s difficult to do that in a session that attempts 1-way communication. It’s difficult to do that in a binary, antagonistic, either/or space. Not all sessions are like that, but the human spaces we should consider moving into in a purposeful way – intent on incubating conversations that help people empathize, explore, own, and shift – have a much better chance of sounding the conversations we need to have about transforming schools.

     What are you going to do with the desks?

     All the best,
     C

     Posted by Chad Sansing | June 29, 2011, 11:01 am
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