Charleston trip

Thanks to Kristin and her dad, ten teachers and Mrs. DeVito met for two hours with Raamie Barker, senior advisor to Governor Tomblin today. When it comes to education, this man gets it.
Loosely quoted, he said

• We don't teach subjects, we teach students.
  
• Teaching is a calling, like the ministry.
  
• We don't teach students how to make a living, we teach them how to live.
  
  
• A teacher of the year is sitting in this room.

A successful road trip indeed. We look forward to hosting Mr. Barker, Governor Tomblin, Michele Blatt and others soon.

Still learning "how to PBL"

Mary Anne and I have had several meetings now with Matt Anderson (PBL-extraordinaire) from WVU to develop our next PBL on ancient Greece. I'm trusting his reassurance that if we plan a PBL (or two) with him and he teaches us the structures integral in developing PBLs, then we'll be flying on our own in the spring.

We are so pumped about this Greece PBL! We're planning to challenge students (as travel agencies) to "re-brand" Ancient Greece to make connections to the modern world. They'll display their final products in an "expo" both during and after school and will have to advertise to entice visitors to their displays. They'll be competing among each of our four sections to see which agency gets the best overall evaluation score from the people who tour their section.

We're both excited and nervous about pulling this off because we'll be putting huge responsibility on our students to guide visitors through the expo, connecting ancient Greece to the modern world in a real way. We also want this event to display the wonderful work our students are doing to parents and community members. To work on their speaking and presentation skills, we're going to make these skills the major focus of their current PBL in which they're presenting proposals to a panel. To get them used to talking to people other than us (of whom they're not intimidated), we plan on bringing in upperclassmen and additional teachers/administrators to serve on these panels. Hopefully the skills they develop and the mistakes they make this time will serve them well for the expo!

Articles on Using Social Media in School

This article discusses different ways of using social media in schools, including community outreach.  And here we have an article about using Twitter in school.

I don't think I am ready for any of this yet, but maybe someday soon.  :-)

The Power of Words Project

I am extremely passionate about this PBL. It not only gets kids reading, but it gets them involved in their community and MEANS SOMETHING to them. Allow me to explain....

We've been talking a lot about the theme of human rights in class. We learned about Cyrus the Great who developed the first set of human rights and that's how he was able to conquer a lot of the land known as the Persian Empire. We discussed what human rights actually are and why they are not met. In the students' reflections on how they felt about the Holocaust, the institution of slavery, chaos in the middle east, etc. the majority of them expressed that they were so angry that they wanted to do something about it.

In light of their motivation, Kristin and I developed the Power of Words Project. The students were able to choose a novel from the library and they will pick out a theme. Depending upon the theme of the novel, they will submit a proposal stating what they would like to do based on a human right that is not being met. Once the proposal is approved and the project is thought out, the students will actually carry out the project and fulfill a basic human right for another human being.

The students already have ideas in mind before they've even finished the first chapter! They are so motivated and excited about this because they understand how lucky they are and how unfortunate others can be - they will be making a difference and they will be demonstrating their knowledge. Who knew this all could come from Persia?