Classrooms by Design

My husband and I are at the point in our lives when we're looking into buying our first home together. We've been looking at different styles of homes and how we could decorate each one. If you're a fan of HGTV and DIY network like me, you know that there are different design genres. You have the more traditional styles, then eclectic, modern, contemporary, etc.

When I saw the word "traditional" tonight, I started thinking about my first classroom and how it looked. I was SO PROUD of it! I knew I took some pictures and I dug them up to post on here. As you can see, it looks like your typical, run-of-the-mill setup. There are desks in rows, lots of books on the shelf, and it's a very organized space.

You can tell that my classroom was just that....MY classroom. It was totally teacher-lead. I loved giving direction and lecture. Sure, I did group work and projects, but they were not embedded like we're doing now. There was really no purpose for most of the projects I assigned them to do and now I know why there was so much grumbling. I guess I can say that I had a good rapport with my students for my first two years and that is something that I haven't changed.

If you take a look at the modern version of OUR classroom, you'll see a world of difference. There are no desks in rows. There are no teacher-created bulletins. There are no meaningless projects hanging on the walls. This was no longer my classroom....it was time to share. This is our students' classroom. They guide us to what we do and how we do it based on their needs and interests. I believe if someone analyzed these pictures they could tell that the aforeseen photographs were a classroom, but the more recent ones display a meeting-type room where people would be working.

So back to the different styles of design in homes....I don't feel like I'm a traditional-type person when it comes to, well, generally everything. I tend to lean towards a more modern or contemporary style. I wish I would have known this earlier in life. I think so many of us, if I may be so presumptuous, see something (a design idea, a teaching method, etc) and mock it because it's the norm and because it's what makes sense, or maybe it's just safe for us. It takes someone innovative, perhaps creative, to SHOW us that we can do things differently and have a different rationale and that's ok.

Although I loved my first classroom, and let me tell you I LOVED IT, I would never go back to it. I would never want to teach by myself again. I would never have a desire to put different colored, broken desks in rows back in there again. I would never revert back to a teacher-centered classroom ever again. I've seen a different "design" of teaching and I know it works. I am no longer a traditional teacher - it's just not my style.

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.  :-)