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Summer Learning

Featured by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Learning, reading, Teaching

Happy summer! Learning is a passion and a purpose, right? What are you reading and learning about this summer?

As educators, we have a drive and passion for learning. That passion is crucial for our success as change makers! We all know that brain research on learning, our students, challenges, culture, and life are all constantly evolving. To keep up with those changes, we keep learning ourselves (practicing what we preach, right?). Schools should be a place of curiosity, where educators nurture that curiosity and encourage the hunger for learning. And that starts with us!

The more we learn about the world, the more we learn about ourselves.

For the summer, here are my learning goals:

  • READ! For fun and for learning! Last summer I read quite a bit of Neil Gaiman. This summer, I’m reading my way through some Neal Shusterman (Scythe series, Everlost series, and Challenger Deep) and some education books (Leading with Intention, Essential Questions, How Emotions are Made, and Why Learn History).
  • Attend some face-to face Professional Learning (some through my school district and then a trip to Orlando in July for the AP Annual Conference).
  • Use Twitter to broaden my social studies knowledge, dig in to some new teaching and learning ideas, and of course, pursue more learning in the world of instructional coaching.
  • Listen to some podcasts for Teaching and Learning: Revisionist History, Cult of Pedagogy, The Creative Classroom, ThroughLine and some podcasts for fun: Station to Station, Blackout, and Hidden Brain
  • Plan and revise my AP Human Virtual Course to match the new curriculum updates from College Board. <–Most of this will be completed with the help of Twitter and an incredible group of other AP Human Geo teachers on Facebook (how awesome is that!)

What are your summer learning goals?

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Starting the School Year with Fun!

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Learning, talking, Teaching

I blogged about back to school last July here: Starting off the School Year. Since it is the end of July–it’s time for another back to school post! My blog last year was about my mistakes in reading the syllabus on the first day and not making it fun! So on that note, here are some ways you can make the first few days of school more engaging!

Check out this Indiana Jones group activity to make going over your syllabus, policies and procedures more engaging (from Ryan Stephans of Summit Trail Middle School who adapted it from John Meehan @MeehanEDU).

Check out some Classroom Management Tips for High School classes here: Students of History

Have students use emoji’s and words to write about what they are most looking forward to for the school year. You can ask them to write about: — your content specifically
—the school year
—their extra-curricular activities
—what they are passionate about
—how they learn best
—what they look forward to in a teacher,
—and so much more!
This is a good one to use INSTEAD of asking how their summer was. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, around 25% of children in America will experience at least one traumatic event by the age of 16. That means there is a very good chance that one or more of your students had an event during the summer they don’t want to talk about. Or some of your students may have struggled to find full meals over the summer, they may have searched for stability and a routine, and so they are looking forward to the return to school!

Facing History has a great back to school toolkit for getting to know your students and building a strong community in your classroom. You can download the lessons and use all of them, or just parts! Screenshot below of the lesson options.

Icebreakers that Rock from Cult of Pedagogy has some great ideas!

Have students play Ask, Ask, Switch with some icebreaker questions. Create little cards with questions on them. Students find someone across the room to partner with. The partners ask and share answers to the question cards they have. They then switch cards and find a new partner.

Student Surveys–have students complete a student survey about their likes, hobbies, favorites, and expectations for learning in your classroom. Here are ideas from:
—Education World
–From Pernille Ripp’s Blog
–From Catlin Tucker

Scavenger Hunt–this is a fun one to do if you are also using it to teach content (think about Geography and using it as a map skills lesson). You can use GooseChase (but it’s only free for up to three teams) as a digital option or get creative and use Google Forms with branching!

The Card Tower–What do we have in common? Divide students into groups of four. Give each group a stack of index cards and the challenge of being the group who builds the tallest card tower in the class. But there is a catch! Before they can use the card in the tower, you have to write something on it that every member of the team has in common. Set a timer and watch the kids have fun learning about their commonalities.

So….what are your plans for the first days of school? What are you going to do that builds safety, community, and fun so students look forward to your class?

Improving PLTs

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Uncategorized

If you’ve been around education, you have probably heard of DuFour and PLCs, or Professional Learning Communities. We have been working on growing the success of PLCs (we call them PLTs, for Teams) on my campus for a few years now. We started the improvement process by focusing on the Team Leaders and equipping them with the tools they need to lead an effective team by modeling growth and learning.


“Highly effective teams know what we’re working on, why we’re working together and how we’ll work together.” – Elena Aguilar

In planning the team leader training we (the ICs on my campus) found there is a plethora of research out there on the importance of teams for student achievement. It was difficult to curate through all of it to narrow down a focus for success for the needs of our campus. We used a lot of Elena Aguilar’s The Art of Coaching Teams. If you are working on teaming on your campus, that is a GREAT book to use! We also used Marzano’s: Collaborative Teams that Transform Schools.

We are still, of course, working on this as a campus. Growing the team leaders and improving how teams work together, learn together, analyze student work together, and takes risks together is crucial to the culture of the campus and to improving student learning outcomes!

A resource that we did not dig too deeply into (as we had so many others already), was to look at Learning Forward. Recently, Stephanie Hirsh from Learning Forward wrote an article that was very helpful in reminding me of the work we still need to do on campus and was a great way to refocus our efforts as we start the spring semester! Check it out here: Edweek–PLC by Hirsh

So, as you begin (or maybe you have already begun) 2019, how will you improve your PLC time? If you focus on these three things from Hirsh, you are on your way to success!

The data is out there! PLCs (or PLTs as we call them) are crucial to improving teaching and learning. They help teachers and students succeed!

  1. A cycle of learning–everyone on the team commits to learning! Plan the lessons, do the lessons, talk about the lessons/student work, and then make changes!
  2. Curriculum–do you know your standards (or TEKS as they are called in Texas). What is the district expectation for your curriculum? Have you really dug into it? Have you unpacked the TEKS (here is one I’ve used for teams on my campus as a guide, and it goes along with backwards planning guide I created with another IC on my campus), taken time to develop the lessons, apply your understanding of the standards and of the needs of your students?
  3. Assessments–Do you have common assessments with your team? What about formative checks? Sometimes we focus too much on the summative assessments and forget to check for understanding along the way. Formative checks (DAILY) are crucial to be able to adjust your lessons immediately and keep a pulse on the success of a particular strategy or lesson.

What are PLCs/Collaborative Learning Structures like on your campus? What successes have you seen? What struggles do you have?


“An ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve”

– DuFour, DuFour, Eaker & Many

The importance of talking

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Conferences, culture, Learning, talking, Teaching

The Texas Council for Social Studies annual conference was a few weeks ago in the Houston area. It’s one I’ve attended off and on over my years as an educator in Texas. This was the first time I went with a group of other teachers as well. The conference (although in a poor location with tiny rooms) was full of a variety of sessions tied to technology, specific topics, writing, reading, and talking. Unfortunately, I only saw a few sessions on the importance of talking as educators and as students.

Talking to learn new content, talking to review old content, talking for sharing opinions, talking to agree or talking to disagree, talking to share ideas and create new lessons are all crucial to education.

The more time I spend in education, the more I realize that we (educators) do a lot of talking that we think is teaching, but really we are just telling it to the kids. We are just ‘covering’ material that we think they need to know. And the students might learn it temporarily…for their next unit test and then they will review it before their semester test, but what is the point really? And as educators, do we talk to each other enough? I feel like I really solidified my learning from the conference by talking to other teachers about the sessions and sharing ideas. Given how much talking happens in the news, in politics, in jobs outside of high school, why are we missing the right kind of it in education?

How can we focus our teaching to be more about talking and learning and less about telling? Can we move our focus to asking questions? To providing resources that students can consume (news articles, primary sources, videos, definitions, etc) and then sparking curiosity in our students to find themes, patterns, solve problems, make connections?

When I reflect on my own teaching, I know in my classroom, I definitely did too much telling of the Social Studies material and did not provide enough opportunities for students to talk and explore. I know I tried things out and tried to focus on the students being at the center of the learning, but I definitely could have been a lot better at it. I see that now as an Instructional Coach because I am blessed with the opportunity to read more, research more and spend more time in classrooms with a variety of other teachers. These opportunities allow me a bigger picture focus on learning.

The nature of high stakes testing, of documentation, rules, regulations, new state initiatives, new district initiatives, new campus initiatives…all of these things have interfered with students actually doing things in class and actually learning material beyond the surface level of memorizing for an assessment.

So what can we do differently? Can we get away from the worksheets? From the copying down notes from a slide? Give students time to write to learn, to read to learn, to argue to learn? Be the curator of resources for an essential question? Give students the time to come up with the questions themselves? Go back to the KWL charts (or anticipation guides) to spark that curiosity?

Check out some resources that will help you if you want to get students back into the world of doing the learning in your classroom and less in the world of you ‘telling’ them the content.

 

The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies

https://www.smore.com/q91ju-reading-to-learn?ref=my

To Learn, Students Need to DO Something

https://www.smore.com/vxemy-alternatives-to-lecturing?ref=my

https://www.smore.com/nadcw-tcss-2018-2019

 

It’s been awhile…

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in culture, Learning, Teaching

So my blogging goals for last school year definitely slipped away from me! So back at it now, as better late than never, right?

Today was the first day of the Cy-Fair Digital Learning Conference. DLC is a great conference that CFISD organizes each year at the end of July. I think today they said about 1700 educators were in attendance–fantastic for summertime professional learning!  I went to a great session on PLCs. It is fascinating to hear about how other districts (and campuses for that matter) view PLCs. Some view it as something to be done and for others, it’s not even on their radar.

I also presented a session today on Blended Learning and how to use academic texts to facilitate discussion in any classroom. It’s my 3rd year presenting at this conference and I’ve enjoyed sharing my learnings each year on different topics. This year, Lindsey, the Science IC at my campus presented with me. It was fun to collaborate on the session and really great to see how no matter what content you teach, having students reading and TALKING about their learning is crucial to engagement, complexity, and deeper thinking and deeper meaning for students. I also was excited to share articles that can be used in Math classes as well as that is often something that is shied away from. But hey, I believe that we are all literacy teachers! Everyone has the responsibility to teach students literacy, and in today’s climate, it is also crucial that we look closely at sourcing and teach students corroboration!

Day 2 of the conference is tomorrow. I’m looking forward to presenting again with Lindsey and then checking out some Google tools.

Keep on learning this summer! What have you learned so far?? The school year is coming soon and it’s going to be a GREAT one!

 

Listening to Understand

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Learning

It is almost November and this is my first blog for the school year, oops! But better late than never, right??

In my conversations, meetings, books I’m reading, and professional learning opportunities lately a common thread has emerged: Listening to Understand.  What does that mean to you? Is that something you think about?

I have am amazing opportunity to work with the Teaching and Learning Alliance on a Lab School Cohort on my campus. Our coach is Cynthia, and she is someone that you can learn so many things from! What I’ve noticed most is her ability to listen. And I mean, to really listen.  Oftentimes, we find ourselves in such a hurry to get through life: run an errand, plan this lesson, attend this meeting, make these copies, hurry up and get dinner ready, rush kids to activities, swing by the grocery store, hurry kiddos into bed, and etc. Everything is GO, GO, GO!  But not with Cynthia. She does an amazing job of really leaning in to the conversations around her. Every time she is on our campus, no matter the audience or environment, you can feel the slowing down in the room. The time to think and reflect and listen is established by her modeling. She takes time to listen. And she listens to UNDERSTAND. She’s not listening to respond.

Is that something you do? I’ve been working on my committed listening and listening to understand for awhile now!

A few years ago, on an Instructional Coach meeting day, we did a mini conference. I presented a session titled: What did you say?  Polish listening skills and practice coaching conversations. The session was about listening as it was something I was working on at the time (and what better way to help yourself improve and learn more than to sign up to present on what you are working on). In my district, we are surrounding by books and book studies! At that time, I had received a book called: Coaching Conversations by Linda Cheliotes and Marceta Reilly. I structured my session around the listening skills assessment and what I had learned from reading that book. The listening skills assessment forces you to really look at how you participate in conversations and guides you into finding ways to improve.

This semester, the book we are reading with the Instructional Coaches, is titled: Thanks for the Feedback by Stone and Heen. The book is about how to receive feedback. As coaches, we need to work on how to deliver feedback/how to coach teachers to reach their potential. But it seems, we also need to take a look at how we receive feedback ourselves.  On Friday, we discussed Chapter 2. As part of that, we discussed listening first to understand. We must always seek to first understand someone’s point of view.  That instantly connected with me!  From thinking about Cynthia in the Lab School Cohort, to Coaching Conversations with committed listening and really leaning in to Listen to Understand and not to respond. So time to dig back in to listening, to coaching conversations, to giving and receiving feedback, and to really listening to understand.

Deep stuff for a Sunday night! Any additional advice on listening?

committed listening

 

Starting off the school year

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in #Immooc, Learning, Teaching

Summer is rapidly coming to an end which means let’s start the back to school work. Time to take all that summer learning from books, blogs, twitter, planning with co-workers, professional learning, vacation, and etc, and put it into practice.

How do you start off your school year? Prep your classroom, make some lesson plans, get those bulletin boards and seating charts ready, etc?  What about the syllabus, class rules, and class expectations? That was something that was at the top of my priority list my first few years of teaching. I felt it paramount to cover every bit of the syllabus and class rules and expectations on DAY 1. 

My first year of teaching, I made sure to really hit those rules and expectations hard. I wanted the students to know I was in charge and I meant what I said.  Big surprise….at the end of the day, I wasn’t inspired. I was exhausted and annoyed with repeating the same rules and answering the same questions all day long.  But I guess I forgot that feeling as I did the exact same thing my 2nd year and again, at the end of the day I found myself bored and uninspired.

By Year 3, I FINALLY wised up a bit and changed my first day into a more fun activity that involved yarn, construction paper, and teamwork with students creating their own maps of the earth and an ‘archeological dig’ (from a paper bag) and then a silly name game icebreaker that we played outside with a ball in the beautiful Texas heat (I mean, the beautiful Texas sunshine).

It was SO MUCH BETTER. At the end of that day, I was PUMPED, ready for a new school year, and I could see the students shared my same excitement.

How do you plan to start your year?  I saw a twitter post from Matthew Arend the other day with a picture of 5 Questions from George Couros. You can read about it on Couros’s blog here: http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/7552

Here are the questions:

Screen-Shot-2017-07-22-at-8.54.52-PMAren’t these almost perfect questions for starting off your year?  I’m brainstorming how I can use these with the social studies department on my campus as their Instructional Coach. I want to know from the teachers:

  • What are the qualities you look for in an instructional coach?
  • What are you passionate about that you want to share with others?
  • What BIG goal do you have for the year?
  • What are your strengths (luckily, many have completed the Strength Finder, but now is a great time to revisit those)?
  • and then, wow, did you see that last question…

What does success at the end of the year look like to you?

How powerful is that question? It is incredible! It is one that I need to reflect on for awhile before I can formulate an answer. And then, it needs to be revisited throughout the year to see if that success is building or if what that picture of success was has changed.

What questions are you going to ask yourself before the year starts? What questions will you ask your students?

At the end of the FIRST day of school, will you be inspired? Will you feel ready to rock and roll? Will you have gleaned some insight into the personalities of your students? Or will you be without a voice and exhausted on your feet from going over the rules all day long, over and over again?

I hope you make the choice for inspiration!  Which reminds me of some great words from my high school Principal, Mr. Haver: “Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours.”
Happy back to school planning fellow educators!

–Celaina

#LFTX17, High-Impact Instruction with Jim Knight

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Conferences, Learning

Whew, only the end of day 1 and I am still processing the learning. I was with Jim Knight for High-Impact Instruction today. To help solidify my learning, I’m coming here to jot my notes and thoughts from the day and action plan moving forward.

First off–how awesome is this?? As part of the session, we were given the High-Impact Instruction book, a guide for Teachers and a spiral-bound notebook to guide our reading and learning from the session and the book.

Today, we focused on:

  1. The Impact Cycle for Coaching –what it is and how can it be used to increase engagement?
  2. Why is engagement important?
  3. How do we measure engagement?
  4. What teaching strategies increase student engagement?

What is engagement really? This topic has been discussed many times on campus in PLCs, with admin, and with other instructional coaches. Knight gives a suggestion for how to break it down.

Authentic Learning v. Strategic Compliance

But first, WHY is engagement important?

It is a pre-requisite for achievement, happiness, relationships, productivity and of course, learning!

Think about it. What percentage of students in your school are…

  • Authentically Engaged
  • Strategically Compliant
  • Not engaged

Research shows less than 55% of students in grades 5-12 are authentically engaged. How do you impact change to increase that percentage? Look at time on task by measuring it in classes. You can also look at authentic engagement by having students assess their learning. And then you can measure instructional time and non-instructional time.

What teaching strategies can you use to increase engagement? Chapters 5-9

  • Thinking Prompts
  • Effective Questions (Open v. Closed, Right/Wrong v. Opinion)
  • Stories
  • Cooperative Learning
  • Authentic Learning

Action plan:

  • Review the resources.
  • Find which ones you want to start the school year with for PLCs.
  • Focus on an intro with why engagement is important, then look at how it can be measured and discuss which measurement teachers want to focus on in their classrooms.
  • Think about, research, check PLN, etc–how can increasing student engagement help empower students?
  • Build a Google doc with Thinking Prompt ideas
  • READ!

Things to read from his session:

  • Flow (M.Csikszentmihalyi)
  • Blink or Tipping Points or both (Gladwell)
  • Engaging Students (P. Schlechty)
  • Success Factors for Students (article by Shane Lopez)
  • Power of Full Engagement (James E. Loehr and Tony Schwartz)
  • Refresh of Kagan Cooperative Learning Strategies

And now, off to bed, as Day 2 is fast approaching!

 

In the summer swing!

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Learning, Teaching

My last post was over a month ago, oops! Time to readjust my goals so that doesn’t happen again.

How has your summer been so far?

I’ve spent some time on campus for interviews (we still have a few openings in the department to fill), and I’ve spent a lot of time on my laptop grading AP Human Geography virtual school assignments. The past few days have been wonderful. I’ve had some lovely family downtime visiting Gma at the lake house, spending time with the kids, time with cousins, and just going with the flow. No real schedule of events. It has been great!

It has only been a week since I’ve researched, read, tweeted, or learned anything new really about instructional coaching, education, students, innovation, etc. My time learning has been consumed with AP Human Geography (which is really fun and fascinating). Now, it is time to get back into the swing of learning about coaching! Tomorrow is Day 1 of the Learning Forward Texas conference. I’m incredibly excited about it. My day tomorrow is all Jim Knight and then Thursday is all George Couros. I’ll be posting more here with my learning from both of those inspiring educators.

Wrapping up a school year

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in Learning, Teaching

We are getting closer to the end of the school year. This week we have our EOCs and next week will finish up AP testing.

So what do you do at the end of the year? What lessons are your favorites? What do you try to leave students with to carry into the summer? Are you hurrying to finish your curriculum, or finding times to explore new things and to play?

Now is the time to play, explore, and let the students inquire, right?  If you missed out on that all year because you felt the pressure to finish the curriculum, prepare for the state test, prepare for the AP test, etc, NOW is the time! Maybe closing out the year with some amazing lessons will carry you into the next year so you can begin your year inspired and creative!

Where does Innovation come from?? Why not learn from the best? From Google’s nine principles of innovation.

What to do with that random last 10-15 minutes of class on a testing day? Why not let the students explore Google Earth? Read about it from a teacher here: Turns out Google Earth is Perfect for Students

Enable students to explore politics by taking an in-depth look at the different platforms and participating in the I Side With quiz.

Talk about Controversial Issues.  Or maybe don’t talk, but do a silent chalk talk so everyone has the time to express their opinions. The Atlantic had an interesting article about this last week: The Case for Contentious Classrooms.

Have your students (or your department) go through the Line of Separation. How well do you really know who you work with anyhow?

Organize a fun class around History through the movies! Assign students to research movies that have historical connections, then use IMDB and movie trailers to discuss the connections, misconceptions and how movies change perspectives (Gangs of New York, Titanic, Flyboys, War Horse, Great Gatsby, Amelia, Grapes of Wrath, Cinderella Man, It’s a Wonderful Life, Windtalkers, Schlinder’s List, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Saving Private Ryan, Pleasantville, Goodnight and Good Luck,  Across the Universe, 13 Days, JFK, Mississippi Burning, 42, Cesar Chavez History is Made One Step at a Time, The Help, Selma, Hidden Figures, The Butler, Good Morning Vietnam, Rescue Dawn, Platoon, All the President’s Men, Argo, Frost/Nixon, The China Syndrome, United 93, Social Network, World Trade Center, Seal Team Six, and etc).

Spend some time on a Genius Hour Project: AJ Juliani

Start a Book Club with some summer reading ideas for students. Involve parents and teachers.

Send students to Coursera or Lynda.com (if you have that), to learn something new, find a passion, explore new ideas, then share with their classmates!

Finally, participate in a Mystery Skype!

Play some Survivor with your class!

Inspire students to culminate their learning for the year with a video project.

Explore Google Arts and Culture, inspire students to see new things in their community, or take students on a virtual field trip!

Pick a topic you learned about (or let the students vote on a topic using an online polling software, like Mentimeter). Then put students in groups of 5-6. Instruct students to write the first sentence or two or three of a story about that topic. Have students pass to the right and continue writing the story. Keep going until you have a completed story from each group. Have the groups read their stories aloud to discuss their learning/viewpoint/opinions on the topic.

Let students explore some interactive math puzzles through current events and pop culture with expii solve.

Explore Dollar Street with your students.

Ask students to bring topics, articles, books, things that interest them to class.  Then practice some discussion techniques. Examples here: Cult of Pedagogy Classroom Discussion Strategies

Test your map and trivia knowledge with Smarty Pins!

Give students a chance to experience a real life budget issues with PlaySpent.

 

How are you ending your school year?

 

Strengths

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in #Immooc, Uncategorized

Do you know what your strengths are? What about your weaknesses? Is that something you think about or talk about often? And speaking of weaknesses–I dislike that in an interview question. Do you like it? It is a tough one to answer when attempting to persuade someone to hire you based on your skill set, but then have to explain to them where you have deficiencies.

My husband is currently working on his masters (to gain administrator certification). One of his first assignments was to complete a Kiersey Temperament Survey. It was interesting to read his results as they fit how I view him already, but it made me look at his personality through a different lens when he and I discussed it. That conversation led me to start wondering about personalities and strengths.  In life, in teaching, in your day-to-day, do you know the strengths of those around you? Do you know their weaknesses? Do you use that knowledge to your advantage? How? With my husband, because I’ve known him for 15 years, I have a solid grasp (I think) on his strengths and his weaknesses. And I try to mindful of those when we disagree on things in our lives, with work or with our kiddos.  But for the teachers I coach, do I use that to my advantage? Definitely not enough. I’ve known them for only two years, but that should not be an excuse. The teachers here have completed the Strengths Finders training/survey and I have access to that actual data showing their strengths. That is something I need to start leveraging and using to become a better Instructional Coach.

So then, that makes me think and wonder further.  For teachers and for their students…how does knowing student strengths and weaknesses enable teachers to maximize student learning outcomes? If you know what your students are good at, how can you use that to further their learning? To inspire their creativity? To encourage more problem solving and critical thinking? How can you highlight the areas where your students excel so that you can build their motivation and self-esteem? I think you use it when planning lessons, when picking group arrangements for activities, when organizing reading and writing strategies, when planning interactive, hands-on vocabulary lessons, and etc. You should be purposeful when thinking about how the students as individuals are going to achieve their learning objectives for the day.  Which can be so HARD! When you teach 180 students and have to work hard to plan lessons to engage students, to cover the curriculum, to fit the vision of the campus, to follow the state standards, and etc, it makes it seem impossible to then break down those lessons even further to cater to the needs of individual classes or students.  How do you manage? How do you fit in innovation and use strengths to maximize the learning in classrooms?

It’s in pockets, right? In small pieces? You fit in some creativity here, some new strategies over there. You try new things, take risks, find out what works for you and for your students and what doesn’t. Then you go share! You blog, tweet, go to PLCs. You lean on your colleagues to give you inspiration and you lean on them to push you to keep thinking for new ways to teach, to inspire, to learn!

#IMMOOC–The Innovative Educator

by Celaina Huckeba, posted in #Immooc, culture, Learning

Innovation is more than just inventing something new.

Innovation is creative and messy. It is about creating a space for experimentation, failures, change for the better. Critical questions to ask when looking for innovation: Is it new? Is it better? How can you use innovation in teaching? How can students use it to learn?  We have to create an environment of uncertainty and unpredictability.  If you know every day when you show up to class EXACTLY what is going to happen (think about it from the lens of a student–I’m going to come in, sit down, do my warm up, listen to my teacher and take notes, then leave)….what does your mindset become? Is there room for real learning? For experimenting? For failing? For questioning?  Are you looking for new things? Are you learning new things?

If you are stuck in a rut, in a predictable cycle of teaching, how do you get out of it?

Start with some critical questions (from Ch. 2 of The Innovator’s Mindset):

critical questions picture

Have you asked yourself these questions lately? Couros says, on page 41 of The Innovator’s Mindset:  “The innovator’s mindset starts with empathy for our students (which is why the questions above are so crucial). Equally important is the desire to create something BETTER.”

So, what have you looked at with fresh eyes today? Have you asked yourself, “Is it new? Is it better? Is there a better way?”

If you need more inspiration, check out the #IMMOOC hashtag on twitter. Find some new blogs to read! Learn, grow, then reflect and post your own blogs!  Or you can just read The Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros. Or for shorter reading, check out the 10 Commandments of Innovative Teaching from AJ Juliani.