Reinventing Class

Keep Throwing Darts at the Dartboard

2017-05-31T12:40:00.002-06:00

I recently viewed the A Plus condensed version of Will Ferrell’s commencement address to the graduating class of 2017 at USC.

Ferrell’s charge to “keep throwing darts at the dartboard” resonates deeply with me. This has been a challenging year, maybe the most challenging of my 16 years as a middle school science teacher. I accepted a position at a new school in a new district. I had three preps, none of which I had taught before, and I moved classrooms 4 times throughout the day (although this movement helped me gain a much better appreciation of how our students feel during their school days). This year was hard. It pushed me way outside of my comfort zone. It was a year of steep, steep learning. It was frustrating at times but it was also rewarding.

I love teaching. My passion is to create learning opportunities and environments where kids push their thinking, find and develop their strengths, are creative, think critically and discover and develop new ideas and understandings. Creating this environment though is a messy process and requires constant revision and reflection, problem solving and risk taking. The bullseye on my

dartboard is student understanding. Here’s the thing though; the bullseye is on the move, it’s always changing, it’s constantly getting tweaked and sometimes it gets completely revised. The bullseye on my dartboard looks different with every new group of learners in August. It is modified with every new learning objective that we are working towards. It is adjusted based on the needs of every learner that walks through our classroom door. The bullseye on my dartboard must be tweaked every day depending on what happened to each learner earlier that day, the night before, last month or years before.

Every time I throw a new dart at my dartboard, I aim for the bullseye but I know I’ll never quite get there. If I think I have, it’s probably time to do something else because I’ve lost sight of my target. This is what makes teaching exciting and rewarding but hard. This moving bullseye gives me the push to take risks and try new things. This year I threw lots of darts. I completely missed a few times, especially in those first few months of the new year. But I also think that I threw some darts that were pretty darn close to hitting their mark. Through all of this dart throwing, my student learners amazed me. They were creators, they were problem solvers, they were risk takers, they were thinkers, they were learners.

I learned as much from my misses this year as I did from those darts that were creeping up on the bullseye. As I close out my first year in my new school, I look forward to reflecting on what my student learners taught me this year. I look forward to taking my learnings from this challenging year and recalibrating my aim for next year’s darts. I look forward to the next school year when I will continue to ‘keep throwing darts at the dartboard”.

Photo Credits: Dartboard, Dartboard with Darts

Challenge, Choice, Creativity, Constraints......Innovation

2017-05-29T15:35:00.000-06:00

A snippet of a dialogue that occurred multiple times over the last three weeks:

“Ms., I need at least four more motors.”

“Sorry R., I only have the one motor that I already gave you.”

“But Ms., I can’t make it work without at least four more motors, five would be better.”

“You’re just going to have to figure out how to make it work with one R.; I know you can do it.”

I had challenged my 6th grade TIDE (Technology, Innovation, Design and Engineering) students to design, engineer & showcase something that would inspire and/or impact another person. Individually or in small groups, they had come up with some great ideas including light-up slime, a website to help people find and donate to credible charities and R.’s idea that involved designing and building a moving vehicle that younger kids could experiment and play with.

The students, using design thinking, began by empathizing with the end user of the product they had decided to create. After ideating and zeroing in one idea, they were now building their first prototypes and R. was struggling. In all of our design challenges, there are criteria and constraints. I believe that constraint begets creativity and innovation. In this particular challenge, because so many ideas were being pursued, the primary constraint I gave the students was that they needed to create their prototype/s using things that they could find in our room. I had one motor in the classroom, this was R.’s sticking point.

In his daily productivity logs, R. let me know again and again that he would not be able to successfully create the moving vehicle that he had envisioned unless he had many more motors.

Four days into the challenge, I almost gave in but then I reminded myself of what happens when we have constraints. We are forced to get creative. We are compelled to get innovative. We are pushed to think more deeply. And as a result, we often create/develop something that is better, or at least really different, than we originally intended. I stood strong and kept encouraging him. Day 6 - Breakthrough!

“Ms., I was thinking about what I could do since you won’t give me more motors and I remembered those littleBits that we worked with last month. I was thinking that I might be able to use them to solve the problem I’ve been having with the wheels on my car…”

“Of course, R., they are in the room.”

After being stuck for 6 days, R. figured out a solution. He spent the next 5 days tweaking and testing and tweaking and testing his prototype until he was satisfied. When he showcased his work, his smile stretched from ear to ear. He was so proud that he, on his own, persevered through his struggles and was able to create a final product that met his original criteria.

Merriam-Webster defines a constraint as “the state of being checked, restricted, or compelled to avoid or perform some action”. Constraints, at least in the mind of my middle school learners, are often perceived as a negative; things to avoid if at all possible. After a year of many design challenges, each with their own criteria and constraints, I have a deeper understanding of the power of constraints. Constraints can be an avenue to help learners open their minds, get their creative juices flowing and think differently and deeper. When paired with choice, constraints push learners to be innovative. Constraints are uncomfortable though and can be met with resistance. As the learning facilitator, it is critical to create an environment where learners are free to take risks while receiving encouragement, support, time and in some cases, scaffolding, to break through their self imposed walls and become problem solving innovators. Constraints, then, become the wings that let a learner fly.

Photo Credit: Kyle Szegedi (Unsplash)

I’d love to hear how others embed and entwine constraints into learning opportunities. How do your students respond? What challenges have you faced? What success have you seen?

What is Innovation?

2017-05-20T14:57:00.001-06:00

Innovation is a commitment. It means being open and willing to think differently about common and not so common issues, problems, questions and learning targets. Embedded within innovation is a willingness to take action even when the outcome being sought is not guaranteed. Innovation can feel like a risk but it can also feel incredibly rewarding. As I try to innovate in the learning space that my students and I call our classroom, it usually feels messy and chaotic in the moment but fulfilling and comprehensive upon reflection. I hear the opportunities for learning that innovation creates in the questions and conversations of my students and I see the learning that innovation promotes in the physical manifestations of their problem-solving. As we work towards learning deeply about the sciences together, innovation looks like inquiry, problem-based learning, engineering design challenges and design thinking. It looks like collaboration and experimentation with a focus on deep learning, not grades. It sometimes feels frustrating because deep learning is hard and takes time while turning in a paper for completion is not. Innovation can also feel lonely depending on where others are in their own learning journeys. At the same time, innovation in learning feels more inclusive and accessible to all learners, regardless of past performance and experiences, regardless of learning style, regardless of "baggage" that all learners bring to their learning experiences. Ultimately, innovation both challenges and inspires me to become a better educator and learner.

Photo Credit: Sky

Moving Forward with Purpose (v2)

2016-08-17T20:35:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow I begin my sixteenth year of teaching in the classroom! This year is different. I have moved to a new school in a new district. I do not have my own classroom this year; I will be moving amongst three, yes three, classrooms. I will also have the opportunity to teach sixth graders and eighth graders. As I have written about before, I am thrilled with these changes.

As I embark on my new adventure, I’ve been contemplating and refining my goals for this year. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a Cowboy Ethics workshop. My takeaway from this workshop was not only the importance of putting goals in written form but also bringing a sense of accountability to the goals by publishing them in a public forum. I met, or at least began to meet, most of my goals two years ago. I attribute part of this success to my public sharing of these goals.

In the spirit of Cowboy Ethics, here are the goals I am committed to working towards this year:

Teaching Goals

Think BIG, Fail Fast, Try Again
Infuse the core ideas of design thinking into our science learning space to allow my students the opportunity to refine and vocalize their amazing ideas as they problem solve to create extraordinary things
Make learning applicable and relevant for all of my students

Personal Learning Goals

Listen, really listen, to those around me
Write at least 750 words every day
Publish at least 2 posts/month on my blog “Reinventing Class”

Image Credits

Stepping Through the Doorways

2016-08-03T16:30:00.002-06:00

My family's life is hectic, some might say crazy. We are fortunate to live in a beautiful area in the mountains outside of Denver. For the last 17 years I have taught in a suburb of Denver located about 45 minutes from home. My children attended school in the same town that I taught in. For the last three years, my son has been swimming on a team that practices six days a week about thirty minutes away both from where we live and where we go to school. What this amounts to is a whole lot of driving and a whole lot of early mornings and late nights. Last year, I started to think about how we could simply our hectic lives. I knew that my children would be transitioning into high school and middle school respectively and I was beginning to worry that the days, and sometimes nights, that we spent on the run would start to take their toll. At the same time, I was beginning to feel like I needed to expand my horizons professionally. We love where we live so leaving that special mountain home was never an option on our road to simplification. What started to make more and more sense though was getting our respective schools and sports into one place.

I set the ball in motion to accomplish this last December but all of the pieces of the puzzle did not find their way together until recently. The puzzle is now complete. Both my children and I will start the upcoming school year in a new school district. My new district, Boulder Valley, has an amazing reputation for innovation and forward thinking. As I continue to meet my fellow staff members at my new school, Casey Middle School, I am equally impressed by their commitment to ensuring that every student that walks through the doors of Casey feels safe and is challenged, engaged and ultimately learning. I will still be teaching middle school science but will now get the opportunity to work with sixth graders and eighth graders (I have been working with seventh graders up to this point). My teaching focus will be on the earth and physical sciences. My daughter will be attending a high school right down the street from me and my son will be a seventh grader in the school where I will be teaching. At the same time, both of my children have decided to join sports teams in Boulder, the town where they will go to school.

It will be a fresh start for all three of us in many important aspects of our lives. There's something to be said about starting over. Sure it's scary, but at the same time, I'm finding it quite refreshing and inspiring. It's a chance to let go of what hasn't been working and to embrace change. Fresh starts provide the opportunity to attempt new things. It's a chance to increase our worldviews and experience new opportunities. I've always loved to change things up; that's probably one of the reasons why my hair color changes every few months. I'm excited to see what kinds of doors this rather large series of changes will open up for my family. I'm looking forward to stepping through these doorways and discovering what lies on the other side.

Photo Credits

Road: Modestas Urbanas
Doorway: Peter Hershey

2016-07-31T13:13:00.001-06:00

The Messages We Send

2016-07-31T13:13:00.000-06:00

Something I've been thinking about lately is modeling appropriate use of social media. I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be a teenager right now, trying not only to navigate through today's physical world but also trying to navigate through their online world. Bad choices with social media can have huge, life impacting consequences. We know that adolescent’s ability to take into account other perspectives is still developing. We know that they often engage in risk taking behavior. Navigating social media often means that kids are making adult decisions and choices without a fully developed toolbox. It is up to the adults, to act as role models, helping them navigate this slippery slope.

Unfortunately, too often we are terrible role models. Recently, two young men from Alabama were arrested for starting a forest fire several miles from where I live. This fire would ultimately be contained but not before burning down eight homes. The men did not intentionally cause they fire. They started an illegal fire on private land and then failed to properly extinguish it. They made a series of uninformed, terrible choices that had devastating consequences. They are certainly guilty of making bad decisions but to see the postings on Twitter, you would think that the fire and its path of destruction was premeditated. They were attacked for being from Alabama, for supposedly not being able to read, for being transient. The list goes on and on. The response on social media was disgusting. I understand that homes were lost and beautiful land was darkened. I understand that people are upset with them. They have a right to be upset with them but too many of the postings were uncalled for. We are the role models. Kids look to the adults in their life for guidance, whether or not they recognize and acknowledge it. By viciously attacking others in a social forum, we are sending the message that this is acceptable behavior. It is not. As adults, we need to be so much more cognizant at all times of the behaviors we are condoning. After all, our kids are navigating this world every day without a fully developed toolbox. Let's do a better job of helping them not only complete their toolbox with the right tools but show them how to be appropriate, positive, kind, productive and intentional with these tools.

Photo Credits

Focus on the Learning: The Power of Mastery

2016-06-24T16:09:00.000-06:00

We all know that learning is messy. We've seen this messiness over and over again in our classrooms. I happened across this modified image from Demetri Martin in a blog post by George Couros recently and I think it accurately illustrates the idea of learning.

Photo Credit: George Couros - goo.gl/sL5Ksa

One of the questions I've asked myself over the last few years is what is the best way to ensure that every one of my students is learning, while keeping in mind that the journey towards understanding and sense making is often fraught with wrong turns, left turns, right turns and switchbacks and that every learner's final path is different.

This year, I decided to address the varying paths to learning through mastery learning. Mastery learning is not a new idea. According to “Lessons of Mastery Learning” published by ASCD, Benjamin Bloom, creator of Bloom's taxonomy, first introduced the idea in the early 1970's. Essentially, in mastery learning, the learner must demonstrate mastery of a concept, idea or topic before moving forward in their learning. Using the Schoology platform, specifically Schoology's learning objectives, student completion rules and mastery features, I incorporated mastery learning into my classroom this year.

We know that it is critical to begin with the end in mind. In order for our students to master anything, they need to know where they are headed. In our classroom, I use learning objectives to accomplish this. Briefly, learning objectives are created in your Schoology Resources. You can create your own customized learning objectives or access and use state and/or national standards. I have chosen to primarily use the Colorado State Science standards as my learning objectives. After adding specific learning objectives in my Schoology Resources, I attach them to specific assignments by adding rubrics. While I assess student understanding using a mastery scale, my school still assigns traditional grades. In order to merge mastery grading with my school’s traditional grading system, I have created a Mastery Grading Scale based on Marzano's work on standards based grading.

I customize every rubric that I create to reflect this scale.

For student’s to move on, they must, at minimum, demonstrate "moderate command" of each learning objective. Keeping in mind that learning is messy, I know that not all students will meet this expectation the first, second or sometimes even the third time. To account for this, I use student completion rules. These rules are easy to set up in each unit. I allow students to revise their work as many times as they want to. Ultimately, I want them to learn, I don't care how long or how many tries it takes. Learning is the goal, not completion!

This brings us to the last Schoology feature that I use to ensure that learning is happening, mastery. I approach at mastery in two different ways. First, I use student completion rules on assignments aligned with our learning objectives. This works great for those learning objectives that are more short-lived. But there are also a handful of learning objectives that students are working towards mastering for the entire year. This is where the Schoology mastery feature is critical. If I have a learning objective that I use over and over again, I can easily keep track of a student's progress towards mastery using this feature.

I can even look at an individual's progress towards specific objectives in order to determine how to help her successful master the idea.

To conclude, when we account for the messiness of learning and really focus on learning rather than completion, amazing things start to happen in the classroom. My ability to use the Schoology platform to easily add learning objectives to assignments and to add student completion rules as well as using the mastery feature has significantly changed our classroom focus. Students understand purpose as they work towards understanding rather than a "grade". This change in focus in reflected in the amount of revisions I see on a daily basis. It is reflected in the conversations that happen among my students as they work on defining and refining their understandings. It is reflected in the smiles of both my non-traditional and traditional students who suddenly find success in school when historically they haven't because they have time to work through their ideas and their understandings. It is reflected in the deep, thoughtful thinking that occurs as students realize that learning isn't usually straightforward and although it takes hard work, it is incredibly satisfying.

Status Quo

2016-06-21T08:49:00.004-06:00

Recently, my daughter had to make an important decision. She had to decide if she wanted to maintain status quo. Would she stay with what was comfortable and easy, but overall incredibly unsatisfying or step outside of her comfort zone and do something different, something uncomfortable, something scary, but something that was ripe with opportunity and potential.

I am proud to say that she went for the latter choice. It’s easy to stay safe, it’s easy to encourage the safe choice. After all, if it’s safe, as a parent we know what to expect, as an individual, things become more predictable, life gets easier. But life shouldn’t be about predictability, it should be rich and exciting and satisfying. Our experiences should push us as human beings, they should stretch our comfort zones and our minds. Experiences should expose us to new things, different ways of thinking, new people, new ideas. Safe is boring, safe rarely helps us grow and become better stewards of our communities, our amazing planet and ultimately our families and ourselves.

Over and over again in my school, I see safe choices. Maybe it’s a student that is good at school, always following the directions, staying with the lines, aiming for the right grade rather than the learning. Maybe it’s a teammate that hangs back and watches everyone else manipulate an idea, a new design, a question, an experiment, only stepping in when he is one hundred percent sure that he has it covered. Maybe it’s a teacher that sticks to what he knows, what he is comfortable with and what has successfully worked for him in the past even though it’s not working anymore. Maybe it’s an administrator that doesn’t want to rock the boat by encouraging her teachers to think differently.

I’ve never been what I would call a safe person. I certainly take more than my share of risks. You might not look at me or talk to me for the first time and think this, but I do. I like to say that I embrace, welcome and often times look for change. Many of my risks, my “jumping of the cliff” moments have occurred within the confines of my own classroom. Some have led to great things, some have led to massive failures. Despite the risks that I have taken within my classroom, I have also played it safe at the same time. I have taught in the same school for 15 years. I have taught the same subject and grade for 15 years. I have always justified this stagnation because I love what I do. But lately, it hasn’t been quite enough. I’m still challenged every day, but something is missing. My daughter provided me with great inspiration. I too have a potential opportunity to do something different within the confines of what I love to do, help kids learn. This opportunity would require me to step far outside of my comfort zone. It will be hard. I will have to leave the community that I has supported my growth and the development of my craft over the last 15 years. But change is good, risk is good, being a little bit uncomfortable is good for the mind, body and spirit.

Thank you Sage, for reminding me that the human spirit thrives under conditions of change.

Making Daily Pages a Habit

2016-05-31T12:45:00.001-06:00

I've been thinking about doing something like this for a few months now. I started a blog, Reinventing Class, over three years ago with the goal to publish a post every month. I've only been averaging a handful of posts every year - 3 to 4 if I'm lucky. Recently, I read a blog post by AJ Juliano, "How to Make Writing a Habit" which got me thinking about why I haven't met my blog goal. Habits can be hard to come by. I'm busy right? I am; I have two kids involved in sports, one of whom practices every day. I live in the mountains so I commute 30+ minutes to the school where I teach science, my son swims in a town 30 minutes away from home and from where I teach, my daughter plays soccer and is a referee, I like to run most days, I have 2 dogs to take care of, I have a husband that deserves my attention as well, I’m a dedicated teacher who likes to be innovative and creative and likes to give timely, honest, helpful feedback. I can make the list go on and on and the list is accurate. But, at the end of the day, my list is just another set of excuses.

If I want to write, if I think that it is important enough, then I just need to do it. A few days ago,six to be exact, I read Will Richardson's post about the 750Words.com site, "Writing Every Day". I found the purpose of this site really intriguing. Basically, the underlying idea is to log-on and write at least 750 days everyday.

Based on my blogging history, or lack of, over the last 3 years, I need to conscientiously develop a writing habit. This might be a great tool to encourage me as I try to develop and refine this new habit. I started last Friday, the first day of summer vacation. I just finished my fifth round of daily pages. This is my first blog post to come out of my daily pages but I have about 3 more posts in the works. It’s fun, it’s encouraging me to consistently capture my ideas and my reflections and it’s helping me begin my journey as a writer.

Photo Credits: Facts Evasion via Flickr, Writer Friend via Flickr

Ignite: A New Learning Experience

2016-05-01T10:32:00.002-06:00

Last summer I decided to participate in an Ignite session at the InnEdCO 2015 conference. The Ignite motto is “Enlighten us but make it quick”. An Ignite is a fast paced, 5 minute talk where the presenter must use a pre-timed, 20 slide presentation. In math terms, this means that each slide automatically advances after 15, very short, seconds.

My motivation to participate in the Ignite session was simple; I wanted to push my comfort zone and try something new. I had presented at numerous conferences, but as a presenter, I had never experienced anything like an Ignite before. I felt passionate about my focus and wanted to share my ideas and thinking with others using a non-traditional format. Despite a minor technical glitch about midway through my allotted 5 minutes, my slides decided to stop automatically advancing, the Ignite went pretty well. I walked away from the Ignite stage that day feeling like I had accomplished my goal. I then spent the next few days debating if I should blog about the experience. Standing up and sharing my Ignite with a couple hundred people was one thing, but sharing it publicly on my blog, well that, in one word, was just scary. I thought about the post, I started a Google doc and titled the post, I even tracked down a video of my Ignite, but then July and August came and went, school started, life got crazy again, and I didn’t write the post. If I’m honest, I didn’t write the post, not because I didn’t want to write about it, but because I was scared to post the video. Silly, but true.

Fast forward ten months. Today I finished “The Innovator’s Mindset” by George Couros (@gcouros). I found Mr. Couros’s book inspiring and so many of his ideas resonated strongly with me. In the later portion of his book, Mr. Couros emphasizes the importance of sharing our reflective thinking about our learning and our practice.

So, thank you George Couros, for convincing me that it’s not enough to think about and put into practice our ideas and our learnings. If we truly want to help move education forward, we must also share our honest reflections on our experiences and our learnings. If you have 5 minutes, check out my Ignite: What If? by Erin Mayer.

Ignite Photo Credit: goo.gl/3MKcEW

Let's Focus on Thinking Instead

2016-01-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

After returning from a long, relaxing and thoughtful winter break, our staff spent a lively hour discussing our school wide goal for this year. I know, a little late, but we’ve been waiting on PARCC data. For the last three years, our building focus has been writing.

The challenge has been how to address and assess this goal across all of the different contents that are represented in our middle school. We have tried using a common acronym, RAP - Rephrase, Answer, Provide Support, but this acronym didn’t necessarily fit well with all content areas, sometimes felt contrived and overall, did not significantly impact on our student’s standardized test scores. We also tried using common, school wide short constructed response assessments. These assessments were cumbersome to score and due to the scoring time commitment, we were only able to give 2 or 3 over the course of the year. Again, no one, teachers or students, were getting
the bang for their buck.
So what to do?

My personal philosophy on education has undergone radical changes over the last few years. For many years of my career, I relied on traditional, summative assessments to determine what students knew. Over the last five years, I realized that these traditional assessments more often than not gave an incomplete, and in many cases, an inaccurate, picture of student understandings. They rewarded students who figured out what the teacher wanted and went about providing that answer and penalized students who thought outside the box.

What is the purpose of education? I grapple with this question frequently.

My current belief, influenced greatly by my experiences raising 2 children and following their school experiences, is that at the end of the day, I want my own children as well as my students to be able to think. I want them to be able to express their thoughts and opinions and support these ideas with credible, relevant and timely information. How they express their ideas should be up to each individual. The communication and presentation of ideas should be based on each individual child’s strengths and should involve thoughtful consideration of both audience and purpose. For years, the primary mode of communication, at least in the formal education setting, has been text based with a heavy emphasis on formal writing. I strongly believe we need to move away from this long-held assumption that all students must use formal writing as their primary mode of expression.

So back to our school wide goal. It’s so easy to default to writing - it’s what we’ve looked at for years, but is it really the most effective way to assess student growth? Don’t get me wrong, I think being able to write is important and my students often communicate their understandings through writing. But, I don’t think it is the only way, and certainly not always the best way, for students to demonstrate understanding and the ability to think deeply. And I certainly don’t think it is the best way to quickly assess understanding in order to provide timely and productive feedback. It is well past time to acknowledge that there are many ways to demonstrate the ability to think critically. This acknowledgment is scary though. How do you systematically assess deep thinking? How do you standardize both assessments and assessment feedback so you can track growth? I wonder, what happens if you focus on the actual thinking, rather than the fallback measurement tool - more often than not, formal writing. What if we acknowledge that there are many ways to show deep, complex thinking; for example, an intricate piece of art, a short video or audio recording, a bulleted list of words, a music composition, a sports formation.

Formal writing does not need to be the end-all-be-all. The world needs individuals who can express their ideas and thoughts, who can learn from their mistakes and move forward and who can think outside the box and confidently communicate their ideas. Our staff began to consider this today.
It was refreshing.
It was exciting.
It creates lots of unknowns.
I’m looking forward to seeing where we end up.

Sundays Are Hard

2015-08-26T18:36:00.002-06:00

Transitions - for our most impacted students, and many others, transitions are hard. Transition from elementary school to middle school, from 5th period to 6th period, from science to social studies, from Sunday to Monday. I get it; sometime during the last two years of high school, Sunday’s suddenly got hard for me. Thinking back, I’m pretty sure I was worried about my

impending “adulthood” and the soon to arrive transition to college. At the time, Sunday’s were just hard. I don’t think I ever told my parents about this. My worries came out on Sunday nights. After everyone was asleep, I’d wander from bedroom to bedroom, peeking in to make sure all was well. I often invited my youngest sister, just 10 years old, to sleep in my room pretending that I was doing her the favor not the other way around.

Ten days ago, our new school year began. I don’t know my 151 students very well yet but I do know that each one of them enters our classroom every day with their own strengths and worries and fears. I know that for many, Sundays are hard. I know that for many, transitioning from 1st period to 2nd period is hard. I know that for many, switching from subject to subject every 49 minutes is hard. I know that for many, transitioning from one activity to the next within a class period is hard. One of my goals this year is to focus on relationships. I only have 49 minutes every day with most of my

students but I plan to take advantage of this short period of time. Every Monday, we will begin class with a community building activity. I’ve also implemented a leader-board challenge for my students. Participation is voluntary but all activities are focused on building both community and relationships, between the students and between the students and myself. I hope that when things get harder and when struggles become more apparent that I will be able to fall back on these relationships and use them to help kids and maybe help Sundays become easier.

Photo Credits
Handshake: http://mrg.bz/8JrQuM

One Meaningful Adult

2015-08-11T22:39:00.003-06:00

This morning, I had the privilege of hearing Jonathan Mooney speak at Arvada West High School. Jonathan painted a poignant picture of his experience as a dyslexic, ADHD student and the role that pivotal adults in his life played as he navigated our education system. Through a series of personal stories, Jonathan challenged our traditional educational practices, arguing that “we confuse the global faculty of intelligence with the skill of reading” and “when all we do is “fix” kids, the message they get is that they are broken”. His message resonated strongly with me from both a personal perspective as a mom of a nontraditional student and from a professional perspective as a teacher who works with nontraditional and traditional students alike every day.

I wrote about my own son in a recent post. I could see my son in Jonathan Mooney as he stood before us on the Arvada West HS stage. My son is a creative, inquisitive, inventive learner outside of school. At school, he doesn't fit into the traditional definition of what constitutes a “good” student, which in his case primarily means that he is not a “good” reader. He doesn't like school and I can understand why. Jonathan challenged the 150 plus educators in the room to “build school experiences that ask how is this student smart, not how smart is this student” and that “we have the opportunity to help kids understand that intelligence isn't determined by 1 skill”. I would love to watch my son and his teachers acknowledge and develop his strengths rather than always focusing on what he, and the traditional school system, call his deficits.

I also saw so many of the students I have had the opportunity to work with over the years in Jonathan. Kids who walk into my science classroom with 7 years experience of being “fixed”. Kids who think they have nothing to offer except trouble. Kids with a fixed mindset who believe they aren't smart. It is heartbreaking. Jonathan reminded me of one student in particular that I had the privilege of working with last year. This student was tough. There were plenty of nights when I couldn't sleep trying to figure out how to reach him. There were plenty of days when I had to take a deep breath after he said something rude or mean to myself or his classmates. He hated school and who could blame him. Four of his seven periods in the day were focused on “fixing” his deficits. I don’t think he had any electives in his day because of all of the intervention classes. Jonathan reminded us that “there is a strength in every student that is a pathway to success; our job as educators is to find it”. It took months to develop a relationship with this particular student and then, just as we were finally figuring it out, the school year ended. I hope that the tiny bit of success we had, the identification and development of his strengths which, yes, he has, carry forward this year for him and change his path.

As I get ready to begin a new year of teaching with new students that each bring their own individual strengths, challenges and passions into the classroom, Jonathan reminded me that connections and relationships matter. I need to remember this when the going gets tough. I need to “define kids by what they can do, not what they can’t do”. I need to ask “what are you good at” and not accept “nothing” for an answer. I need to remember that every student has something to bring to the table and that it is my job to help them find and develop this nugget. And I definitely need to remain an advocate for that student that I worked so hard with last year. After all, one meaningful adult can put a child on a different path.

mrg.bz/lzAz6e

Scrum: Let's See Where This Take Us

2015-08-05T09:08:00.000-06:00

I recently finished reading Scrum by Dave Sutherland. Although scrum was created with businesses in mind, many of scrum’s core ideas can be translated into an education setting. I am fortunate to work with an amazing core team of teachers at Oberon Middle School. The 2015-2016 school year will be our second year working together as a core team and we have decided to use scrum this year in two ways. First, we will use scrum to help us address kids who are struggling for any myriad of reasons (more to come on this once the school year starts). Second, we had already decided as a team last spring to do our best to implement problem and project based learning in our classrooms whenever we could this year and I am thrilled to write that last week we started using scrum to help us initiate our PBL focused year!

Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies are all represented on our core team. We all bring very different backgrounds, experiences and ideas to the table. The first thing scrum reminded us was that for us to work together as a truly effective team we need to understand is what is happening in each of our classrooms. We spent some time giving each other a brief synopsis of our curriculum and then we pulled out the sticky notes!

Our first goal was to begin discovering the natural connections that occur throughout our curricula. We don't want to force connections but we definitely want to acknowledge that there are connections and start to highlight them, thus the sticky notes. Just to get an idea of where our units would fall, we set up a rough map of the year, month by month, keeping in mind that "the map is not the terrain". Math and Social Studies curriculum had to be in a specific order but there was some flexibility in science and language arts. We took advantage of this flexibility to highlight some natural connections. The first unit in my science class will focus on biological adaptations and natural selection. In social studies, the kids will be learning about ancient civilizations including the implications of artificial selection on human society. Awesome, our first significant connection! We are in the process of taking advantage of this nature connection to develop our first PBL event of the year.

You might be saying to yourself right now “Well duh, this isn’t rocket science, why didn’t you do this before?”. To be honest though, I have worked with some amazing educators and teams over the last 15 years but I have never been on a team that has started off a school year like this. Despite best intentions and common sense, it has just never happened. So what’s different this year? I’m not sure, but to start, we have all made the commitment to be deliberate and intentional and we have found a framework, scrum, that we believe will help us make learning better for our students and for us. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I can't wait to see where we end up!

Photo Credits

Scrum: goo.gl/OMtnYR
Puzzle Pieces: http://mrg.bz/WDwow4

Summer "Learning"

2015-07-08T22:23:00.000-06:00

My son (let’s call him T) does not like school. He is a pretty good student overall, he does his homework without prompting from me, he behaves in class for the most part, he excels in some areas (math) and struggles in others (reading) but, with the exception of recess, he has never been interested in school. He, like all of us, is a learner at his core, he just doesn't like the way “learning” goes down at school.

During T’s first couple of summers in elementary school, I did what I thought parents were supposed to do to make sure their kids didn't have “learning loss” over the summer - I purchased summer bridge books. I had him work on the bridge book for about 30 minutes every day in addition to reading 30 minutes every day. He hated those daily 60 minutes. He thought the bridge books were boring and he is dyslexic so reading is really tough. Last summer, the summer before 5th grade, I decided to forgo the bridge books and, without telling him, let T take control of his learning. (Amazingly, he never even questioned the lack of bridge books.) T ended up working on two projects last summer; developing a working pair of human wings and building and sailing a homemade boat.

T tackled the wings first; I tried not to interfere. He started with some research on YouTube (it’s fairly amazing what you can find when you Google human wings). He drew out some plans, made his list of supplies and asked for me to take him to the local hardware store. At the hardware store, he sought the advice of an employee about what materials were the most lightweight but durable and therefore excellent wing material. The employee also gave him some unsolicited advice; “Be careful where you take off from, I don’t want to see you on the nightly news.”. He purchased his supplies using his allowance money, went home and started building. T created about 6 different versions of his wings, testing and tweaking as he went. Ultimately, he only made it a couple of inches off of the ground but he didn't care, he was thrilled by his success. My only contribution throughout his project was to tell him that he couldn't jump off of anything higher than 12 inches as he attempted to take flight. As it turned out, I didn't even need to enforce this rule because he decided a running start down a steep hill would be a better method to achieve lift off. Based on my observations from the side, T dabbled in economics, design thinking, physics, geometry, communications and effective research just to name a few but if you ask him, he’ll just say it was really fun to make human wings and try to fly.

Human Wings "In-Development"

About 3 weeks into the human wing endeavor, T decided to change gears and focus on making a working sailboat. Once again, I stood back and watched my 10 year old direct his own learning. Over the course of the next 4 weeks, he designed, built and successfully launched his boat in not 1, but 2 different Colorado lakes. From the side, I watched him dabble in budgeting, discount shopping, characteristic properties, weather and construction just to name a few, but again, if you ask him, he’ll just say it was awesome to be able to sail his own boat for an afternoon.

Sailboat Trial #1

This summer, T has decided to create an online store and sell some mini crossbows and arrows that he has designed and successfully tested. He continues to tweak his designs and he is currently 1 week into the website design process. I have no doubt that soon I will be able to list off a slew of things this project allowed him to dabble in and again, I’m sure if you ask him, he’ll say it is super fun to be the owner of a store and sell stuff that he made for money.

As I've watched my son over the last 2 summers, I've realized that something important is often missing in our schools and classrooms (including my own 7th grade science classroom); the opportunity for kids to discover, develop and follow their own passions and interests. Why is it always the teacher and/or the curriculum that dictates what will be learned and how it will be learned? It seems like we have this entirely backwards. Although he would never call what he is doing learning, T loves “learning” over the summer because he is in charge, he is deciding where he wants to go and he is figuring out how to get there. What would happen if we consciously began to create opportunities in our schools for this type of learning to take place? Where would our students go if we focused on becoming their learning coaches rather than their teachers? What would our students walk away with by the end of every year if they were in charge of their own learning path? I want my own children and my students to love to learn all of the time, not just during the summer break from school. Maybe passion based learning is a great place to start.

Moving Forward With Purpose

2014-08-20T21:28:00.002-06:00

My classroom is ready to go and the kids have arrived!

As I begin my 14th year of teaching, I am excited, energized, full of ideas and ready and willing to step outside of my comfort zone and try some new things that will help me grow as a learner and allow me to help my students recognize and tap into their passions, interests and potential as they also grow as learners.

Participating in the “Cowboy Ethics” workshop last week, reminded me that it is important for me to get my goals out of my head and onto “paper”. So here goes:

Teaching Goals

Take a stab at gamifying my science classes (thank you @techedupteacher for inspiring a non-gamer to give this a go)

Incorporate the concept of the “genius hour” into my science classes (many thanks to @JoyKirr for sharing her awesome resources)

Continue to use technology as a powerful tool to personalize my student’s learning

Personal Learning Goals

Apply, apply, apply to the Google Teacher Academy (and hopefully get accepted)

Write at least 2 posts/month to my blog “Reinventing Class”
Become an active Twitter participant rather than a silent observer

Photo Credit
venspired via photopin cc

The Cowboy Code of Ethics

2014-08-11T21:00:00.001-06:00

Today was my first day back at school. To kickstart our school year, my principal brought in Kent Noble from the Center for Cowboy Ethics and Leadership. Kent facilitated a half-day workshop called “Standing Tall: What’s Your Code”.

This workshop is based on James P. Owen’s, 2005 book, “Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West”.

Source: amazon.com

Kent began his workshop by introducing us to the Cowboy “Code of the West”.

After reviewing the “Code of the West”, Kent turned our focus to the “11th Principle”. In essence, over the following three hours, he led each of us through the creation of our own Code of Ethics. While our immediate goal was to create our own personal Code of Ethics, in order to help every staff member stand behind their code, Kent encouraged us to publicize our personal Code. So, here goes…

My Code of Ethics

Find balance by focusing on the big picture.
Happiness is a decision.
Only I control my attitude
Stand up and speak up for what you believe in.
Always look for the gold nuggets.
Make an impact.
Success doesn't happen without failure.
Never doubt that one person can make a difference.

Changing Perspectives

2014-07-30T16:21:00.003-06:00

The Corkscrew Roller Coaster at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio was one of my favorite roller coaster rides growing up. Its hills, high speeds and inversions inspired excitement and exhilaration not to mention a sense of panic as well as butterflies in the stomach in the initial hill climb after realizing you are in it for the duration of the 120 second ride. My story as an educator this past year took a series of twists and turns that remind me vividly of the Corkscrew of my childhood.

In late spring of 2013, the staff at the middle school where I have spent the majority of my education career, made a collaborative decision to initiate a 1:1 Bring Your Own Device Learning Initiative for the 2013 - 2014 school year. Although many staff members were unsure of what to expect as we embarked into very new territory, we had a fairly strong support system in place within our school walls to help both staff and students with this transition including myself, our teacher librarian, our principal and 1-2 additional classroom teachers. Due to a series of unforeseen circumstances however, we found ourselves without a teacher librarian just days before the school year began. My principal was unable to find another teacher librarian with the unique skillset of experience and knowledge to support our staff and students in the inaugural year of our 1:1 BYOD Learning Initiative. As a last resort, she came to me several days before the start of the school year and asked if I would be willing to step into the role of teacher librarian for the school year.

Now, let me be clear, I am a science teacher. My passion has always been science and I became an educator with the hope of passing on my love of science, including asking questions and pursuing answers, to kids. My passion for technology integration in education began several years ago but teacher librarian was never something that was on my “future” radar. I had never received any training or professional development in this field of education. My initial reaction was to politely decline due to my lack of knowledge and experience but after “sleeping” on it, I began to reconsider. Maybe, I thought, this position would provide an opportunity for me to model and expose the powerful potential of technology integration in the classroom to other staff members in my building. I struggled with the decision but eventually decided to take a year long hiatus from the science classroom (although I did keep one science class because I couldn’t bring myself to give it up entirely, even for just one year). I gave my principal one stipulation, I asked to be called the Instructional Technology Coach therefore trying to make it clear that my role was to provide support and guidance for teachers and students as they explored how to effectively harness the power of technology as a learning tool.

This may have been the most difficult year of my teaching career. I missed being in the science classroom full time and I quickly learned that working primarily with adults is very different than working with kids. Although I decided to return full time to the science classroom this August, I walked away from my experience last year with several major “ah-ha’s”:

Educator’s work really hard! Of course, I already knew this being a teacher myself, but given my new perspective this year, I saw evidence of this hard, hard work over and over again.
It’s a really interesting time to be involved in education. I frequently hear teachers say the pendulum is just swinging back to the other side. I disagree, we are working with a completely different pendulum now.
In many classrooms and schools we are “stuck”. Our students are changing and what it means to be educated is changing but our schools and our education system aren't responding to these changes like they need to.
Technology too often becomes a $500.00 pencil. It is simply not acceptable to give our students the same old tasks with a more expensive tool.
There is a lot of talk about working on changing practice so that our students obtain “21st century skills”. This seems a bit tardy to me given that we are already 14 years into the 21st century.

So, as I embark on a new school year in the next few weeks, the anticipatory climbs, the scary hills and the mind-boggling inversions of my “corkscrew” year have inspired me to change things up dramatically, to reinvent my science class and to redefine what it means to be an educator and a learner.

Photo Credits:
Vlastula via photopin cc
evoo73 via photopin cc

Blended

2013-04-20T20:26:00.006-06:00

Three weeks ago, I jumped into the blended learning model and I am loving it. My approach to creating a blended learning environment has focused on three important changes in my classroom:

student choice
student ownership of learning
my role as the teacher

Student Choice
I have used Schoology all year as a learning management system for our classroom, posting resources, pushing out assignments, giving assessments (pre, post and formative) and creating discussion boards for my students to publish their own thinking and respond to their classmate’s thinking. The first thing I changed to create a more blended learning environment was how I organized the resources on Schoology and how students were given assignments. I created a separate sub folder for each concept we explored in our Genetics Unit, 5 concepts in all. The first item in each sub folder is a mini-lesson (less than 5 minutes) introducing students to key concepts and ideas. I expect my students to watch the mini-lesson, either at home or in class, and then choose their path for the rest of the sub folder. For most concepts, I have created three paths: pilot, flight attendant and passenger. All paths are self-directed and each path has varying levels of independence. Students who feel like they need more help and direction choose the passenger path, students who think they need less help and more choice in the direction of their learning choose the flight attendant or pilot path. I wasn't sure how this system would play out at first - would all kids choose the passenger path because they thought it might be easier? It turns out that my students have, for the most part, made appropriate choices. Many, including my non-traditional learners, are challenging themselves by picking the more independent roles of pilot and flight attendant. At the same time, students who feel like they need a little bit more teacher direction tend to choose the passenger role.

In addition to allowing students to choose their path through each concept sub folder, I have also given them lots of student choice when it comes to showing their understandings. I have been trying to encourage them to use their iPADs to their full potential as a powerful tool to demonstrate their understandings. My students have chosen a variety of tools to showcase their learning and understanding from many apps including Skitch, Popplet and Educreations.

Student Ownership of Learning
For several years I have been skeptical of “flipped classrooms” because I didn't like the idea of “lecturing” my students. My skepticism towards mini video lessons has undergone a fairly dramatic change over the last 3 months. As I stated earlier, I have created short mini-lesson to introduce the main concept of each sub folder. My expectation was that students would view the lesson as they began to explore each concept. I also hoped that students would go back and re-watch the mini-lesson as they explored each concept in order to clarify ideas and clear up misunderstandings. I was thrilled to watch my students actually use the mini-lessons as a resource throughout their time with each concept. I have also built in formative assessments throughout each sub folder so that both myself and each student can gauge their understandings. I have seen many students start the formative assessments and not only realize that they are not quite ready to move on yet but also make the decision (on their own!) to go back and revisit previous activities, including the mini-lessons, in the sub folder before moving on.

The Role of the Teacher
One of the biggest benefits I have seen as we evolve into a blended learning environment is the time I now have in class to work with students who are struggling. I am a strong believer in formative assessments. Using data from these ongoing assessments, I know who is struggling and who isn't. My struggle has always been finding time during class to help the students who are struggling while not hindering the students who aren't. This is a hard task to manage with thirty-two students. Our blended environment has alleviated many of these time constraints. Because the students are pacing themselves through the unit, they are at a variety of different places at any given time. I have found that it is fairly easy to work directly with a small group of students who are struggling without slowing down the rest of the students.

Overall, our jump into blended learning has gone very well. There are of course some problems. Some of my students are struggling with the self directed component of our new learning arrangement. They are used to being told what to do and would much rather have me direct their learning. I also have a number of students who are missing work. In most cases, the work is missing not because it is not completed but rather because it just hasn't been submitted. Because their learning is more self-directed, due dates are now very flexible and vary from student to student. This is a big adjustment for many of my students and they are still learning how to manage their own work flow. I am also trying to find the best systems to manage my own work flow as well as finding the time to build each concept’s sub folder. At the end of the day though, the benefits far outweigh the challenges as I watch my students begin to become self-directed learners who are taking on the challenge of owning their learning.

The "Flipped Classroom"

2013-03-22T10:23:00.000-06:00

I first learned of the “flipped classroom” several years ago. I didn't buy into the idea at first. I’m not a lecturer, never have been, never intend to be. So I didn't really explore the idea of creating video lessons that my students could watch prior to class. If I never lectured to begin with, how would this work with my students.

In the last few months, three things have happened that have made me reconsider my previous, very limited, understanding of the “flipped classroom”. First, my district adopted the Schoology learning management system. My students and I have been using Schoology, with much success, since last August. Second, this past January, I received a grant for a classroom set of iPADs. Finally, this winter I took a fantastic online course on screen-casting.

I still don’t like the term “flipped classroom”. To me, it implies that lecture is a huge part of the classroom format and I don’t believe that lectures are an effective learning tool for most of my seventh grade students. I do, however, see that there could be value in creating short, mini-lessons that introduce and review key vocabulary terms and concepts. I like the idea of students being able to access these mini-lessons on their own initiative when they think it would be helpful to clarify ideas or clear up confusion. Our iPADs and Schoology have given me the opportunity to rethink how to establish a classroom environment that pushes all students to learn and create in their own individual, unique ways. So, I've decided to go for it and completely change what our class format looks like. I still don’t like the term “flipped classroom”. I much prefer “blended learning”. In my mind, blended learning implies student ownership of their learning. I see my role in a blended classroom more as a facilitator and a coach, than a “sage on the stage”. I’m curious and excited to see how our classroom as well as the roles of “teacher” and “student” evolve over the next few months.

Why iPADs?

2013-03-12T19:12:00.000-06:00

This question has been posed to me several times over the last few weeks, both by my principal and by several acquaintances outside of the education field. It’s a great question. I think that all of us agree that the
iPAD is an incredible piece of technology. It’s not enough, however, to just give a bunch of kids this incredible tool and say “go learn”. The iPAD is a tool and the tool in and of itself is not nearly enough.

We are at a pivotal moment in education. The average classroom looks very similar to classrooms of 100 years ago. But step outside of a typical school and we see something very different. To succeed in today’s global economy, you need to be able to quickly access and evaluate information and then use that information to solve problems in creative, innovative and novel ways. It’s no longer enough for our students to just “know” things any more. School needs to be a place where every day our students have the opportunity to take what they know and apply it as they think critically and analytically, solve novel and relevant problems and are encouraged to think “outside of the box” as they create and innovate. After all, the goal of education is to help students become lifelong learners as we prepare them for the “real world”. The iPAD is not the “end all, be all”. Transformative teaching and learning environments are.

My classroom and teaching philosophy have undergone a transformation in the last several years. I expect that my journey is far from over. So what does this transformative learning environment look like? I’m still trying to figure that out but here are some of the things I've learned so far:

Clear Learning Goals: Clear learning goals are important. The students need to know and understand what the target is and why it is an important benchmark to reach.
Flexibility: Students need the opportunity to showcase their understandings in many ways. In the classroom this means that many different things might be happening at once. However, the learning target still remains similar from student to student.
Assessment: Assessment is ongoing and much of it is informal. Students also need frequent opportunities to address and solve real, relevant problems.
Classroom Environment: It sometimes looks messy on first glance but when you look closely, deep, 40-year learning is happening every day in a transformative learning environment.
Creative Freedom: Students need to be given the opportunity to find and develop the best ways for them to showcase their thoughts and ideas. This might look radically different from one student to the next. Some students are able to figure this out quickly but many need lots of guidance. It’s not that they can’t do it, they’re just used to being told what to do and how to do it.
Details: Sometimes details are important but sometimes they’re not. I think that in education we have a tendency to get bogged down with the little things and lose sight of the big picture. Letting go of the little things is sometimes the first step towards creating a transformative learning environment.

As I look back at this post, I am aware that I have hardly mentioned iPADs. That’s because iPADs are a tool that can only be used to their full potential when the learning environment changes. So, are iPAD’s necessary for this transformation to take place in the classroom? Of course not. The same transformation can take place using technologies like laptops, Chromebooks and personal SMART devices. It can also take place without technology but I would argue that not allowing students the opportunity to use technology as a tool is a disservice to them not only because it is such an integral part of their lives but also because it is necessary skill in the new global economy.

This leads us back to my original question, why iPADs? There are several things that set the iPAD apart from other technology tools:

their simplicity
their durability (especially in the hands of middle schoolers)
their ease of use as a learning tool both inside and outside of the classroom
the ease of personalization
the diverse number of apps

I currently have a class set of iPADs. This means that our devices are shared amongst 4 to 5 students throughout the day. What I have quickly learned after only 2 months with the devices is that in order to use the iPADs to their full potential they should be a personal device that the students use throughout their school day and outside of the school environment as well.

My goal is to transform the education experience of our students. I will continue to advocate that the iPAD is the ideal personal learning tool to help reach this goal. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out not only how to help and inspire teachers as they transform their learning environments but also how to get this tool into the hands of all of our kids....

Camera Overload

2013-02-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

I have spent a lot of time this year helping my students understand what it means to be a good digital citizen, what their digital footprint is and how to stay safe online. As we transitioned to the iPADs, we brushed up on all of these concepts. Because each iPAD is shared by 4 or 5 students, following good digital citizenship practices is crucial. Some of the apps we are using for science class require them to store their work on the iPAD. Other students who are assigned to the same iPAD have the ability to view, edit and delete this work. I have stressed over and over again the importance of following good digital citizenship practice. While we haven’t had any issues with students losing their work, there have been some issues with photos. Since they began using the iPADs, one of the high interest activities for the students has been to come in early to science class and take and manipulate pictures. Some kids get really into it and manage to take 50+ pictures in a span of about 3 minutes before class starts. I have other kids (assigned to the same iPAD as the student who is photo happy) who like to keep the camera roll clean and neat, so they delete photos that they think are repetitive, silly or unrelated to class. My response to the lost photos has been twofold. First, I continue to emphasize good digital citizenship - it is obviously not a good practice to delete someone else’s work (even if you think it is silly or repetitive). At the same time I have shown the kids how to upload those pictures that are “near and dear to their heart” to their Google Drive account so they have a copy in case anything happens to the photos on the camera roll. It seems like a trivial issue at first glance but I want the kids to learn how to use these tools as a device for lifelong learning. Part of that means using them as a tool to showcase their passions and interests. I want to give them the freedom to use the camera as a tool. The dilemma is finding a way to share the camera tool on an iPAD that, for right now at least, is only semi-personalized.

Day 1

2013-01-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

The students used the iPADs for the first time today. Pictures capture the excitement in the classroom better than any words I could write.

Countdown

2013-01-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

I've done the research, attended the presentations and followed the blogs, posts and tweets of the trailblazers. Now it's time for action. Yesterday I picked up our shipment of 32 iPADs. The iPADs are bar coded, labeled, in their cases and ready to be received into the hands of my 140 eager seventh grade students. The kids have anticipated their arrival; every day since their return from winter break I have been bombarded with the question, " Are they here yet?" the moment they walk through the classroom door. As we venture into the unknown tomorrow, I know that I'm ready, exited, anxious to jump in and too be honest, just a little nervous.

Many of the articles, presentations and conversations that I have seen, read and participated in about iPADs in the classroom focus on the ability of this tool to fundamentally change the look and feel of learning (student learning and teacher learning) both inside the classroom walls and beyond these same walls. I am both intrigued and excited to see how our classroom evolves with the introduction of the iPADs.

I embark on this journey with an open mind. I already cultivate a minds-on, inquiry based classroom environment. My classroom has been a 1:1 laptop classroom for 2 years. Our focus is science but I am a powerful advocate for allowing students to use technology as a tool to help them make meaning of the science they are immersed in, to apply what they know and understand to solve relevant and novel problems and to think outside the box as they create and innovate. I believe strongly that the iPADs will provide my students with even more opportunities to create, innovate and direct the course of their own learning.

I also hope that our classroom becomes a model for other classrooms and teachers in my school and my district for ways to effectively integrate iPADs as a powerful learning tool both in the sciences and other subject areas. I will be transparent and honest in my postings as I reflect on our successes and our struggles.

So, come Monday morning, let the learning and transformation begin; ready or not, here we come.....