Working on the "elevator speech" about the Thin Wall Classroom. I just attended a leadership conference and was asked to share about the project with Snow Lake. After I gave a brief overview of what we are doing another principal approached me and asked -"What do you want/expect your eighth graders to gain from this experience? What will they have learned? " It was an important moment reminding me that I need to be clear about the purpose of what at first blush might appear to be just a bunch of cool activities. So now as a think aloud I want to try to flesh out the my answers.
In no particular order :
- Students will move beyond limits of the classroom and the 8 to 3 learning day -opening up new ways to learn
- The students will learn how to work in a public space
- The students will understand the power of connectivity as a tool for learning
- The student will build learning networks
- The students will expand their world view
- The students will demonstrate multiple effective methods of collaboration and communication in the digital world
- Students will be self-critical of their communication skills
- Students will be able to track the development of their thinking and reflect on the impact of interaction with others on their thinking process over time
- Learning will become a process more than a set of facts to be mastered
- Students will be pushed to think about their learning
by Tochis
Technorati Tags: thinWall, classroom2.0, web2.0, snowlake
3 comments:
I'd like to know about how the learning activities that take place will take advantage of the distance of the two classrooms. How will learning activities be structured to take advantage of the worldview perspectives between the American and Canadian classrooms? I think this is an absolutely great project and I think efforts like this really need to explore the dynamic of distance. How can you leverage the project so that the kids no only learn what you have identified here, but learn about cultural, economic, societal issues, etc.
Also, I'd also like to see your assessment techniques for the above stated goals. A big challenge for you and Clarence to identify these, but a clear delineation of measurable outcomes would be a huge benefit to the networked community.
I will be following with great interest, thank you very much for your leadership in this area...
David
David
Thanks for pushing the thinking and for the encouragement. They are big questions and they are important. One aspect that is interesting is that as an Admin I am struggling to balance the immediate curricular goals and the big picture goals. We also have to guide the students into the thinking skills that will allow them to discuss the bigger issues.
I think the cultural, economic, societal issues will have to be structured in...At first blush I read your comment to refer to the Canadian/US issues but I also think we are trying to look at bigger issues from our unique perspectives.
Can you flesh out what you were thinking?
Thanks again for the conversation!
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