Teaching and learning is a cyclical relationship where everyone is simultaneously sharing and learning from each other. The best classrooms are those with a culture of learning: where students and teachers expect that each of them will broaden their minds equally. The SXSWedu conference was a massive classroom and we were fortunate enough to attend its third year on March 5th-7th. With fifteen different themes ranging from “Best Practices and Pedagogy” to “DIY and Maker” and “Funding and Philanthropy” the presentations, panels, workshops, and conversations were thought provoking inspections on how knowledge is acquired. Although we dipped into a lot of valuable content at the conference, it all came down to the importance of student engagement in the classroom. In order to prepare students for college and the future, students need to be engaged in the classroom now through instruction that includes student-led teaching and through a variety of hands-on relevant team projects that can be collected and catalogued online for future measurable portfolios.
Engagement: Students Teaching
Watching a classroom with an established culture of learning is like watching a magic show. You will not see glitter coming down from the ceiling or boxes where people are cut into two. You probably will not even see any rabbits pulled out of hats either. But, the magic is happening. You can hear it when the students say “ohhh” and “ahhh” as they understand new ideas or the teacher says, “aha! That’s it!” And you can see it when the students participating in discussions in an active, almost chaotic-like, way. This type of magic occurs when the students discover new ideas, question what they hear and see, and create new memories. This type of magic occurs when students are engaged and making things. But, what if we switched the role of the magician? What if the students taught the lessons, said “aha! That’s it!” to their peers, and mastered the content in the process? We attended the “HipHopEd: Reality Pedagogy 4 Edu/Youth Development” panel discussion, where Christopher Emdin, from Columbia University’s Teachers College, introduced us to the idea of asking a student to develop a lesson plan and then present it to the class. Although we have implemented this idea in our classrooms on a small scale level by asking students to become experts on an area which is then presented to the class; we have never asked students to actually create a “lesson plan” to teach a subject. As the teacher, or magician, the student would be engaged and would need to master the content in order for him or her adequately teach it. The act of creating the lesson plan where the student has to engage peers and think of real world connections for the material would be a great opportunity to learn the content. Further, as the student leads instruction in the classroom, the student becomes responsible for her or his learning while maintaining the expectation and supporting the learning culture in the classroom.
Engagement: Making Movement
Most of us learn by doing. We didn’t know how to brush our teeth until someone showed us (thank you mom and dad). And unless we wanted to eat baby food for the rest of our lives, we had to learn how to clean our teeth quickly. Students will be ready for STEM (science technology engineering and math) careers after learning from relevant, hands-on, group-project based experiences in school. We attended the “Tinker Tailor Solder Ply: Why Makers Rule in Edu” and we were reminded that making things in the classroom is fun, it keeps students engaged, and it is a way to connect with the community. These activities can be used in K-12 and do not need be complicated or difficult. Teachers can let students put things together or take them a part (build a shelf for a community member or take apart an electronic clock). Or, teachers can look to reference materials like, Make Magazine for project ideas. Panelists Dale Dougherty (founder of Maker Media) and Katie Rast (FabLab Program Director) stated that although these activities may be a little scary for the students and the teacher, “they {activities} build confidence of the unknown.” Teachers “need to be persistent in trying and failing” to help students learn. This “makers movement” expands the ways in which students can understand content while at the same time creating a platform for teachers to measure student’s work.
Engagement: ePortfolio Evidence
Teachers love data and they collect student work samples in a portfolio throughout the year as a collection of information, or evidence, about a student’s progress. The examples are also measures of the student’s grades and at the end of the year, a student is proud of all the work she or he did. However, K-12 students need evidence of their work products to be transportable online so that they can apply for college and practice doing so for employment purposes. Placing their work online is an excellent mechanism for students to receive feedback from an online community and to take ownership of their work. Cross-curriculum content can be stored: presentations, reports, art projects, or even science and math labs can all be placed in an ePortfolio. By doing this, a student will have real evidence of the progress made during his or her academic career. As online cloud storage sites become more available, it is now easier to create an ePortfolio. Teachers can use digital drop boxes, Google apps, blog sites, design portfolios, or wikis as ways for students to take control of the evidence of their work and as a way to keep a record of what they have made. At the end of the year, students will have evidence of their engagement and learning.
By looking at a student’s work product, a teacher can see if the student was immersed and engaged in the assignment and the content that was instructed. This end result is also a way for a teacher to measure a student’s mastery of the information. At the same time, a student has a visual representation of, “Hey, I learned this!” SXSWedu reminded us that when a student is engaged and expected to work through a creative process to make something that will be shared online, the student learns to take control of their learning and be responsible for her or his future.
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