Throwing It Out Of the Window!

April...it is usually the time where many teachers start looking down the home stretch and planning what they are going to do as far as professional development for the summer. Many teachers start their countdowns, many plan vacations, some have a ceremonial tearing of each calendar page and maybe even sing a song as they tear it out and toss it away.... as page by page the year slips away.

To be honest... every other year, that has been me. THE COUNTDOWN!! I credit #GeniusHour for my change of heart. Actually not only do I credit Genius Hour, but I also credit Twitter and my newly found PLN (personal learning network) for getting me fired up about teaching again. My desk is piled high (ask any of my students and they will affirm the Mount McFleming on my desk), I have papers to grade each day and night, there are blogs to check, personal development chats to take part in, reading, discovering, etc....and I am excited about it all! I think one of the reasons I am so excited about it is the new found vitality and enthusiasm in my classroom. MY STUDENTS ARE EXCITED! That makes it all worth while.

When a teacher decides to veer from the path which screams, "BUT WE HAVE ALWAYS DONE IT THIS WAY".... and ventures down that non-traditional teaching pathway, really great things start to happen. Now, don't get me wrong, it is scary and uncomfortable at first...but like I tell my students, "You have to walk through the fear to get what you want .... it's always on the other side, and always worth it." .... I have to practice what I preach. With that said, letting go of some of the things I have always done was a bit scary at first. What am I going to do if I don't have something to grade from this class each day? What am I thinking, having a meaningful discussion about non-conformity during the days of Transcendentalism vs. 2015...shouldn't they write about it instead? Who said it was okay to do Hashtag Tuesday and show learning through a Tweet on a sticky note? I thought all of those things, and more, to myself.... but when I went for it, you know what???? REAL LEARNING STARTED TO HAPPEN. Real dialogue between students was taking place, applications for life started to be learned, morals and ethics started to be talked about, and there was laughter in my class...lots and lots of laughter. 

What I have always known, but have seen first hand in the last three or four weeks is this.... students don't learn from multiple choice and true / false tests. Instead, what they do is memorize. Once that test is over, and the grade handed over, they forget what they memorized and move on to the next bit of information they must memorize to get a "good grade".... that's not learning. I want to be the teacher that sees true learning happening .... and that doesn't come from those types of tests. Real learning comes from open ended questioning, building a classroom environment that is safe for discussion, where all opinions are welcome and able to be talked about, where students feel like they matter, and what they have to say matters. That is when true learning happens. That is what I have witnessed through great methods like Genius Hour and tools I have have adopted through professional development chats via Twitter. There is a world of wealth out there that teachers need to be using to reach their students. 

Teaching has become fun again, and I hope my students have found some fun in learning as well. 

There are some great Genius Hour projects going on in my classroom; I hope you will take some time to read about the exciting things the students are discovering. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FaRGeGBSV5rc4_XOyLbIj7_1bfBHoPsDih1si0AMvCU/edit#gid=0

Safe travels,

Mrs. Fleming~