Innovative Education in Vermont
Exploring innovative, personalized, student-centered school change
“Who am I?” is the question at the heart of the adolescent mind. Almost all challenges, tests, and dilemmas relate to the central theme of identity.
Young adolescents seek to find answers to questions like, “Where do I fit in?”, “What makes me different or special?” and “What do I believe?”
Do you recognize the object at left?
Does it look like a comfortable learning environment for a student? Does it look like the type of learning environment a student would choose for themselves?
OF COURSE NOT, and because you are all such passionate and committed educators, you started shaking your heads the minute the image loaded. You’ve worked hard at banishing these ancient things from your rooms.
But here are some ways educators can make their physical classroom settings more flexible and responsive to student learning needs.
Continue reading “Hack your classroom: flexible physical learning environments”
Flip the way you deliver content and engage students, but don’t stop there: flipping your space, your community and faculty meetings can be just as useful.
Back in November, a group of educators from Harwood Middle School, in Mooretown VT, headed down to the iPad Summit in Boston, to talk about how Harwood has revolutionized ePortfolios, by making their production part of graduation requirements. They’re asking students to document their artifacts using Evernote. Use of the app in this way allows each student to graduate with a fully annotated, personalized digital portfolio, demonstrating what they’ve learned and how it satisfies Harwood’s graduation requirements.
And if that’s not enough to entice you, there’s 8th grade science educator Brian Wagner dressed as the Wicked Witch from Snow White. FOR PEDAGOGY.
A 1-minute iPad how-to from Harwood Union Middle School science educator Brian Wagner, showing you how to save augmented reality “auras” from the popular mobile app Aurasma, to Evernote.
Wagner used Aurasma with his students this past spring in creating an augmented reality periodic table, mounted in the community gallery space at their school.