Creating a Place for Students to Create

Public education is changing.  But change is slow when new programs, ideas, or teaching methods don't fit into existing structures.

Last spring I proposed a Student Help Desk program for our high school.  My hope was for students to have the opportunity to create tutorials that would help teachers and students integrate BYOD more smoothly and successfully at our school.  See, I don't believe in tech for tech's sake.  But our students are already bringing incredibly powerful smartphones and tablets to school, so why not teach them to leverage that power to enhance their academic experience?  BYOD can help students:

This is how professionals are getting things done, so why shouldn't our students be working this way in the classroom as preparation for their professional lives as adults?

The problem is that this idea - having students create the school programming without a highly structured curriculum already in place - doesn't fit into a public school where teachers and students are told they have to meet standards and follow frameworks.  It also did not fit nicely into our schedule or our academic departments. It isn't really a business class and I'm a history teacher.  Science? Nope.  Health and Wellness? Nope.  At first it was a tough sell.

Thanks to some supportive and forward-thinking allies, after several drafts this is the proposal that was accepted:

8-1-14 RMHS SHD Pilot Proposal.pdf


Rockets Help Desk started meeting the second day of school and, based on an early teacher request, the kids settled on their first tutorial topic: digital note keeping in Evernote.

Click the screenshot to see the students' first public tutorial.
We still don't really fit into any of those public school categories.  I'm still teaching my 5 history classes and am facilitating Rockets Help Desk instead of a traditional duty (like lunch or hall monitor).  Even though the students are working hard and are producing authentic products that are meant to help their school community, they aren't getting credit... just yet.  They are choosing to use directed study time, traditionally used by students to help with the crush of homework, to build something new for our school.  Also, we don't really have a home yet. We are operating out of the library media center for now, a great central location in the school.  But don't have our own computers or a guaranteed quiet space for recording audio and video.  For now, the kids are using my laptop and their own BYOD devices to make it work.  It is working, though! We are making it work together.

I'm hoping to support the kids by publicizing their work via Twitter and through an in-house e-newsletter so that teachers and students at our school can benefit.  As the year goes on I'm hoping to hand over more and more control of Rockets Help Desk to the kids.  My early members, Julia and Megan, can become mentors for students we recruit in the future.  Over time we can grow into a program that helps students and teachers communicate about how we can learn best together.

Comments

  1. UnknownThursday, October 16, 2014 12:35:00 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMonday, June 03, 2024 11:33:00 AM

    Wow, what an inspiring read! As an educator, I truly believe in fostering environments where students can unleash their creativity. Providing them with dedicated spaces to explore, experiment, and create is vital for their growth and development. And hey, if any of my students ever need a boost of confidence while they're in their creative zone, I'll definitely recommend checking out under eye filler Dubai for that extra oomph!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Social Media Starter Tips

Image
Note: This post was recently  published on the St. John's Prep GOOD to Go blog . Chad Konecky interviewed me and wrote the post based on our discussion. Demonstrating and reinforcing common-sense social media engagement is important, especially when it comes to adolescents and teens. Kerry Gallagher, St. John’s assistant principal for teaching and learning, is leading the Prep’s emphasis on developing best practices when using social media. “Mentoring healthy guidelines like ‘Think before you post,’ ‘be kind and respectful’ and ‘be mindful of who you friend’ are key, but we need to foster—and the boys need to hone—an even keener sense of their life online.” Interestingly, the challenges of building an online identity can become even more difficult if students and their parents choose not to use social media, explains Gallagher. Alternatively, when students do create an online presence, it can become an opportunity to learn how to act appropriately and with accountability....
Read more

Guest Post: Digital + Traditional = Teaching at Its Best

Image
Rachel Salinger is a high school English teacher at my school, St. John's Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts. She is passionate about literature and about giving her students learning experiences that arm them with the skills they need to be thoughtful and good stewards of our future. I asked her to share her recent project on my blog because I think it is a stellar example of how traditional teaching and learning strategies can be effectively combined with digital tools for a deeper student learning experience. I referenced this project briefly in my recent EdSurge column and wanted to be sure to highlight it in detail on my blog. Introduction In my CP sophomore classes, we read Macbeth over the course of a few weeks. The students really enjoyed the play (surprisingly!) and I wanted to do a more creative assessment at the end instead of a typical paper or test. In the past, I’ve done an iMovie project with Macbeth but really wanted to do something different this year. I met...
Read more

Teaching 19th Century Ideologies with 21st Century Technologies

Image
Some concepts are just hard.  They're hard to teach and hard to learn.  Every year that I've taught the History 10 curriculum to sophomores, one of those concepts has been 19th century European political ideologies.  Conservatism, liberalism, and nationalism have never really been pulled together into a lesson that excited me or my students.  We would work through it and we'd both be OK, but never enthralled.  This year I wanted to change that. Part 1: What Do They Already Know? I asked students to define and give examples of each term: conservatism, liberalism, and nationalism.  They used their understandings from a modern American perspective.  We talked it out and they wrote their examples on the Smart Board. Part 2: How Was 19th Century Europe Different? It was REALLY different.  Before going there, though, I wanted them to know what an ideology is. The next step was to help them understand what these ideologies mean to 19th century ...
Read more