Apr 11 2008
Assignment 4: Classroom 2.0
As I watched Clarence Fisher in his talk about Classroom 2.0, I did have an “aha” moment when he talked about classrooms as a studio. This has sort of been the case in my Physical Science classroom for the past couple weeks as we worked on our Astronomy unit. This is not a major unit in the course, but we do want kids to get as much as possible from it. Students presented their research to us, and wow, was there a lot of variety and creativity in the presentations! This video shows some of that.
Download Video: Posted by CWoot at TeacherTube.com.
But the connection to the assignment for me was to really push myself in Biology to get us to this type of environment. Right now we have students to a disease project–it’s detailed and really a traditional research paper. While, those are important (Clarence talks of shifting our entire view of classrooms–some places I think some resembling of a traditional classroom is okay), I do think that we can move toward what he describes. How can we prepare them to have the skills they will need in their world? Not our old world.
How can I connect this to my everyday work? I think I’m doing this a lot already. I really don’t see the classroom as a place for students to come learn from me. I don’t think the way we have our Biology class set up, that we construct ways for students to be the experts and “prosumers” of information very often, but I’d love to improve that. To me a prosumer would be someone who can interact with the content for a purpose. Sometimes, we are just providing the content. But, everyday I do think about changing attitudes toward education and reshaping my thinking of what my classroom should look like. I am improving this slowly.
3 responses so far
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I couldn’t get the video to load, but I am just so thrilled about how this kind of tool has impacted your classroom practice. I can tell from the crater video that the students are totally immersed in their learning. I too was really motivated by Clarence’s session and have been thinking alot about how to incorporate some of his ideas in to my own practice. I love the idea of the prosumer. I think that students can also be prosumers. You also mention purpose which I think we forget sometimes. I try so hard to always ask “What’s the purpose” before launching a project. I’m still learning to do that.
I think you have reached a really important place in your work. I love being in your classroom! It has been such a treat to watch your work this year! I can hardly wait until next year! Thanks for being such a positive influence in our class!
Nice job starting this journey.I agree it is a change we all have to make or begin making. This week I have been thinking about our high school students who create and collaborate on the internet from the time they leave school until they return in the morning. When they come to school it is not their world, they are still required to go through the step by step process of how we learned. I too have been thinking about how we can help support the changes that must happen. Good for you starting this journey.
Cheryl Oakes
Yeah, Catie. The disease project really is a traditional research paper that has kids look up information about specific questions and then spit it back. If kids could create videos in groups to show what they understand, I think they would be more engaged and create a more engaging piece to assess.