Day 1: Connected Educator, Connected Classroom

Today was the first f2f day of Connected Educator, Connected Classroom.  This is course 2 of a series of 5 graduate level courses in our new Innovative Instructional Leadership Program with Winona State University.  We meet 3 days (beginning, middle, and end – for 4 hours) f2f and the rest of the time is spent online.

PLN pic

Connected Educator Sketchnote – via @sylviaducksworth

There are 5 big goals in this course:

  • I am a connected
  • My classroom is connected
  • I influence others to connect
  • I am an active/contributing member in this cohort
  • My evidence and reflections prove I have met course objectives (ePortfolio)

I will admit.  I am very excited about this course.  Excited first because I can’t wait to see what the products, processes, and opportunities these educators in our class create, implement, analyze, and reflect on.  I have seen the amazing work of these educators – and you can too by clicking on their ePortfolios.  (Check out their Blended Learning Artifacts)

2015-16 Innovative Instructional Leadership Cohort!

Another reason for excitement with this course is that I am doing my own innovating as course facilitator.

#1 – I have eliminated grades in this course.   Yes. Grades.  I was inspired to try this after learning a few of our teachers in my district were going down this path.  I have been reading the books and blogs by @markbarnes19, and @mrssackstein, AND lurking, learning and participating in #TTOG (teacher throw out grades) groups via Facebook and Twitter.  Instead, the course is chalk full of self assessment where students maintain their own progress reports.  (see template here)  Most activities are on a 5 points scale.  Below is an example of a generic scale.  When my students submit their work, I will provide them feedback.  If we agree on the score, we are golden!  If not, we may need to have a short conference to discuss.  At the end, when all work is completed and evaluated – we will have a f2f conference to discuss their final grade.  This is the grade that will be posted to the college.  Please note – I was up front about this with my S’s as we discussed how learning would be assessed.

Generic Scale

#2  Besides a few scheduled twitter chats, this course is completely open! Teachers can go in and out of each module. They can work ahead or catch up.  They can revise all they want – to produce the best learning products to get the best results!  My students can also propose new activities/evidences if they have another idea – even better than mine.  I do have a few deadlines – just to check for progress as some of the projects are significant and will need quite a bit of pre-planning before implementation.  For instance, they need to develop a personal growth plan to create/expand their PLN.  They need to create a lesson plan to implement a global learning experience in their classroom.  They also will create an action plan to influence others (colleagues) to become connected.  Once plans are created and self assessed, they are put into action and implemented, evidence is collected, analyzed, and reflected on their ePortfolios.

Speaking of evidence – Below are 2 samples I shared during our f2f session today to showcase evidence of the “journey”.  To me, the journey is just as important (if not more) than the result.  I assured my students, if you do not get the result you want, that is OK!  What did you learn? What can you do better next time?

Evidence via @DonWettrick – the metacognition in this video is incredible!

Evidence via principal @dellwein – 8th grade middle school students doing live collaboration with students from Norway using padlet.

Both of these examples were found via my PLN (twitter or periscope) and serve as excellent samples of students during the learning journey.  I do want end products too – but the journey is just as important!

One of the things my students will have to do (under the target – I am connected) is create a blog to use for or I should say AS learning.  I have a few prompts for them to respond to, as well as providing flexibility in topics.  As promised, I also will be modeling the use of reflection through blogs and hope to blog just as many times as my students.  ( I need this anyways as its one of my professional new year’s resolutions!)

PS – the PechaFlickr icebreaker was so much fun!  http://pechaflickr.net/

Petcha Flickr Activity

Petcha Flickr Activity – an impromptu way of story telling and getting the creative juices flowing!

 

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