“The ultimate aim of education is to enable individuals to become the architects of their own education and through that process to continually reinvent themselves.” -- Elliot W. Eisner
With that in mind, we want to inspire students to embrace that power with their own knowledge by demonstrating instruction, allowing those students to learn from experience, being creative and encouraging creativity, and learning together to create a strong classroom environment and lifelong learner.
STUDENTS LEARN BY EXAMPLE: Students are the drivers of their learning but teachers must give them the directions along the way. Students can be the most powerful navigators of their own learning and passions if given the right tools. Teachers need to keep their minds in check, monitor that maintenance and make sure they’re nourished for the journey of their learning process. In my classroom I model a lot. I like to do what the students do and write the same prompts, do the same warm ups, routine writing, and projects to show them the process and the expectations. It’s crucial for so many visual learners and really connects to all modalities of learning as you walk students through the process of creation and explain the expectations, students who learn more hands on and auditorily will also adhere to the task at hand. STUDENTS LEARN BY EXPERIENCE: That modeling is critical for those student drivers, just as much as the actual driving and trying. No big accomplishments in life ever happened without the decision to try and allowing student to try and fail is so important in my classroom. I often have students ask to redo essays or to do more work than assigned for extra credit and I can’t see justify denying a work ethic. I think it’s important to advocate a strong work ethic and experience. Letting students learn by their mistakes and trying not to make them again. I think supporting active learners is important and keeps students loving the learning process, but more importantly making memories of their learning. TEACHERS LEARN THROUGH COLLABORATION: Students learn through collaborating with each other, as do teachers. In my classroom, I’ve transitioned to a completely paper-less classroom and blended personalized instruction. Students have taught me so much about my content and technology as well. They literally take the wheel and navigate for some lessons in their own creativity and knowledge. It’s a learning process for everyone and a great environment. That open collaboration makes students feel comfortable and safe as do I as I am not afraid to try new things or vanguard new projects. This is so important to the learning by experience aspect and promoting creativity. It keeps me honest and also up to date with my inspection for learning and curriculum. That way when I’m driving the vehicle of success students feel like they can try too. Hopefully, later in life they’ll be better drivers for it.