The Question.
Which teaching tools are you loving right now? EASY! I can make an almost infinite list: blogs, digital portfolios, Storybird, Storyboard That, Dotstorming, hyperdocs, digital book clubs. The list goes on and on. I can even make a pretty (very) good argument for how these tools are improving student interest and engagement. Yay! The Tough Question: Which tools are improving student understanding and achievement? Answer: I'm not sure. More Honest Answer. I am so very in the thick of it all, that it's become hard to step back and look at the big picture I'm creating. As far as English teachers go, I'm about as skills-based, old-school as they come. I know that the literacy skills I taught years ago are the same that I'm teaching today. Granted, the platform has changed, but I have stayed fiercely loyal to the content. Why, then, has the level of understanding gone down? Is it the bells? The whistles? Or just a different generation of kids? I'm not sure. Lately, my students are proving that, while they seem engaged, they are just not "getting it". So I need to reassess. I need to figure out what's changed. Flashback to 2013. I was happliy and loyaly married to the Interactive Notebook. In fact, you could spot a "Crowley Kid" in any crowd a mile away. They were the ones hauling thick, used, heavily decorated marble notebooks (often more than one, duct-taped together because, yes, we will need this information again!). Those kids "got it". Present Day. My divorce from the interactive notebook was messy. I had a hard time letting go. Still do. When challenged with navigating all the shiny-new-things of the Google world, I faltered. I wanted to try everything new. Now. At the expense of organization and routine. And I'm afraid that, at least in part, student understanding paid the price. Finding Balance. I'm working to reunite with the interactive notebook, but this time in a digital world. More of an interactive website/portfolio/work-in-progress. What used to be pages and pages of notes, practice, risk-taking, and acheivement housed in a marble notebook is now taking new form, becoming pages and pages of notes, practice, risk-taking, and acheivement house in a student-created website. I'm not sure yet if this is the answer I'm looking for. The thing I'm most loving that is also improving student achievement. But stay tuned, I'm still in the thick of it.
2 Comments
Jennifer Fischer
1/10/2017 06:33:00 am
I think the interactive website/portfolio/work space is the perfect blend of the old and the new. You need to come up with a catchy name and brand it.
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Jacki Daly
1/12/2017 07:44:34 am
Love this, Suzanne :)
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AuthorSuzanne Crowley: middle school English teacher, middle child, mid-career, mid-life. And in the middle of it all, mommy. Archives
July 2017
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