Technology & School Administration

David Warlick tweeted that he was watching project based learning at a middle school in Vermont.  This example included writing a script for a Wonder Years episode for the study of the 60′s era.  What a quick and easy way to connect; n this case, hearing about students engaged in a fun activity imbedded with learning!

As this blog embarks on exploring the engaged learning we hope to continue encouraging and providing in Goochland, a good source will be the tweets and links of so many experienced educators.   Another suggestion from David Warlick: TeachThought.

Visiting Byrd Elementary School (BES), this morning I was struck by the positive engagement of students with their lessons. Just walking into almost every classroom in the school to view what was happening on the Tuesday morning after Labor Day, our small team of administrators, witnessed good instruction in action.  We are talking more and more about going beyond the minimum, going beyond the standards, going to a place called “engagement” and active learning.  I will talk more about this in blogs this year, but I can say . . . you know it when you see it.

Of course, this is not good enough.  We need to be able to identify it, quantify it, describe it, talk about it, and duplicate it.  Engaged students does not just happen.  It takes good planning.  Much like the well-organized learning environment we found as we walked the halls of BES yesterday, teaching and leanning is obvious around every corner.

Hallways at BES have names and one of them, “Fairness Blvd” already has some student work posted on the wall.  Here again, good planning produces results.  Here is a sample