#edu531 Guest Appearance

About a month ago, Andrew Schwab put out a call to folks to have them stop by his #edu531 class - a class of preservice teachers - via Google hangout. Clearly, I was interested in chatting with some folks about to head out into the classroom!

I chose to talk about the importance of student choice in the classroom. We started the conversation with some brainstorming around the importance of student choice. Next we talked about SAMR and how it relates to choice - as you move up into modification and redefinition with technology, I believe the importance of student choice becomes clearer: choice allows you to modify and redefine what can happen - and who does the thinking! - in the classroom. We then moved into what student choice looks like in the classroom: the easier way to do it (choice around demonstration of knowledge) and the harder way to do it (choice around content).

Dan Pink's ideas about autonomy, mastery, and purpose are important here, and were mentioned. I tied these ideas into genius hour, 20Time, and Innovation Day. It's always fun to share these more envelope-pushing projects with teachers, particularly newer teachers. The sooner you can get teachers unattached to all-content-all-the-time, the better.

Finally, I shared some free tools at the end. Want to check it out? The link to the doc I shared with the #edu531 folks is here.

On the big screen! Thanks for the pic, Andrew.