Our mission for our 21st century chat is to create a positive 21st century learning environment for our students by sharing resources and ideas that has worked in our classrooms. Join us every Sunday from 8:00-9:00 PM (EST) on Twitter using the hashtag #21stedchat. All are welcome!
A little background for tonight's #21stedchat For the better part of the past year I have been fascinated with death….and I’m looking at death differently now. It’s not a bad thing. It’s a celebration.
Question 1 - Find one thing in your house that you need to get rid of. Take a picture and tweet it out without saying anything other than the hashtag. #21stedchat
A2: I chose the ADE shirt because it is 2 years old and looks like Swiss cheese. I can't get rid of it because it was the year I became an ADE. #21stedchat
A2: I picked the Wii music stuff because no-one has used it in YEARS and it just sits in the closet. It probably doesn’t even work anymore. Ha! #21stEdChat
A2: Paint art supplies need to leave my possession because I made frames fro my teammates and need to stop, they are nice and I keep thinking I need to keep working on them. Let it go... Let it go... #21stedchat
A2: My sister-in-law said she was going to get my husband something else for his birthday and then bought him a laptop case, so now I have some how gotten stuck returning the one she bought to Amazon. 🤨 #21stedchat
A3: I get rid of things that do not work anymore, or if I replaced it with something better, or when I buy new clothes I will usually dontate some of my old clothes. #21stedchat
#21stedchat A3: I’m a semi-hoarder and my wife has been reading to many blogs on being a minimalist. So stuff has been leaving the house all summer long.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhh I have a HUGE container of those!
What if my husband asks for the one cord that "might" be in that container? #21stedchat
Does this make me a cord horder?
Q4: I think to some degree we all hold on to things, because we think "I might use that"
then 10 years later we come across it and never touched it. #21stedchat
A4. We hold onto things MUCH too long. When I let go of 40 years of binders I felt like a new woman.
Imagine carting those things across the country! Foolish! #21stedchat
A4: I think that as far as physical items for our classroom go, most teachers out hoarders. As far as old lessons or ideas that do not work anymore or they do nto work with our current group we should throw them out. #21stedchat
A4) Great question! I believe that we need to treat each day like a new one. Especially when it comes to student's behaviors. That will help us build strong relationships #21stedchat
A4: We should be open to letting things go in education. With all of the new technology available and ever changing nature of students, we need to be prepared to keep students engaged. #21stedchat
A4: Both. Sometimes it is good to let go of BAD ideas in education. Sometimes is it good to stick with your teaching SENSE. BUT it is always a great idea to keep learning better ways to be a better educator. #21stedchat
A4: I think we let go of some things and not others. Many times I've seen people let go of worksheets only to replace them with shiny $500 worksheets. That's not good. #21stedchat
A4. When these also utterly foolish things started showing up on the stage I did my happy dance! Oh yeah, we were making progress in stopping the terrible worksheets!! #21stedchat
#21stEdChat I think that whether you let go or hold on to things in education depends a lot on the PD that you have access to, the administrative support, and your personal goals and willingness to explore.
A4 we can never let go of relationships, teachable moments, and being a champion for kids. Best practice and tools should evolve and not stagnate. #21stedchat
A4. Maybe a quick test of the engagement that is actually going on in a school could be measured by counting the # of file cabinets and dividing it by # of classrooms?
File cabinets = worksheets
#21stedchat
A4 with new students if you are truly using student interest than processes and ideas should change every year or an new content is introduced. Materials types are always added but old materials continue to add choice to creating
#21stEdChat
In more than one school I got rid of them.
Interesting fact - once I left the new principal called the place they were stored and got them back.
::tossing hands into the air::
#21stedchat
#21stedchat A4 Let things go! We have moved from the textbook to inviting primary source speakers into our classrooms to engage our Ss with their stories. Ss have the opportunity to ask questions and get a true view of that time in history. Here are a few of our speakers.
A5: I got rid of participation grades and penalizing students for late assignments. I didn't think it reflected their knowledge or mastery. #21stedchat
A5: OBE, paper grade and plan books, 4-5 different science curriculums, attendance clipped to the door, homework outside of school... #oldteacher#21stedchat
I have a "getting rid of homework" story too!
It was about 6 or 7 years ago and I was on the local nightly news as parents were SO upset that I only wanted students to read for homework.
#21stedchat
A5 ... SmartBoards were all the rage when I started ... have not used one in years I see rooms with them, but many are just using it as a small screen. In my new room I am actually using a bigger screen to cover the SmartBoard.
#21stedchat
#21stEdChat Happy to say that textbooks are now gone from my classroom. Science education should be as cutting edge as the actual science progression. So much out there happening right now!
A5: Came into a building with a reading management program, READING COUNTS. I played along and did the program for about two years. I've never required it sense. The district still pays for this platform/program after almost two decades. We can do better for readers. #21stedchat
That is another grading practice I no longer use in #secphysed Also dressing out grades. If it is not based on student learning I do not give a grade for it. #21stedchat
#21stedchat A5: Smartboards- so time consuming and didn’t work half the time. We nicknamed them the dumbboards. It still in my room and we use it like a dry erase board, so admin is happy!
A5. There was this one machine when I started ... we would run cardboard paper through it and could record or listen to the sound that came from it <-- poor explanation. #21stedchat
A6: Neat straight rows ALL the time. There needs to be opportunity for kids to move and work collaboratively and other times sit and work independently. There is no furniture that fall between for Flexible seating in elementary #21stedchat
When they designed our new classrooms almost ten years ago, I was surprised (maybe) to find a pull-down projector screen mounted in front of the SMARTboard. Someone had doubts, it seems, in the board's ability to serve as projection-worthy surface. Update: works fine. #21stedchat
#21stEdChat An idea that is zombie and should die is the state assessment. So much heartache on something that is flawed from the very beginning. Standardized testing shows nothing of the growth, genius, creativity, and passion for science that my students show in my classroom.
A6 May cause a little argument, but I wish lesson plans would go away. Explanation - I create unit plans to allow ss to move at own pace. Multiple ways to learn, also takes away assumption we all learn at same pace. #21stedchat
A7: Providing students more choice in how to share their learning - their voice needs heard but some are good writers, other orators and still others can express themselves better via a medium (art, tech, google slides) #21stedchat
A7: I learned so much about creating this summer. #EveryoneCanCreate There are so many more ways to use current tools than we are using them for. #21stedchat
A7: My refresher on Keynote software will help me as I add back the option to create lab reports in Keynote. With all the new updates, it will be a great place for students to share. #21stEdChat
A7 Throwing out grades this year as much as I am allowed. Refections and conferences with ss will determine if standards are met. Qtr and semester grade will be determined by ss + tr. #21stedchat
A7: I don't think it is new for me, but it continues what I have been working on...students researching, creating, presenting, evaluating, revising, more of their learning. Both students and I taking more risks. #21stedchat
YES! I do the same thing and sometimes I have to submit 2 different ones for different sections of the same course because they move differently. #21stedchat
A7: Not so much new learning as an affirmation I can take into the new school year. The professor of the Advanced Argumentative writing course I took over the summer really like our approach to year-long, multigenre inquiry projects. Rooted in classical thinking. #21stedchat
#21stedchat A7: Read several leadership books, “Turn the Ship Around” sailors used the phrase, I intend to, when speaking with the Captain gave them so much power, control, and ownership. Wondering how I might be able to do this in a classroom.
Final Thought: This year, the incoming freshman class represents a group of young people who were just coming into the world as I was entering into the classroom. This will mean a real shift for me in two years (I teach 11th grade English). #21stedchat
Final thoughts for #21stEdChat I’m excited to see other educators out there that are trying to move forward for their students and themselves. We have an amazing profession, and chats like this help fuel innovation! Thanks, @theipodteacher for moderating this awesome share!
