Educational Innovations. As the song says, “You know it don’t come easy.”
As fall moves to winter, we tend to draw in, gather around, rest up, and reflect. Trees are bare and “doing what we should all do, shifting their focus from their outer being to their inner being.” These natural rhythms give us the opportunity to regroup and refine. In late October, as the garden got tucked in for winter, I found myself rearranging furniture and rehanging pictures. In November, I began eyeing cupboards that have stuff I haven’t used for years and imagining new space and projects – a gift-wrapping and craft center just in time for the holidays! It’s sort of a “getting-back-to-basics” time, not only in our personal lives but also in school: What’s really working? How could it work better? What do we really care about…and are we pursuing it? How about a powerful narrative of really choosing this time for reflection, to refine our practice, and to reimagine our teaching and learning?
These challenging years certainly have forced us to think deeply about student engagement. Poor attendance, missed meetings, incomplete work, and listening-only passive students have supplied all the evidence we need to know we must reimagine paths to engage our students using educational innovation.
Path 1: Student Engagement focuses on teacher and student interests and passions as a natural way to hook kids on diving deep and learning deeply. “Passion projects” move the challenge from, “I don’t want to, I don’t care” to “This is really hard, but I love it!” Flipping single-disciple course work to interdisciplinary projects about real-world issues will provide relevance, complexity, and engagement. In turn, these will increase skills and produce products that students will truly value and can contribute to the life of the community. There really is no better time than now to lean into changes that will deeply engage your students and keep them learning.
What will be the evidence of our work and learning that exhibits student agency? I suspect that the most authentic evidence will actually be the evidence our students create of their own learning — the fruits of their labor are the fruits of our labor! Path 2: Evidence of learning, that is, evidence of quality student work, is really the only valid measure of what students are learning. What are they able to do? To create? To explain? How can they take what they have learned and use it in new and meaningful ways to answer questions and solve problems? One of the most powerful levers of change toward deeper learning is implementing exhibitions of learning. Usually done in person with active, engaged audiences each quarter or semester, exhibitions are hallmarks of quality project-based learning schools. It is important to note that the exhibition lever can be pulled, even from a distance. Students can still display and talk about their learning, products, and performances online, and audience members can zoom in and ask questions of student experts. These digital galleries of learning will engage your community, challenge your students, and build confidence and pride all around. Here is a gallery of quality student work I love to share, “Models of Excellence,” curated by EL Education and Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Now is the time to reimagine! Take heart and reflect on where you are…where you really want to be in the world of educational innovations.
Bonus
For your personal well-being as we enter this time of rest and renewal, here is a bracing and idea-packed article by Beth Bruno.
