Week Four Overview

Essential Question:  How do we keep our lessons engaging? Does innovation play a part in this?

Reading: Teach Like a Pirate, Parts One and Two

Post Questions for Dave Burgess  here…

Dates to save:

Tuesday- 4:30 AKDT Webex – Creating a common rubric for teachers, and creating a rubric for students

Thursday 4:30 AKDT Twitter Focus Session #ETLEAD

Hosted by Shauna (we need another host!!)

About the Week

This week we will focus on strategies for keeping our lessons engaging and the way that this might either help us or hinder us as we innovate in our classrooms. What are our own internal “checklists” we have to satisfy before we can innovate in the classroom? What was the last new thing we tried that really worked for us, and what was the reason it did? What was the last thing that flopped? Why might that have happened?

Much of this class is about managing change and the way we either protect our classrooms and students from change, or harness change to impact our classrooms in (what we always hope) is a positive way. I was drawn to this text because even though it isn’t about technology, it is about ongoing innovation. Innovating actively, purposefully, everyday to keep our students engaged. For me, it is only a short step from this type of courage to the courage it takes to use a new software, allow students to use mobile phones, or engage students in global projects. The first step in change management is providing the novice with information. I do not believe we are all novices! But I also believe that the strategies and information in our text can be very helpful to us  whether we are novice innovators,  expert innovators, or at any point in-between.

Due Friday:

Create your Week Four Blog, responding to the Essential Question. You should use resources from the text, and you should also add at least 3 of your own resources to the blog posting.

Use Twitter to share your blog address with the #ETLEAD community.

Due Sunday:

Comment on the blogs of others.

Create a blog entry outlining the way that you contributed to the learning of others, and the impact of your interaction with others through social media (Twitter, blog responses) on your learning.

Submit the URL for your Blog Postings to Livetext on Sunday.