Two things stood out for me during the week at KTI 2019 Summit, and it was only Wednesday morning. First, I attended “Old School Lessons, New School Methods,” and I took away many great ideas. Hollie Woodard (@holliewood24) sparked my interest in doing away with reading homework by using Canvas, which my district uses as a learning platform, coupled with Actively Learn. I plan to try that this year — because my high school will finally be one-to-one. I have always been troubled by the numbers of students who resist reading, and I agree that reading assigned to be done outside of the classroom is wasted. Most students simply refuse to do it. I find that many lessons I plan for class that depend on students reading the assigned text fall flat, which leaves me feeling deflated and disappointed.
Next, I enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with my Wonder team as we attempt to explore the possibilities of promoting student investment in learning through the development of project-based lessons. I am hoping that our resulting Wonder Action Plan will provide me with some ideas to share with my co-teachers in the continuing development of the Discover course. That course is an interdisciplinary project-based course that incorporates Art, Social Studies, and English class. We ran a pilot of the class last year, and it was encouraging to see the awesome projects students created.
The PAECT Post 