10.17.16

Today my creative writing classes worked on composing Six Word Memoires as part of our creative nonfiction unit. This had me thinking about drafting six word reflections for our English I blended learning initiative. Here are the results:

Leverage student
agency
by differentiating
instruction.

That's a nice one. But does differentiation truly engender student agency? Maybe this would be more accurate:

Differentiate instruction
by leveraging
student agency.

Given our fast-paced, digitally-driven, consumer-oriented society, here is another one, a more pointed and poignant commentary on technology and digital natives :

Invention is
the mother
of necessity.

I rather like the inversion in that one--indicative, perhaps, of the upended power structure and lesson flipping in our blended classrooms. Students are teachers. Teachers are students. "We have to let go of the idea that in order for students to learn, we have to teach them," to quote a blended expert. Sometimes I agree. Or at least I'm working on it.

Does all reflection have to be done online? Certainly digitally documenting our shared blended journey is valuable and has its place. But I wonder what quiet, solitary thinkers like Emily Dickinson would say... I reflect on blended learning all the time--looking out windows, running in my neighborhood, sitting behind my desk at lunch. So here's a last one, just for me:

I still
have some
untweeted
thoughts...

Success: Students have adapted to station rotation routines.
Challenge: How do you personalize learning for each student each day within the current system?
Goal: To take more risks within the blended model.