Presenting Elevator Pitches in the Blue Room

On Friday, 3rd and 4th blocks presented their elevator pitches in our school's collaboration room a.k.a (the blue room). All of my students want to move my classroom into this really cool workspace. I agree, I love it as well. However, we didn't just have fun in the blue room on Friday, but each group presented their "elevator pitches" for their Innovation Projects. For many of the freshman, this was the first time they were presenting in front of the group with very little for notes. I know a lot of the students were nervous, but they did a fantastic job. Every group was so diverse in their topics and interests; I am even more excited to continue with this project, and see the different ways they are going to tackle these problems.

Wow! The Blue Room is So Cool.

Today we embarked on creating our "Elevator Pitches" to propose topics for the innovation projects. To get a change of perspective we took a "min field trip" to Magnolia campus and used Mrs. Waid's "Blue Room" otherwise known as a collaboration room. The students were immediately engaged when they learned they would be sitting on bean bag chairs, exercise balls, and futons. The kids quickly found a spot for their group to work and after a brief revisit to the assignment guidelines, they were on their way to creating their 60 second elevator pitches.

It was exhilarating to see the students start to use all of the materials they had at their fingertips from their laptops (Google Drive and research), to white boards, to their phones, to just plain good, open, productive conversation. I continued to ask myself during classes today why I don't do this everyday. I'm ready to swap out the desks in my room for futons and beanbags :) I know that's not practical for every day class, but today's class was a lot more indicative of what the "real world" is going to be for these kids, and I want to start bringing that into my classroom.

The students have to present their elevator pitches during Friday's class in 60 seconds or less. I'm excited to see what they have in store.

Setting up Google Sites and Blogs...Yikes!!!

Today in class was more of a housekeeping day when it came to the Innovation Project. With the help of our wonderful technology facilitator Tracey, we worked our way through setting up Google Sites for  all of my students and then blogs using blogger.  Although this process can be very frustrating when you are trying to command a group of 30, we did it and now everyone has a Google Site and a blog of their very own. I'm excited to see how these portfolios grow over the course of the semester.

An Idea Factory...What???

This is exactly what I heard from my students when I sprung this idea on them last Tuesday in class. At this point, I had told them nothing regarding research or this big, innovative project I was thinking about embarking on with them, so when I told them in class we were going to create some lists of potential problems and solutions to those problems, they thought I was crazy. But, like all great ideas of seemingly great ideas, we jumped in with both feet.

I gave the students a few guidelines for their topic lists. I said their topic had to be "problem-solution" based. I did not care how big or small, public or private the problem was, but it needed to be something they felt they could learn more about and possibly solve. To be honest, I wasn't sure my students would come up with a great deal because I had been so vague in my instructions, but boy was I WRONG. By the time class ended, they had filled all of my whiteboards with ideas/problems they wanted to pursue. I cannot wait to move on to the next stage of the project---Project Proposals!!!

     

Embarking on a New Way of Learning!

I'm not sure if I'm being an ambitious teacher or just plain crazy, but I've decided to overhaul the current research project I have been using in English 9 for the last two years and start something new. Although our current research project is very creative and engaging for research, I feel like it doesn't really hit all of the 21st Century learning skills I want to address, nor does it give my students a great deal of choice in what they want to learn about. So, I have taken to Twitter which is my new source for innovative ideas, and I recently stumbled across Kevin Brookhouser and his 20% project. Needless to say, I was intrigued to learn more about this idea that was quickly finding its way into our classrooms.

After reading about this new and innovative way of teaching, I have decided I need a similar project in my own classroom. I need to give my students more voice and choice in what they are learning. So, I guess you can say I am taking the leap and letting go of some control in the hopes that my students will become more engaged and innovative life long learners.

So, we are going to embark on this journey, and I will use this blog to track our progress. Check back in frequently to see how we are doing.

Mrs. Davala