Nuts & Bolts

This post is in response to "The Nuts & Bolts of 21st Century Teaching" article, found here: http://plpnetwork.com/2011/03/22/the-nuts-bolts-of-21st-century-teaching/. I read this article and then reread it a couple of times and I have to say that my initial instinct hasn't changed. I simply love everything about this article and teacher Shelley Wright's collaborative classroom. In one of my classes last semester, we spent a lot of time discussing the power of choice for students and how much more likely students are to be engaged in their studies if they were able to chose the what or how of their lesson. I think giving students the power of choice is especially powerful in a classroom that incorporates technology. In almost every case, students are much more talented than their teachers at navigating the Internet and the thousands of educational tools available to them on their computers and phones. By giving students choice in their lessons and assessments, they can utilize these tools and create an assignment that appeals to them and motivates them. As an added plus, students can often bring new ideas to the teacher's attention! The idea of the teacher being a co-learner with the students is another powerful idea that I liked about Shelley Wright's article. As Bloom's Taxonomy and other educational theories show, being able to teach a concept or idea to someone else represents the highest level of understanding. A classroom in which both the teacher and the students are active participants in learning is the type of classroom that I would like to create in the future.