I Believe in Collaboration and Co-constructing with my Students

          Something I tell students about math is with a drawing of a house. This can really be applied to any subject because it's the idea of building on your learning. I will tell you what makes up my math house. There’s the counting foundation, area walls, adding subtracting windows, multi-division roof and if you're ready for it you can have a dog named Calculus or calc for short. I usually tell my students that they are helping me build this house because we are learning together. In building, you're not building alone, it’s with other people. That's how I see learning. As the teacher, I want to tune in more about what interests my students to help me build or design lessons and projects with them in mind. We are a community of learners, they learn from me, I learn from them, and we learn from each other.

          I believe learning is done best when I’m collaborating and co-constructing with my students. I also believe it is important to give them time to explore. We are a community. There are some days where we have to take notes and it can be a teacher-centered day but the application happens as a group. I want to add more opportunities for my students to discover and share with each other. I teach math and science so some days I’ll focus on my math teaching and other days my focus is on science. It takes me a long time to plan exactly what goal I’d like my student to achieve. Some assignments I would assign with no idea what the ending result may be. I need my students to help me shape what the final product would look like. It’s taking a risk and shows how much I trust my students. It makes learning way more interesting. Giving the time for my students to discover or "play" with the ideas they are learning.

          I still have to follow a curriculum given by my district but I have some authority to design projects to bring topics outside the lesson part of class. I do want it to feel I am making my students do anything just for a grade. It's the experience and to wonder why? I want to use this quote from Wesch about the importance of questioning and want to keep learning. “Good questions are the driving force of critical and creative thinking and therefore one of the best indicators of significant learning.” (Wesch pg 5.) Coming up with questions can be hard and scary, it takes time to feel confident in doing that and with others in the same space and supporting each of those questions will develop with more ease.

           Any time I'm Introducing or continuing a topic with my students I try my best not to just lecture at them. I'll make pauses to see if they have anything to add to what I've just said or shown. I believe in collaboration and co-constructing with my students and giving them time to think and explore. We are a community learning together. Another thing I always believe in is redesigning. Absolutely nothing I've done is the same as the year before. I have said in another post one of my favorite projects is the Area dream home project. I did this as a long term sub and still do this today. At the time I didn’t really know the math pacing and I was worried I was rushing the area unit.

          They wanted a group project, they begged me for one. so, I pushed the desks out of the way, gave a huge piece of graph paper and had them create their dream home using the formulas we learned. Every year the project changes, whether it be the scoring, whether or not I draw the outline for them and they fill in it, or limit or allow multiple floors. The project changes depend on who my students are. Why do I do this? Again, I believe my students learn best through collaboration and that means with me too. Together we redesign something that works and we make it into something they had a part. I don’t explicitly say “Hey all, we made this project” but I do take in what my students bring to the table and fuse with what I have.

          I look back and wonder, Did I give enough time, space and resources? What needs to be done to resolve conflicts. In the end, is was a messy success and the kids love it. This was my first experience where my students took an idea I had and made it their own. No house was the same but everyone was able bring an element of themselves in the process. Learning is messy and it won’t be ever perfect but I am hoping from being a part of our classroom community that my students understand what we do in class has a purpose. I want them to rely on each other to learn new things, try out new things, and become innovators. Working together,constantly sharing and discovering new ideas connects with my beliefs. Plans fail but it's part of our learning journey makes the adventure better.

          I want to revamp the Area dream home project and see if I can make it more collaborative and structured. The students do enjoy it but I want to make it more accessible to all maybe add an online piece to it. I still want to see the messy part where they are planning, changing, writing math on scrap paper, solving conflicts and making their designs by hand.

          I like the accessibility of google draw and I can create the grid for each group and from there the groups can manipulate the shapes and create their floor plan (making their designs by hand another way). This could be the draft portion of their giant paper copy or this could be the end goal. They’ll be able to brainstorm ideas, try out something without risk and everyone could make their own copy at the end to make additions .

          I also found a tool that is meant for adults and architects to plan out home layouts called floorplanner.com. I found it two years ago and scraped it right away thinking it would be too hard for my students to operate. After watching Miras Ted talk and his “hole in the wall” project, I learned that it's ok to take a risk to see results. If I don’t share this with my students, I’ll never know if they can work with it. It could be their favorite thing!

          Math is the not only place where I've had my students help me develop a project. My science students also took a swing at it. During our weather unit my students need to share their understanding of severe weather. We came up with a news report where they warn the community about severe weather coming. Most were news reports, others wanted to do texts and group chats. To revamp this project I’ll be putting on my up prensky hat and ask my students what media they connect with the most in their everyday lives. They’ll inform the community using that media platform. How would they inform their viewers about severe weather precautions? Give them the flexibility to share information that speaks to them.

          A lot of trust is involved when rolling out a project or an activity with my students. Can they handle it? Do they know my expectations? I need time to get to know them and build a relationship first. Same goes for them. Can they trust me for presenting a lesson that is engaging, peaks their interest and that is worth remembering beyond the lesson. Our learning community needs to build trust.

          At the end of all this, I would like my students to have more time to reflect on what they've done in their groups. Step away from all the tech if they used any and just have a conversation with each other. What worked, what would they change, what they liked, what they didn't like, and how can we make this better. After all this was designed with them in mind. I would want them to continue to improve and encourage them to reflect on their completed work. I want to have a place where my students can showcase their favorite parts of work where it can be seen by everyone (if they so choose). Using Jamboard here in our media literacy group, I thought this could be the platform where my students can share a little piece of their work mixed in with their classmates. It has just enough tools where my students can focus on what they want to show and In the end we can say “hey we do some great things!”

          Turkle said “We expect more of technology and less from each other” but she also said to make time for real conversations. Even though I am adding more use of technology in the classroom, I still want to take a step back and reflect on what I am doing with my students as well as my students reflecting on their own work. I plan to have these real conversations with the help of jamboard and other applications. My students may be digital natives according to Prensky but I like to think of myself as the Encouraging Digital Native Elder Techno-Constructivist here to guide them.

Together we're going to critique media and use tech in a way where the two Worlds Collide plug and unplugged. Helping each other create and build ideas. I like what Boyd says about technology use “Both adults and youth need to develop media literacy and technological skills to be active participants in our Information Society. As educators, we are lifelong learners and as new tech is being implemented, we need to learn, takes risks, and make sure our students are prepared to understand the content of the media and not just how to operate it.

          I’d like to end my narrative by going back to my math house I described in the beginning, now I want to see my students learning houses. What do they look like? What would they add to our learning city? My belief in how they learn best is through collaboration, co-constructing, and creating together. Without them, my city would be empty. With them my city grows with new homes, new roads to find new ideas and build on them.