Education has been through quite a lot lately but I feel like we are finally turning a corner in the right direction. As a librarian I'm seeing the growth in popularity of Maker Spaces, technology as a productivity tool, and a push towards using logic and common sense to solve problems.
Maker Spaces are popping up in both public and school libraries across the country either as "special events" or "all the time" activities. Either way, they are helping kids explore, problem solve and create. They are learning how to make circuits out of Playdoh, learning to build more than a preconceived object out of Legos, they are practicing fine motor skills, and engineering concepts with 3D pens (harder then they look)and printers. The best part of it is that there is no "wrong answer". Only an opportunity to try it a different way to see what works. This is not a product of "kids can't fail" education but a "let me keep trying till I can do it" education and I love it.
Technology has made leap and bounds in my school district with the addition of Google Apps for Education(GAFE). Students and teachers are using technology on a daily basis. The best part is that it isn't just to say we are using technology. It has become a way of life. Teachers are finding it easier to grade papers that were shared through Google Drive/classroom. The students are held accountable for their work since teachers and parents can see what and when work has been done on a document. Students are collaboratively working in ways that were never possible, across classrooms, across schools, and even further. We use Chromebooks that are a more affordable technology that works seamlessly with GAFE and doesn't waste valuable instruction time booting up and crashing. As a staff we communicate through GAFE which means I can work on something in the evenings when it is easier for me and my coworker can work after school, yet we are collaborating. GAFE has been a game changer for us.
Lastly, and my current addiction has been real life problems and logic working its way into instruction. Problem Based Learning has taken the traditional project and turned into a more meaningful and appropriate activity. Students are no longer just regurgitating content back in a pretty format. They are figuring out what they need to know to solve the problem, finding resources to help solve the problem and then sharing their ideas. Many times they even get to put their solutions into practice. Instead of creating a generation of "this is what you could do", we are creating a generation of this is "what I am doing". I also have recently began playing around with a Breakout EDU kit. Children use content to solve logic puzzles that help to unlock various types of locks, such as word locks, directional locks, and traditional combination locks, all in a specific time frame. This brings out a student's natural sense of competition and encourages teamwork. The students have loved it so far and it is so open ended it could be used for any content as an instructional tool or assessment. It is so rare to find an instructional tool that will work in an English class, just as well as it does in a Math class. If you haven't looked into Breakout EDU yet, I highly recommend it.
You know what I like best about all of this? It is that in all of these activities students are actively involved. They are not passively being told content they are discovering content on their own, which we have always known increases learning. There are so many ways to mix it up and vary these activities that I feel like these tools can be used for quite some time without getting old, of course until the next great idea comes along.
