Equity, Diversity, & Design Principles
One of the key issues that independent schools face when it comes to creating equity and supporting diversity is the challenge presented by visible disparities in wealth, particularly as they affect the students' experience in the classroom. For the Equity, Diversity, & Design Principles class, I wrote the following reflection on the potential positive affects of a one-to-one laptop programs on independent schools.
Inclusive Classrooms
Finding ways to promote effective differentiation in both visual and written projects is a constant challenge, especially in a content-heavy survey class like the Modern World History class I teach to 10th graders. In this Discovery Card, I discussed my experience experimenting with a RAFT project that began simply but quickly expanded to spark a great set of conversations, negotiations, and student-led project ideas that ultimately let to a highly successful differentiated project on the French Revolution.
Deeper Learning Through Projects
Projects allow students to develop real-world connections, skills, and meaning in powerful ways, and enrich a curriculum immeasurably, but are fundamentally a challenge to incorporate into survey classes. The project that I created for the Deeper Learning Through Projects class was an attempt to weave project-based learning into a survey Modern World History class for 10th graders. I had students find subjects with compelling and historically relevant stories and conduct oral histories to capture these stories for the world. They used their knowledge of 20th century history as a background for learning to ask good questions and conduct effective interviews. A memorable and powerful experience for all!
Leadership for School Change
The act of thinking about a "Dream School" is both wonderfully exciting and potentially strangely negative. Once we get into our minds the idea that there is a dream out there that we have yet to achieve, though, it allows us to push towards that goal in specific and measurable ways. For this project, it was interesting to consider both big-picture dreams and specific steps we might take as a school to achieve them. I look forward to keeping these conversations going!
Action Research Design & Methods
After working my way along in one direction for quite a while, I did a rapid about-face a few weeks into this course and changed my project entirely. I could not be more excited about the change, and while it means that I am diving in and doing my research on essentially untested ideas, I think in some ways that makes for the most engaging kind of reserarch.