A New School Year - A New Plan

Today we finished our second full week of school and I think I've got some insights to share - so here goes.

I'm still teaching the same class, but it has a new name "Freshman Foundations." We like to rename stuff. The first year at a new school is always a challenge, especially when you are tackling a new curriculum, but overall I am happy with how we finished last year.

But this year I wanted to try some new things. After visiting Japan last year I really wanted to integrate personal responsibility into the curriculum. Not so much sweeping and serving lunch - but less momma bird and more, "I can do it!" I also had the opportunity to visit New Tech High School in Sacramento, California last spring. At first I didn't think I would be able to use the New Tech philosophy in my classroom - afterall they have 400 students and 500 computers and we do not. But after peeking into their classrooms and speaking to their teachers I started to see some real possibilities. They use a PBL approach (Project-Based Learning) that focuses on the integration of curriculum and 21st Century Skills. Since our Foundations class doesn't have a set "curriculum" I knew we could easily adopt the PBL philosophy even if we don't have a 1-1 student/computer ratio.

I won't go into all the boring details of our curriculum (if you want you can go to my class website and look at the project documents - assuming anyone is reading this) but I do want to share (or at least record) my observations.

So far - I love this new format. First of all, no more momma bird. I've noticed that the kids are eager to answer their own questions and get their own supplies. Now I know each class is different, but I think the fact that I am not standing in front of the class and lecturing and bossing has something to do with it. They want to help each other. We always have a lot of new kids wandering in the first few weeks and the student groups are making sure their new group members have their materials and are put to work.

And the contracts. This is one of my favorite things so far. The kids had to create contracts for their teams. Watching uptight high schoolers melt into little kids creating rules like they were inventing a new version of hide-and-seek was so much fun. Most of the contracts are pretty basic, but it gave the real creative kids an opportunity to showcase their talents. Without me bossing rules, only suggesting and coaching, the students took ownership of their groups and so far (knock on wood or light a candle) we have had very few issues.

Today was team evaluation day - at the half way point of the project. It took longer than I anticipated to go over the documents and explain the scenarios, but after "grading" their teammates, the kids were very eager to get to work and redeem themselves before the next evaluation. We do have our own teacher evaluation system based on citizenship, but they are far less concerned with my grades. No one wants to let down their team and then get called out for it. Very Japanese if you ask me.

The next big task is finishing project one and oral presentations. Even though I am hoping we have some cool ideas to choose from, I am really pleased with the social and personal responsibility I have seen so far. I'll keep you updated :)