Just got off the phone with my mom - did I mention she's an 8th grade teacher in Michigan? Check out our other awesome project here: Project North & South! Anyway, her school just sent her and a whole gaggle of teachers to Detroit for a MACUL conference. What is that you may ask? MACUL = Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning. Yeah, that's a mouthful. But, she got an earful of information from the over 4500 folks who attended the conference about the most awesome technology based projects - one of which was a presentation about 20% time in the classroom.
I'm loving that this is the big new push because it's definitely one of the coolest things I've gotten to experience this year. Why? I've gotten to understand and get to know my students in a new light, I've seen my students motivate each other and themselves in ways I know wouldn't naturally happen in the classroom, and frankly, I've just been pretty durn impressed with the passion projects my students have devoted themselves to and the things they're discovering how to do on their own.
I know she had a lot to say, and I'm going to have to pick her brain again about all this info, but two things stick out to me that I want to use as goals for myself next year. 1. NEVER skip a Friday (We are so guilty of this). If you're going to commit, then commit. I just need to completely and totally reserve our time and never use it for other classwork. 2. Get students to actually have a relationship with a mentor. Now, I did have students identify mentors in our project proposal stage, but I know many have not really cultivated a relationship - something that can bring a whole new level of meaning and discovery to the projects.
Ok, gotta rush - more updates soon :)
