Students or Learners?

I was reading a blog about technology in the classroom from another school district.  I came across this chart that explains the difference between "students" and "learners":

	Students	Learners
Relationship with educators	Students are employees, required to obediently follow instructions.	Learners are citizens with a vested interest in the learning society.
Relationship with other “Students”	Students are competitors	Learners are collaborators
Motivation	Obligation: Students are culturally obliged to work for the teacher & for compensation (below)	Responsibility: Learners are motivated by an understood and realized “value” in their work, especially when it is valuable to others.
Compensation	Institution defined grades and gateways to college (another institution) and a good job (another institution)	A sense of ongoing accomplishment that is not delivered but earned, and not symbolic but tangible and valuable — an investment.
Mode of Operation	Compliant, group-disciplined, objective-oriented, and trainable	Persevering, self-disciplined, group- and goal-oriented, resourceful, and learning in order to achieve rather than achieving learning.
Why?	Compelled	Curious
Equipped	..with packaged knowledge and tools for recording packaged knowledge — prescribed and paced learning	..with tools for exploring a networked variety of content, experimenting with that content, and discovering, concluding, and constructing knowledge — invented learning
Assessment	Measuring what the student has learned.	Measuring what the learner can do with what has been learned.

I try to help kids be "learners" rather than "students".  Imagine if schools and districts could shift to the learner side of the table.  It would be amazing!

To all of you who made it to conferences, thank you!  It was good to meet the new parents, and good to catch up with the returning families.

 

Due to the three day week we did not have a podcast last week.  We will have a new episode this Friday.  Stay tuned for some exciting stories!

 

Our 7th/8th graders have all gone through the film "pitch" process and are now working on scripts.  We have some very interesting  films in the pipeline, from a documentary about a Middle Eastern women (now living in Walla Walla) who escaped an arranged marriage, to a comedy about people with very odd addictions, to a drama about a girl who loses her sense of adventure as she grows up only to rediscover it.  I can't wait to see these films!  Students will soon be checking out equipment.  Please help your child with equipment safety and proper use. 

 

As part of the filmmaking unit the 7th/8th graders will visit the CrewSpace media lab at the public library this week (block 1 on Thursday and block 2 on Friday).  This space is open to the public.  I hope the kids are able to make use of the equipment and expertise available there.

 

The 7th/8th graders will also be participating in the 2013 Scholastic Arts and Writing Awards program (see email from last week).  This is a first for any class in the Walla Walla school district.  It will also be exciting.

 

The 6th graders are working on their research of "intentional communities", where people live and work using a central guiding theme.  They will write, produce, and record podcasts for each community.  These will be added to our Pioneer iTunes podcast page.  I will send an email when they have been uploaded.  In addition, 6th graders are learning about the origin of human civilization and societies.  We will soon start our study of ancient Egypt, a unit which includes the very popular chicken mummification project!  More on that as we get closer.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.  And, as always, thanks for your support!

How to study smarter! 

by Lauren

With the start of school and the stress of more homework, its easy to spend a lot of time on school related projects. If you follow these easy tips, your study time can be put to good use without eating up your whole afternoon!!

1. Space out your studying over time If you study something once and then study it again right away, its still fresh in your mind the second time. Its better to study once and then re-study it later (one hour, one day, one week, etc.). That gives your brain time to forget and strengthens your memory over time.

2. Make reading active Before reading a chapter or paragraph in a textbook, ask questions of what you are looking for and search for the answers in the text. Or, skim read the text first and note the main points, then read in depth to get more out of it. Underline, highlight, take notes in the margins (remember not to write on school textbooks!), star things you don’t completely understand and you will get more out of your reading.

3. Talk with your parents or teachers If you don’t understand a concept or idea, don’t be afraid to ask! Your teacher and your parents want you to feel confident about what you're learning so you have a good foundation to go on for life. They would be happy to help you with whatever is causing you difficulty.

4. Recite as you study If you are studying for a quiz or a test, it’s great to recite the information while you work.  Saying the words out loud helps you to memorize the material better than reading or listening.

and finally...

5. Learning is in your head!! Having beautiful notes doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the information.  Don’t be afraid to get a little messy while scribbling ideas that can connect the information to your head. Use notes and books as a resource for learning not the end result.

Now with these helpful tips you can get the most out of your study time and have more time doing fun things! :)

What Makes a Person Human

We were having a great discussion on the book Positronic Man this morning. A question came up about what is the line between being a robot and a person. This lead to a philosophical discussion of ethics, personhood, and the definition of the words "human" and "person". One of the kids gave her thoughts on the topic and then added "how cool is this? We're talking about robot ethics!" Just another reason to love Explorers.

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Students started writing podcast stories today.  We hope to have our first ever Explorers podcast on-line next week.  Stay tuned!

Fantastic Discussion

One thing I really love about Explorers is how the students continue a debate or discussion as they are walking out of the door after class is over. Today we had one of those discussions. There is a group called Global Future 2045. They have a very interesting view on how the human race should progress. We watched a YouTube video today by this organization, and the resulting discussion was amazing! After watching the video I simply asked the students one question: Do you agree with this group's vision of the future? I encourage you to watch this video and answer that question for yourself.

 

 

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Welcome to Our Blog

The purpose of our blog is to give you a quick look into the classroom. Posts will be made by both Mr. C and students. You might find quotes from discussions, pictures of what we worked on that day, links to interesting websites, or random but profound thoughts that Explorer students are known for. Enjoy!

Mr. C

 

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