One of the things that continues to keep me actively engaged in the process of creating Innovative Learning, is the clear alignment between what is important to me as an educator and what New Tech's Mission Statement. MissionOur mission is to inspire students to be responsible, resilient, and personally successful in the rapidly changing 21st century, and to be a student-centered model for educational innovation. Vision
I love that the concept of relevance is the leading concept in our school's vision. As I continue to explore personalized learning in my classroom, the main push has been to foster Agency. Helping students to find personal relevance for their learning is a critical part of exploring and discussing Agency. In my Level 3: 3D Printing and Video Storytelling, my students have just completed 7 weeks of learning where they got to choose their own projects, set their own deadlines and follow their own creative and technical noses. I have never been prouder of my students when they presented to the class and defended their learning. They included information about their learning journey, where there were stumbling blocks, what they did to surmount those obstacles, and took total responsibility for their end results. Below you will see two examples of student presentations. Many students said that they would be continuing on with their projects and learning outside of class and were clear about their next steps. Even those students who struggled to find their "groove" have hinted that they would like to try the personalized learning format again, perhaps in the Spring Semester. As a member of the Deeper Learning Team at New Tech, we continue to explore how we envision the next 20 years at our school. As long as we keep our mission statement and vision at the forefront of our minds, I know that we will continue to do great things. I am hoping that we continue to move more toward personalized learning, whatever that may look like.
3 Comments
Alex
11/13/2016 08:57:29 pm
I'm so glad to hear good things about personalized learning. I've been trying to wrap my brain around how to work some of it into my own class. I need to make sure I can work in all of the rigor and content required while giving students that much choice.
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Karla
11/13/2016 09:01:07 pm
WOW!!!!!! I want to be a member in the Deeper Learning Team! I think that is amazing that you get to talk about your vision for your school 20 years from now -what a perspective!! I am blown away, Lisa. These projects were AWESOME. I really like Grant's writing challenge. We are SO LUCKY to have you in our district! I also liked your phone hotel!=))
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9/3/2018 03:47:56 pm
I am a lucky educator. I heard the phrase "Rigor, Relevance and Relationships" in Bill Gates' speech to the governors in 2005 -- and later learned tha the phrase comes form Dennis Littky's book THE BIG PICTURE. I highly recommend Littky's book and you can see two free chapters at TINYURL.com/littkychapter1 and tinyurl.com/littkychapter4 plus get an audio introduction to Big Picture schools at TINYURL.com/LittkyRadio. I applaud New Tech High for going beyond Big Picture... Your focus on portfolios is central to deeper learning. Big Picture Learning is just getting into portfolios and your school is sharing excellent methods on www.newtechhigh.org/portfolio ... thank you for your good works.
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AuthorLisa Gottfried is a CTE teacher with 20 years experience as CEO of her own Video and Motion Graphics Production house. She currently teaches Digital Design at New Technology High School and at Touro University in the Masters of Innovative Learning program. She loves her job and her students! Archives
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