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This site contains presentations, publications, lessons and training materials developed over many years. The site is continually updated so I hope you'll come back often. All content is freely shareable and linkable, but I'd love to hear your comments about any of it. You can always find me at sine@udel.edu.

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« June 2008 | Main

July 18, 2008

Advice from Google

Today is the last day of a 2 week graduate course I'm teaching. Right now, it's 10 minutes before the "final" presentations. The students are clicking away and consulting with each other. They are using technology and collaborating, so I feel happy!

Meanwhile, the Google blog has this to the point post today, Our Googley advice to students: Major in learning. This is a great finish to a class that started by looking at the now-classic "Shift Happens" and then a wander through The World is Flat, Everything's Miscellaneous, and Rainbows End.

Hopefully, they will all remember that while most of the tangible things I taught, they learned and we discussed will be old news by September, the core value is to continue learning and to inspire that in their students.

Thanks to Google for adding to my class!

And then keep on challenging yourself, because learning doesn't end with graduation. In fact, in the real world, while the answers to the odd-numbered problems are not in the back of the textbook, the tests are all open book, and your success is inexorably determined by the lessons you glean from the free market. Learning, it turns out, is a lifelong major.


Posted by Pat on 9:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 9, 2008

Think...Work Hard...Enjoy: My Rubric

I'm now two days into my graduate class for the summer, K-12 Technology Integration. I'm also part of the team on a 6-week program for inservice teachers to learn about how science and math are done in the lab and how that might inform what they do in the classroom, the NISE-RET Program.

Yesterday and today, I'm doing about 6 hours each day between the two groups and it got me thinking about what I'd really like them to walk away with. So, here are my 3 personal objectives every time I teach.

  1. THINK -- Did the participants think about things that they had never thought about before? Or think about things in a completely new way because of their experiences? (This one is a short- and long-term goal so I'd like this thinking to happen in class, that evening, three months from now, etc.)

  2. HARD -- Did the participants leave thinking they worked hard? I truly believe that learning new things is hard. That's not bad at all. Witness the energy that people put in to learning about their hobbies or sports or new video games. I hope that participants realize that hard doesn't equate with bad and that true learning usually is hard at some level.
  3. ENJOY -- So the third one is a bit of a twist on things. Once participants figure out that they are thinking differently and that they worked hard, I hope they also realize that they enjoyed the experience.

If all three of these things happen in our classrooms, life-long learning is possible. Participants (adults and kids) can begin to internalize and manage their own learning and seek out new opportunities.

The dirty, little secret is most of our classrooms is that what we teach on any given day probably doesn't matter much. (Take a look at the Fr. Guido Sarducci 5-Minute University.) But the experience everyday in the classroom does matter and that's what I hope happens when I teach.

Posted by Pat on 8:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack