Innovative Education

Joi Ito's saying "Education is what people do to you and learning is what you do to yourself" really hit home for me. As educators we are being asked to give more and more opportunities for students to take control of their own learning and practices. What he said in the video drove home the importance that learning shouldn't be to memorize information but it should be to understand it and know how to apply it into real world situations. I also loved how he described how the innovation process has changed. Instead of having an idea and running it through several people for funding and permissions, he described that there was no reason to waste time and just build the product.

Blended learning was introduced to my school this past year. The first thing that used to come to my mind was technology integration. Although, technology does play a big part in blended learning, it is not the only thing involved. As a teacher, I love to learn about new software, websites and even building interactive lessons for my students. My daily classroom stations always involve at least two technology driven rotations such as websites like Epic (reading), Boddle or iReady (Math), or an interactive lesson I've designed myself. I also have one small group instruction table while the rest of the students practice their math skills through hands-on puzzles or working with partners to solve word problems. Blended learning classrooms look very different from when I was a student and I can see how they are greatly impacting not only my students learning, but also my instruction.

As I listened to Monique Markoff, I begin to feel confident in making decisions in regards of my students' education because it shows that I can be flexible and I am not afraid to take risks in the classroom if it means it would benefit the students. And if for some reason if what I chose to do does not work out like I had planned, it's fine. I will go back to drawing board. ;)