At the moment, I am on my way to San Francisco for the TRLD conference, with a stop over in Philadelphia, where I’ll spend a few hours at the Science Leadership Academy. I’m sure it isn’t going to be a typical day, with preparations for the Educon conference, of which I’ll miss most of (TRLD). But I am certainly looking forward to what I will be seeing and hearing, especially as a comparison of my previous visit, during SLA Year 1.
Concerning the Educon, I’ve suggested to Chris that we have some sort of activity that asks attendees of the Educon to express their evolving visions of teaching and learning, especially in light of their conference experience. I suggested that folks create a graphic (mindmap) that illustrates or models their vision of classroom learning. Chris made room on the conference wiki site for a page that describes the process and provides a link to the starter file (Inspiration).
While on the plane, I threw together a sample diagram that illustrates my classroom back in 1983 — included above. After the diagrams are finished, participants are asked to upload a screen shot or saved image version of their diagram to Flickr, and tag the image with educon20diagram. Here, we will all be able to view the images and comment on them. The following URL will list all images tagged for the activity:
An interesting idea, Dave – are you suggesting that they use something like Gliffy? It would be interesting to see how many see a role for the traditional (singular textbook).
Back in 2006 I posted about the kind of school in which I want to work. I introduced the notion of teachers as ‘lifeguards’ to patrol the waters of knowledge and rescue students when they become overwhelmed.
Doug-
Your notion of a lifeguard strikes a chord with me. When I was still in the classroom I always told people (students, parents and other educators alike) that I envisioned myself as a facilitator rather than a teacher. The looks I got in return were just priceless. Can’t tell you how many times I sat in parent conferences where I got lambasted by parents who expected me to teach the same way they were taught while guidance counselors and administrators looked on agreeing with them because they were taught that way too.
I’m not sure how I would even begin to create a mindmap of the classroom environment I created. This will take some thought.