Why am I doing this?
I imagine this is a question that crosses my students' minds often. Honestly, the question crosses my mind more times than I'd like to admit. The question has lead me to authentic learning. I became obsessed with this idea several years ago. I wanted to get to the root of why I assigned tasks. Was I just keeping them busy? How do I motivate students without treats or bribes? I wanted my students to be motivated by the love of learning. I wanted them to feel that internal "WOW" that makes us want to achieve something.
I began thinking about what motivates me. "Having a purpose" was number one of my list. I wanted to make as much of their learning experience as transparent and authentic as possible. When I say transparent I mean that I'm honest. Sometimes students just need to focus to learn something like their addition and subtraction facts. When they need to sit and listen, it's because sometimes in real life we need to sit and listen. I try to relate each school experience to life outside of school.
Here are some examples of the ways I've attempted to make learning more authentic in my classroom.
1. I start the year with my favorite quote "Speak in a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in a way that others love to speak to you". This quote takes the skills we learn in school for speaking and listening and so poetically links it to life. In morning meeting, we focus on speaking and listening to build character. We also focus on social skills for the real world.
2. Kidblog- Probably one of my favorite things to do with my students. We use Kidblog to write blog posts. This is a great way to give their writing purpose. Kidblog allows them a safe platform to publish their writing to an audience. Their audience can leave comments on their blog posts which not only provides feedback, but also encouragement to continue writing. This has helped motivate even my most reluctant writers.
3. My new project: I haven't even done this yet with my students. I was challenged to make learning the 50 states a purposeful project. This is based on the idea that if you can "google it", why are we "teaching it". My students locate all 50 states on a map, but how could I make this a more authentic learning experience? It came to me while driving- A ROAD TRIP! Then the "Travel Agent Project" was born. When we get back from winter break students will pair up to plan a road trip for me from New Jersey to California. I made an organizer to help them hop through the states that connect. I will also challenge them to research one famous landmark I should visit. Once they are all completed, I would love to google map them to visualize the Road trip as a presentation. I'm super excited about this. Keep an eye out for the progress on this. I'm sure I'll be tweeting about it.
Why am I doing this?
Some days I don't know.... but really it's because I want my students to genuinely love to read, write, create, and learn.
