Wow.... what a start to the week. I've been assured it's standard for most people to be overwhelmed by their first experience of High Tech High. Today was a mixture of orientation and observation.
I observed an 8th grade lesson in humanities, which was on all counts not what I expected. Students arrived gradually up until 8.50am as the teacher had started to deliver the main content - this was the norm. They have their phones out, they don't take jackets off etc... But they are working independently. They are eager to talk about their work and have a strong sense of understanding where they are headed with their product. They can articulate their own anticipation of things to learn and explain their hopes for the final piece. The teacher had arranged the class into two groups, academics and intellectuals (no real meaning). Intellectuals worked with the teacher in the middle of the room, whereas the academics worked around the outside of the room on a script building task that was online. From this observation I had a list of questions that generally circulated around the culture of the classroom (and school for that matter). Most of these questions overlapped and were answered simply with the foundation of learning being built from grass roots upwards, starting in their primary school (Explorer School). I'll continue to look at this aspect of the school as the week goes on, to round of today's observation I posed my first big question...
The big question: who is accountable? I posed this question to the teacher during a debrief and he said that the culture of learning emphasises the need for students to be accountable for not completing work or not getting it right. Although he did say that he feels a level of accountability, as a teacher, when things do not go strictly to plan and ultimately modifies projects to suit the learners needs, which started to answer the questions of differentiation (apparently one of the more challenging aspects to PBL).
Takeaway: there is a strong sense of pride in work, in that students are very aware that their work will be put on display regardless of whether it is finished or of a high standard. Furthermore, the students are very respectful of the environment they are in and of each other. They are a proud community of learners that is founded on a common ground.
Quote of the Day: "Yay!! I'm an intellectual!"
I observed an 8th grade lesson in humanities, which was on all counts not what I expected. Students arrived gradually up until 8.50am as the teacher had started to deliver the main content - this was the norm. They have their phones out, they don't take jackets off etc... But they are working independently. They are eager to talk about their work and have a strong sense of understanding where they are headed with their product. They can articulate their own anticipation of things to learn and explain their hopes for the final piece. The teacher had arranged the class into two groups, academics and intellectuals (no real meaning). Intellectuals worked with the teacher in the middle of the room, whereas the academics worked around the outside of the room on a script building task that was online. From this observation I had a list of questions that generally circulated around the culture of the classroom (and school for that matter). Most of these questions overlapped and were answered simply with the foundation of learning being built from grass roots upwards, starting in their primary school (Explorer School). I'll continue to look at this aspect of the school as the week goes on, to round of today's observation I posed my first big question...
The big question: who is accountable? I posed this question to the teacher during a debrief and he said that the culture of learning emphasises the need for students to be accountable for not completing work or not getting it right. Although he did say that he feels a level of accountability, as a teacher, when things do not go strictly to plan and ultimately modifies projects to suit the learners needs, which started to answer the questions of differentiation (apparently one of the more challenging aspects to PBL).
Takeaway: there is a strong sense of pride in work, in that students are very aware that their work will be put on display regardless of whether it is finished or of a high standard. Furthermore, the students are very respectful of the environment they are in and of each other. They are a proud community of learners that is founded on a common ground.
Quote of the Day: "Yay!! I'm an intellectual!"