Model the Learning

Jonathan So ( @MrSoclassroom ) recently threw out an interesting challenge on Twitter for teachers: What are your top five, life-changing-as-a-teacher moments? His original post on his top five really got me thinking about what has made me stop, re-evaluate what I do, and change direction in how I teach. These are all fairly recent moments for me, so I'm guessing there's a little bit of memory bias in here, but here they are... :) In chronological-ish order of occurrence: 1) Flipping my Classes - Handing the responsibility of learning over to my students was definitely career-changing. I learned so much from my students in terms of how they learn (because they were each choosing to learn in their own way), and how they collaborate, and  I saw first-hand how the allowance of self-paced curriculum can reduce stress and deepen understanding. It was humbling as I discovered my lectures weren't a necessary part of the learning process (students mastered even some of the h

This fall marks four years since I started blogging.  At the time, I was just getting ready to completely revamp how I was teaching: moving away from teaching through lecturing, and toward technology-based, student-paced, and student-led learning.  I remember trying to come up with a catchy name for the blog, and settled on BYOD, ASAP . My goal was to flip all my courses that year; I was working hard to get technology into the hands of my students (hence, BYOD) while fostering equity and modelling responsible usage. While it may not have been "As Soon As Possible," I took an all-or-nothing approach to the flipped classroom and jumped right in. Most of my posts were about my trials, tribulations, and triumphs in implementing new ways of delivering content. But now, as I move into my second year out of the classroom as our board's Renewed Math Strategy Co-ordinator, my focus is no longer on equitable access to technology in my classroom, or on delivery of content to m