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I've heard of the MACUL conference for a very long time, but I'd never been able to make it. This year I was there. I realized yet again that I am in an amazing profession. The three day conference had close to 4500 teachers from all over the state (and even some from surrounding states). The WIFI was a little sluggish at the conference seeing as how over 10,000 devices were attached at peak usage! These were my people and my batteries are recharged to keep innovating and working to challenge students.
Remember it's about kids learning, not teachers teaching.
It's not about the tests. It's not about grading. It's not about summertime or snow days. It's about getting kids passionate about learning. The keynote was delivered by Adam Bellow (his talk from 2013 ISTE starts around 24:00--play it in the background as you're grading papers). A few quotes from his speech on Thursday:
"We don't want to teach students to eat. We want to teach them to cook."
"Live life in beta"
"Own your failure."
"Say 'thank you" and mean it." He reminded me that we want kids excited about teaching. We need students that are excited about the next thing. We must encourage students to find their interests and to challenge them to be better than they thought they could be.
Connections are more important than content.
The content is huge. We need students to learn specific things. Again, not because of the test, but because we as a society find value in the information. But we don't want automatons. We need to show people how to be critical thinkers, critics, and how to show respect even when disagreeing. We need to have fun. Leslie Fisher was playing 24 hours of Happy at the beginning of one session and funny cat videos the next. George Couros showed humorous and touching (it a first ski jump--must watch) videos as part of his presentations. The point was now that they shared a little bit about themselves we all let our guards down and were ready to learn. Time is never wasted when you make connections and learn about people.
Be prepared to fail. A lot. Like all the time.
Failure is part of learning. Failure is part of innovation. Failure is always possible when you put yourself out there and try new things. When it matters, we work harder so we don't fail. We don't always get the brass ring. We don't always restore balance to the Force. Sometimes we are Ned Stark. How do we learn from these mistakes? How do we grow? Reflection is part of growth is part of failure. A teacher I work with told me two days before our new trimester that she is going to just revamp her trigonometry course. I started my quadrilateral unit in yet another different way. Both of us are innovating ways that put even more control of learning in the students hands. Sometimes it works, sometimes it crashes and burns. Always it can be refined.
Wasn't this a technology conference?
You betcha. But learning isn't about using technology to use technology. This conference reinforced how to use technology to think about learning. To bust out of the walls of your classroom. To create things that you couldn't without tech (and not using tech when it gets in the way). To make the world your audience.
I learned that I am not alone in my desire to improve and change my classroom. I learned that I wanted this 10 years ago. I learned that I have a long way to go.
So what was the big take away. There were several big take aways:
Remember it's about kids learning, not teachers teaching.
It's not about the tests. It's not about grading. It's not about summertime or snow days. It's about getting kids passionate about learning. The keynote was delivered by Adam Bellow (his talk from 2013 ISTE starts around 24:00--play it in the background as you're grading papers). A few quotes from his speech on Thursday:
"We don't want to teach students to eat. We want to teach them to cook."
"Live life in beta"
"Own your failure."
"Say 'thank you" and mean it." He reminded me that we want kids excited about teaching. We need students that are excited about the next thing. We must encourage students to find their interests and to challenge them to be better than they thought they could be.
Connections are more important than content.
The content is huge. We need students to learn specific things. Again, not because of the test, but because we as a society find value in the information. But we don't want automatons. We need to show people how to be critical thinkers, critics, and how to show respect even when disagreeing. We need to have fun. Leslie Fisher was playing 24 hours of Happy at the beginning of one session and funny cat videos the next. George Couros showed humorous and touching (it a first ski jump--must watch) videos as part of his presentations. The point was now that they shared a little bit about themselves we all let our guards down and were ready to learn. Time is never wasted when you make connections and learn about people.
Be prepared to fail. A lot. Like all the time.
Failure is part of learning. Failure is part of innovation. Failure is always possible when you put yourself out there and try new things. When it matters, we work harder so we don't fail. We don't always get the brass ring. We don't always restore balance to the Force. Sometimes we are Ned Stark. How do we learn from these mistakes? How do we grow? Reflection is part of growth is part of failure. A teacher I work with told me two days before our new trimester that she is going to just revamp her trigonometry course. I started my quadrilateral unit in yet another different way. Both of us are innovating ways that put even more control of learning in the students hands. Sometimes it works, sometimes it crashes and burns. Always it can be refined.
Wasn't this a technology conference?
You betcha. But learning isn't about using technology to use technology. This conference reinforced how to use technology to think about learning. To bust out of the walls of your classroom. To create things that you couldn't without tech (and not using tech when it gets in the way). To make the world your audience.
I learned that I am not alone in my desire to improve and change my classroom. I learned that I wanted this 10 years ago. I learned that I have a long way to go.
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