Alan’s Questions to the Audience:
We should study the tools our students use outside of school and think about using these in our schools…We voted and the MACUL people agreed with this statement.
All of our students have worked collaboratively while in school with peopel in different counties: A. All teachers? B. It happened once in one class C. They don’t do it. D. Are you nuts? We block it all!
Our answers were C and D.
What’s the one word kids use to describe school? I said “boring” because I think it is an honest answer for most students I encounter. I think they like learning, but not really school.
The audience said overwhelmingly “boring,” although we had 16 variations of boring because we were texting on a number pad without intuitive texting.
What is the one word that you want your students to use to describe school? I said “interesting” because I really want my answer to show up in the results. I hope lots of other people say interesting. I love voting. There is a big gap in what the kids do say and what we WANT them to say.
As an aside, Alan brought up the example of Ferris Bueler’s Day Off where Ben Stein says “Anyone, anyone?” He note that he never has kids refuse to answer with the clickers.
I think the close the book exam will be replaced by the open source knowledge exam in: A. We did it last year B. 1 year C. 5 years D. 10 years E. Your dreams : our answers were split between C, D, and E.
Alan gave an open web exam and the kids had a really hard time. “Of these three statements, which is the least true?” It can be hard to sort, analyze and synthesize information from the web. “Redesigning assessment to reflect 21st century skills is important.” We have a big gap, Alan notes, between what we say and what we do.
B
