Monday, December 15, 2008

15 Things I'd Love to Teach

I recently applied for a curriculum coordinator position in my district school board, and although my current regional position in some ways restricts my ability to teach relevant skills to educators, there are many 21st century skills I'd love to share with local colleagues.


1] How to model academic integrity in your teaching;

2] How to harness universal designs for learning;

3] How to engage rich performance tasks as assessment tools;

4] How to share resources via social bookmarking;

5] How to employ podcasts and video production in teaching/learning;

6] How to collaborate with regional peers via wikis;

7] How to license student/teacher works via Creative Commons;

8] How to employ the power of Google tools;

9] How to develop a rich personal learning network;

10] How to harness the power of handheld technologies;

11] How to augment lessons with video conference technology;

12] How to highlight achievement through online portfolios;

13] How to create and share lessons via multimedia tutorials;

14] How to use blogs as reflective journals;

15] How to ensure your presentations are Zen-like.

Although my current position does not allow me to pursue these subjects during the working day, I will continue to teach and learn via my evolving network on the read/write web.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess the other things I would add to the list would be things like - how to be brave enough to just jump in and havea go, how to accept your own mistakes and learn from them and those sorts of things. They would be the things that would hopefully incraese students' (and teachers) intellectual curiosity, making all of these tools much more relevant and powerful to those who are sceptical.

Great list and it has really got me thinking. Thank you.

Rodd Lucier said...

Your additions are things best taught by modeling... Come to think of it, the same is true for most of my list as well.

Teaching skills in context is what it's all about.

Colin Jagoe said...

In a lot of ways Rodd, you do teach these things to teachers, you just don't get paid for it! :)

As for the bravery that Jess mentioned, that's an issue of culture with teachers. We have to let go of the thinking that we always have to be right and infalliable in front of students. We don't know everything, we never will, and we waste too many good educational opportunities because we're afraid of looking like we don't know everything. Here's a news flash, Kids don't care if we make a mistake! Use that to show them how to learn a new skill, or overcome obstacles. That's real teaching!

A Foreman said...

I found your blog about a week ago, and I just wanted to let you know that it has taught me a lot already. I will begin teaching for the first time in about a month (high school Biology), and I am looking forward to putting some of these ideas into action in my classroom. Thanks.

Rodd Lucier said...

Colin, I love your news flash!
Only in realizing that we don't know everything, are we free to be co-learners.

Aaron, congratulations on the new position and welcome to the profession. Be sure to find a mentor or two with whom you can share your experiences. You are sure to learn valuable lessons any day that you are open to them!