Tina Sanders Drayton Mills PBL Reflection

Drayton Mills: My first thought was: “Oh my goodness, this place is incredible!” I just thought that Monarch was impressive. I loved the entryway with the little theater area where special events could be held. But, I was even more impressed with what I saw in the classrooms. Students sometimes disagreed but you could tell there were protocols in place to deal with that eventuality. Students were given roles to play in the groups. The hubs were amazing! You can tell that this school was built with inquiry learning in mind. The classrooms were smaller than my K5 room, but the hubs had lots of storage space for joint sharing of materials so it could be worth the trade- off.   The maker space was incredible. You could tell that monies were invested into allowing the students to have creativity in their learning.  This literally had me drooling and wishing I could work in a school like this. I loved having the opportunity to see it in use. The students were actively engaged in creating representations of their learning. I would love to work at a school where the administration was behind PBL.  As you know, our school was an IB school before our administrator came. Everyone bought into IB. We were a well-oiled machine. Students were eager to engage in inquiry lessons. Then, things began to change. District allocations to support trainings disappeared and the new administrator put money into upper level staff positions and took money from individual classroom allocations. Staff turnover became a problem. Then came the expense of training all of the new hires on IB. Eventually, the cost became prohibitive and new hires didn’t understand IB so when it came time to vote on whether to remain an IB school, the majority (which were new hires) voted to pull out of IB. I would like to invest in a maker space in my classroom. I am trying to think of materials to include there besides craft materials (which I have in my art center). Anyone have thoughts on this??