Monday, February 18, 2019

Kathy Blog 1


Spring Blog #1
Kathy Feigenbaum

The visit at JL Mann High School was amazing. It was very inspiring to see that what we are working on in our course can actually work in real life in a very efficient way. The students at JL Mann were so engaged in their work and very smooth in explaining to us what they were doing with their project. There was quite a bit of supportive equipment there due to the New Tech building, which (although it's discouraging to know we won't ever have all that at our school) lends well to thinking of hacks that might serve similar purposes. The work spaces are super flexible and the desks with hanging personal whiteboards are great. Each student had what seemed to be a functioning laptop. (Keyword: functioning!) My favorite thing was the Think Tank. When I asked the Spanish I students where they would go to record their video (that is always a problem for me because of all the background noise), they told me they would just go on down the hall to the Think Tank. I am considering ways to create one at our school, or maybe turn my closet into such an area. I also liked seeing the classes that are co-taught and cross-curricular. The teachers seemed to work well together, and the atmosphere was definitely one of teamwork and facilitating the students. It was a great day.
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1 comment:

  1. gregmitchell@bellsouth.netFebruary 24, 2019 at 7:13 PM

    Hi Kathy,
    I am glad that you enjoyed your visit to JL Mann High School and that you were able to see first-hand in a school-wide approach the concepts of pbl implemented across disciplines and subject areas. You shared that you saw consistent engagement of students in their work and in their ability to communicate what they were learning. Like you, I appreciated the intentional design of the building with collaboration spaces and the use of laptops and co-taught classrooms. You shared how you want to create a "Think Tank" in your school or in your classroom and I think that is a great use of space to provide students with opportunities to work individually on an assignment or collaboratively on the creation of group work that needs a quiet, separate place to publish/record/etc.
    I am glad that you enjoyed it!

    Sincerely,
    Dawn

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