Shake Up Learning - 21st Century Change

I just finished Chapter 1 of Kasey Bell's new book Shake Up Learning Practical Ideas to Move Learning from Static to Dynamic and had so many thoughts that I easily filled the reflection pages.

I am guilty of having that factory mindset in the classroom.  I can't count how often I've said (let alone thought), "I learned it this way, and it was good enough for me." After reading this chapter, I see the problem with that.  First, not everyone learns like I do.  School always just "clicked" for me--I was good at it. I wasn't often challenged to do critical, deep thinking, and this has been to my detriment.  As an adult, I struggle with critical and creative thinking.  I'm awesome at recreating something, but I don't have a lot of originality. This bothers me a lot at this stage in my life (when I hear people talk politics, world news, etc.)  I don't want my students to have this problem, especially in the age of "alternative facts" and an endless sea of information the internet. 

The second problem with my factory mindset stems from the fact that we didn't have all of these cool gadgets and unlimited access when I was a kid.  I remember in high school (in the mid-80's), I took a class on word processing and was absolutely floored! I LOVED it! I remember being in college and using floppy discs.  I had so much fun making that turtle travel around the screen.  I actually still have one in my attic that has this really cool (and innovative at the time) fireworks display that I proudly created from scratch. If I could access this, would I still think that it was high tech? Probably not, but that began my love of what "the future" would look like.

In her book, Kasey Bell refers to Back to the Future 2 and how they imagined the world in 2015.  Since the first film came out when I was 15, and I lived 2015 as I was teaching in my 40's I went CRAY-CRAY using the movies in class. We talked about how things are so different today than when I was a kid.

So, then why is it my instinct to teach the same way that I was taught?  In my professional development, I'm learning that this is normal. But, I need to work hard to break that habit.

As technology got better and better, I tried to keep up as much as I could. You should see my VCR, DVD, and Blu-ray collection--now I'm starting a decent digital library.  I can't imagine being without the 21st-century conveniences.

My goal in reading this book is to get inspiration and tools to change the type of teacher that I am.  I want my students to get excited about learning like my bio-statistician brother and I did (and still do).  I want them to be like sponges and using the tools available to them, have the initiative to seek out and learn new things. I don't want to be the most excited person in my classroom anymore.

If you're interested in learning more about the book, click HERE.  I'm excited to start Chapter 2!