Haven't posted in quite a long time. It has been a super busy time for my classroom. If you are a teacher you completely understand that Testing Season is a real thing!!! We have been testing and my lab has been used for testing, often separating my students from me :-(

This is the first full week I will have had the students in the lab! Yeah!! They are happier and so am I. Some good news for us...my students (3 of them) and I will be presenting at the Region 10 Technology Conference this year...Digital Fluency Conference20'14! They are going to explain how we have made great strides to move from a completely teacher centered classroom to a hybrid of teacher centered and student centered. The kids are excited (and nervous) to present in front of teachers across the area. They are ready to get their presentation together! Only 30 minutes and time will fly by.

As the year starts to wind down we have so much more to do and learn. The kids are getting restless, they can see summer on the horizon, but having student centered activities really keeps them engaged in the learning. I had two different people (one admin and one teacher) visit my room today and the comment from both was that there was 100% engagement in the classroom.

I am also posting a link to a piece of student work to show what they are producing. This is some of the great work that is happening when I tell a student to "Teach Me Something"
What is variable cost?

I'll post more when we get closer to our presentation...busy, busy, busy!

How It All Began

This is how it all began: 

A Classroom...in the fall of 2013...I wanted the BEST classroom for my students so I worked all summer to obtain pennants and posters from any post-high school institution I could find. I made my room a home away from home for myself and my students...but that wasn't enough :-(

I was pleased with the way my room looked but not how it was functioning. My morning classes were fine. I taught three classes of keyboarding and my kids were working hard and engaged...learning the finer skills of touch typing!!

It was my afternoon classes that were not working. I tried everything. I am NOT a new teacher and this was not the first time I had ever taught this class (Principles of Business, Marketing & Finance using the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship curriculum). **Side note...I couldn't believe I couldn't get the kids motivated...for Pete's sake I was the Teacher of the Year for NFTE last year! Where was it all going wrong??***

I struggled to get the kids interested and keep them interested all Fall. I read, I researched, I pleaded...but still there were several that weren't getting it. We took final exams BEFORE winter break this year (a first for us)!! I knew things had to change in January with the new semester. I took some much needed break time and came back fired up for the Spring semester.

In early January our librarian approached me about attending a four day training on Digital Fluency...sounded interesting so I signed up (2 days in Jan/2 days in Feb). Off we went and on the first day I didn't learn anything earth shattering new but what I did get was a renewed sense of how my classroom should be run!! I planned, sketched a new layout and got everything ready...

The day finally came and I told the kids we were going to try an experiment and I didn't know what would happen but we would see together.

• I taught them Google Docs
• I broke them up in groups
• I made students in charge of the stations (Small Group, Collaboration Station, Teach Me Something)
• I made students in charge of their own learning (with some guidance)

This blog is where we (the students and I) will post our thoughts, feelings and accomplishments AND most of all sample work!!

Hard at work at the Teach Me Something Center