SBISD EdTech Blog

This is the question I ask ACTIVclassroom teachers when I observe their classrooms.

If you are one of the 200 lucky teachers in SBISD to have an ACTIVclassroom and you haven’t changed the way you plan, design, and deliver curriculum, then your ACTIVboard and ACTIVotes are not being used to their potential. Let’s talk about the three:

1. Changing Practices-Planning — you should no longer be planning in isolation. Your team at your campus should be collaborating and planning with one another and with like teams across the district. SWHS principal Wayne Schaper sees the value in collaborative planning for ACTIVclassroom teachers. He provided school time for his teachers to meet and invited colleagues from across the district to participate. This is happening at other campuses including SHS and MMS. ACTIVteachers who plan together learn together and the same flipchart is not created a dozen times. Instead it is created once, uploaded to the repository, and then download by teachers all over the district. This is the power of collaborative planning.
2. Changing Practices-Designing — Many ACTIVteachers begin by using the board for calendars, warm-ups and converting lecture PowerPoint’s to flipcharts. This is a great way to begin; however, let’s not get too comfortable there. The end goal is to create interactive flipchart curriculum that engages students from entry to exit into your class. Yes, warm-ups can and should be interactive. Some might ask “what do you mean by interactive?” Quite simply, sharing your space with your students. Dictionary.com defines interactive as “(of a computer program or system) interacting with a human user.” Flipcharts should be designed to allow students to interact with the curriculum. Yes, teachers, this means turning over the pen or handing the slate to them. ACTIVstudents do not watch their teachers work, they work side by side with them learning together. Interactive and engaging curriculum moves the teacher from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” and at the end of the day, “the students are as tired or more tired than the teacher.” An ACTIVclassroom is not where students “sit and get”; it is a robust, dynamic, chaotic place where critical thinking, problem solving, and learning happens.
3. Changing Practices-Delivery — Effective flipchart curriculum incorporates interactivity, formative assessment, different modalities, and maintains a rigorous pace. It is apparent when observing ACTIVclassrooms which students are unaccustomed to approaching the board. They don’t know the tools, the don’t know how to hold the pen, they sometimes don’t even know what they are suppored to do at the board. It is apparent that they seldom share this space with their teacher. It is also apparent that the teacher has not modeled the use of the tools. Effective flipchart delivery is the student interacting with the curriculum. Does this mean the teacher never teaches, of course not. It means that he/she teaches through his/her students. The ACTIVotes should be distributed everyday. Teachers who use the Votes appropriately know when to redirect their path of instruction. Research tells us that students need immediate feedback–that goes both ways. The teacher know when to reteach or move on and the student knows immediately what he/she knows or needs to know. I have observed traditional teaching strategies such as small groups, independent work, and teaming effectively co-exist with ACTIVclassroom strategies. However, traditional worksheets have no place in an ACTIVclassroom unless the teacher has turned that worksheet from paper to an interactive flipchart.

In conclusion, effective design and delivery of flipchart curriculum maximizes instructional time. All of your tools and resources are in one place. Teachers no longer have to struggle with DVD players, TV tuners, VCR players, wall maps, etc., because they can now embed videos, GoogleEarth, and web links directly into their flipcharts. Those that have scanners can take any document and within seconds project that document onto the board for discussion, annotation, problem solving, read aloud, etc.

If you are an ACTIVteacher who stands and delivers and uses your board in the same manner as an overhead projector, then you will continue to get the same results. To change our results, we must change our practices.

I leave you with the question I started this blog entry with: “are you changing practices”?