Middle School Students Video - No Future Left Behind

March 08, 2009

Middle School Students Video - No Future Left Behind

Here’s a great new video, from the Suffern NY Middle School Tech Club students. Let's help these kids make sure their message is heard! Follow link to No Future Left Behind Ning page for full credits and discussion.

Mar 8, 2009 12:55:28 PM | Commentary, Innovation, PBL, Techie

2 Comments

Nice video. But I'm seldom certain how to react to such. The reality is that lots of educators and many schools are taking steps to incorporate more technology, to engage students more collaboratively, and to provide more opportunities for performance assessments. The best I can say for such videos is that they provide content for dialogue regarding how educators might better meet the needs of students.

I can't help but wonder if through empowering students in such ways whether we might also be guilty of over-simplifying the educative process. When conducting a training on Socratic Seminars once, a teacher responded, "You can't do that every day." I thought he had made a breakthrough. We can't teach using any one method exclusively. I've sat through good lectures and learned much, and I've sat through many worthless lectures.

As educators, we need to expand our toolkit, and make sure we're picking the right tool for the lesson and for our students. Do they realize that?

Posted by: Randy Corn | March 11, 2009 at 05:58 AM

Randy,

Hello again, and once more I think you are right on target. There are many video like this one that float around the internet. And yes, they do help move the "dialogue' along. What's especially nice about this one, is that it was largely created by MS students.

I couldn't agree more with your last observation. We do need to expand our toolkit.

In "Teaching with Your Mouth Shut," Donald Finkel observes there are times when lectures do a nice job of transmitting information. He states that lectures can
- help students organize a great deal of knowledge that they have already learned in piecemeal fashion.
- generate interest in a new area of study.
- be a way to converse with colleagues in front of students.
- allow the teacher to present his/her own interpretation of course material to students.

Cheers,
Peter

Posted by: Peter Pappas | March 11, 2009 at 02:35 PM

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