When Failure and Feedback Are The Goal

I've spent over two decades working as a music teacher and performing musician, and one of the benefits of that has been the chance to spend a good deal of time working in the theatre. As a pit musician and conductor, I've worked on nearly 50 different musicals, and served as a sound designer for more than a dozen plays in my local professional and scholastic theatre community. And one of the benefits of THAT has been the chance to watch a lot of amazing, skilled actors as they shape and refine a performance, from first rehearsal to closing night.

When I Get to the Bottom I Go Back to the Top of the Slide....

...and I stop and I turn and I go for a ride.

Thank you, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, for the lines to sum up my initial reaction upon finishing my Digital Learning and Leading coursework (1968). It's an image that leapt immediately to mind--I reached the bottom of an 18-month-long ride, and now it's time to climb back up and go for another, as I start to make use of what I've learned and search for the next thing to explore.

A Plan Comes Together...Slowly

The innovation plan at the heart of my work in the Digital Learning and Leading program is intended to provide teachers a path toward helping their students engage in deep learning and develop growth mindset thinking. In true constructivist fashion, teachers learn to help their students do this by doing it themselves, examing their own learning process and investigating ways to apply that process to the discipline in which they teach.

Looking Back Into The Abyss

Like most people my age who were educated in American schools, I spent my school career being given assignments with strict guidelines and expectations: “Read this book, and write a 5-paragraph essay on the author’s use of metaphor.” In luckier circumstances, some choice was offered: “Choose one of these four books, read it, and write a 5-paragraph essay on the author’s use of metaphor.” In the best-case scenarios, these assignments involved an activity that interested me, or at least seemed useful. I loved reading and exploring the art of writing, and I saw the practical value in learning the science of how the world works.

A (Naturalized?) Digital Citizen

This week is the end of my Digital Citizenship course in the Lamar Digital Learning and Leading program. Part of the coursework has been to develop a mantra to embody my philosophy of what digital citizenship means. After considering what actions, thoughts, and principles make up digital citizenship, and thinking about how to encapsulate all of things into one guiding statement, I have concluded that what digital citizenship (and citizenship in general) really means is that every person has the right to strive to reach their full potential and the obligation to do everything possible to enable others to do the same. In short:

Everyone can learn, Everyone can grow. Clear the path.

Everyone Can Learn. Everyone Can Grow. Clear The Path.