Teach Out Loud

This past week, as I was searching for new innovative ideas to bring to my classroom, I came across the sayings, “Shut the door and teach!” and “Open the door and teach!”  While I get the point of the first, I wholeheartedly advocate for the second. Teaching should not be an isolated event. We need to come together to improve learning for students. In addition, if you are doing amazing things things in your classroom, share it.

Yesterday, I had the amazing opportunity to share GID with passionate educators at an Edcamp event I helped facilitate. If you’ve never heard of Edcamp, it’s an event that is driven by participant interest. Participants post questions and topics of interest at the beginning the event, and then sessions are determined based on those topics. One of the topics happened to be inquiry based learning, so I was thrilled to have another opportunity to share ideas. Not only was I able to share my GID unit on Earth’s Systems, but I was able to pick up ideas as well. One idea was using the website Thrively to administer a survey to gather students interest. One teacher shared how she learned that a lot of her students were interested in biology, so she replaced a prior unit she had planned with one based on their interest. What a powerful way to give students a voice and choice in the classroom. If I had never searched out other educators to collaborate with, I would likely have not heard about this powerful tool. I encourage you to build your personal learning network and grow. Twitter is a great way to connect with passionate educators from around the world. When we teach out loud and link arms with passionate educators, we have the potential to transform learning for our students.

Writing this blog and sharing a little bit about what happens in my classroom has been a pleasure. It has allowed me to reflect on my practice, as well as given me the drive and commitment to finish the year strong. Thank you Leslie Maniotes, for providing educators this space to share their experiences with implementing GID in their classrooms.

Rebecca Wilkin

Selma Unified

@beccalmorris83

1 Comment

  1. Thank you for sharing your experience. Together we are stronger! Wonderful ideas and examples these days. Thank you, Rebecca, for taking your time to share with all of us! -Leslie

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *