Climate is Everything

This week has been extremely gratifying in terms of the instructional practices I either witnessed firsthand or heard about.  Coincidentally they are all coming out of my History Department.  Here is a quick rundown:

On Thursday, October 21, I observed Nicolette Perna’s American History 1 class where the lesson focused on the major patriots during the Revolutionary War.  After a few minutes of notes, the students were directed to get in their pre-selected groups and were broken up into pairs by Ms. Perna within each group.  Each pair received a folder containing the name of an important patriot (i.e. Benjamin Franklin), their biography, and a Facebook template.  The nature of the activity was for the students to create a Facebook page for their important Patriot as the students envisioned it would look if they were alive today. Prior to beginning this assignment, Ms. Perna modeled what she was looking for by showing the class an example of a Facebook page made for Abraham Lincoln.  She further explained that each page had to include biographical information, a list of other patriots who would be friends, and status updates of historical significance.  In addition to these requirements, students were given the flexibility to be as creative as they wanted to with the status updates.  One student in particular added a conversation between Thomas Jefferson and “The Situation” from the Jersey Shore (of course all required content information was included as well).  On a side note, Ms. Perna used Prezi on Monday to introduce students to words and images associated with the Olive Branch Petition.

While learning about Immigration in Rebecca Millan’s American History 2 class during the week of October 4, students created interactive Glogster posters.  The posters were developed to provide students with a better understanding of their family’s immigration to America as well as the overall immigration experience of the countries in which families emigrated.  Students worked diligently in the computer lab for three days and were then able to publish their projects online and present them in class.

Today I observed Joe Manzo in Modern World History where he was covering the Columbian Exchange.  After lecturing on the topic, he broke students up into cooperative, heterogeneous groups where they answered questions relating to the impact of the Columbian Exchange on Europe, Africa, and the Americas.  As a culminating activity, Mr. Manzo asked the students to take out their mobile devices and submit their questionnaire answers using Poll Everywhere.  In preparation for the activity he informed the students yesterday to bring their cell phones in (they were shocked). This was an extremely significant event as this represented the first time that a teacher and students used mobile devices in NMHS as a learning tool.  I observed each and every student thoroughly engaged in the activity as they observed real-time results appear on a large television screen.  Their excitement was contagious.  Wait, it gets better; when the activity ended Mr. Manzo moved on to his closure activity and every student turned off and then put away their cell phones without even being asked!

I am extremely proud of my teachers effectively integrating technology into their instruction to create an engaging learning environment.  All three of these teachers willingly attended the Tri-State Educational Technology Conference (TSETC) held at NMHS and learned about Prezi, Glogster, and Poll Everywhere for the first time.  A climate has been established here where teachers are provided with the tools, resources, support, and flexibility to take risks with technology in order to improve teaching and learning.  Teachers are not directed or mandated to do this, but instead motivated through effective modeling, meaningful events like TSETC, and a desire to change.  These success stories must be shared to alleviate fears and resistance to using educational technology in the classroom.