Broad Perspective

With the advent of the digital age, our culture is changing exponentially.  It is no longer based on an industrial style or factory model of life and education as identified by futurist Alvin Toffler in "Revolutionary Wealth."  That said, our current education system--for the most part--has not realized that the needs of the students to best prepare them for the 21st century world they will become a part of has NOT changed much to meet these needs, let alone define them.  Currently, today's system of education is designed for mass produced/ factory style education in most of the curriculums.  In my opinion, there is a need to break from the traditional to prevent “obsoledge” and help design opportunities for students to be producers and be active participants in the educational process.  To take more ownership.  Now as an innovative educator, I understand that the way it has always been done no longer serves to prepare today’s students.  As educators, we need it to prepare students for nonindustrial age strategies, skills, projects and processes daily in the classroom. A major factor of this information age is digital literacy of the student population today--the ability to access various computer resources and be able encode and decode meaning from them. 

Another book that really stuck out in the program was Pink’s "Whole New Mind" showed that right brainers will rule the world.  Due to Automation, Abundance, and Asia there is no need for left-brain or linear thinking.  We need to prepare our students to not merely understand the left-brain, print based, and industrial thinking, but to also incorporate something else to go beyond the linear.  Pink highlights 6 senses, "MOPEDS," to help to be successful in our changing society.  Meaning is the need to understand what the thing is. Orchestra/symphony is systems thinking and how do all of the variables come together.  Play is the way to explore or discover rules and the ways to use them to create something new.  Empathy is the starting point to understand multiple perspectives to guide what is wanted.  Design is using principles, processes, and patterns with the application of intent and the removal of happenstance.  Story is not just the facts but when all the pieces are put together.  Incorporating these ideas in my lesson design and delivery makes me an innovator. Through the teacher’s design process they must keep PICKLs (problem solving, information users, community participants, knowledgeable, literacy, and design environment.) in mind to provide students with opportunities for meaning through the use of various tools and experiences.  For learning happens between the interaction of mind and culture and I have only begun to discover ways to use new and current technology to meet the emerging needs of students and society. These technologies must be evaluated for the affordances they offer to meet student and teacher goals.

Practical Application

I have taken these instructional tool concepts and applied them in my teachings and actions in four areas.  First, I co-founded our schools Young Entrepreneurs club, where the students learn (albeit at a high level), advertising concepts, stock market tracking, business plans, and how to start a company.  It is the largest club at Farmwell, with over 60 active members showing up to work.  At our fund raiser, we sold concessions for a local charity.  We used the authentic problem of them staffing a concession sales company, with different roles and areas for the students to perform.   With our guidance, they came up with roles (advertising, set up, sales, cash, inventory) and plans to sell during the intermission.  We were extremely successful and the students  loved it!!

Second, It has been noted before but I will breifly mention it here.  The projects and activities that I use are all exclusively real world oriented and innovative.  Here, my students are immersed in performing different activities and solving problems for businesses where they are "employed."   They are in the roles of advertisers, businesss, researchers, editors and job applicants.  I have also developed and deployed a robust wiki project for starting a company. This lesson plan centers around the kids are presidents of business development/concept development.  They have a high level business plan which helps guide and motivate students to think about potentially starting a company with their project or service ideas.  All of these are engaging and require students to "think outside the box" while completing them.