As I reflect on innovative teaching, I think back to the in-service I attended in January involving “21st century learning with Johnny Wells”. It was after this in-service that I recognized the importance of giving students the opportunity to work in small teams to accomplish a task. These “instant challenges” inspire creative and critical thinking, promote team-building, problem solving, risk-taking, and allow students to be project managers, to persevere when faced with a problem, and build self-confidence. These are all skills that students will need to have when they become adults and are ready to enter the workforce.
Finding the time to do instant challenges in my classroom is a challenge for me. However, I do think that I have been teaching students these skills through some extra-curricular clubs that I have offered over the years. In Lego Mindstorms Club, students work in partners to build robots out of Lego and then use computer software to program their robots to move around an object, move through a maze, sense colour, light, and sound, and hit objects, etc.
In Geocaching Club, students work in teams to follow coordinates that eventually lead them to a “treasure”. I have also done this activity as a field trip last year with our Geography Club. Students were divided into 4 teams and were provided with walkie-talkies which they used to communicate with other teams to let them know that they found the geocaches. It was like the “Amazing Race” and was team-building at its finest!
Lastly, I have used Minecraft Edu. in the classroom and offered it as a club. In the classroom, I had my students create a digital world of a novel that we were studying. After choosing an area of the map to focus on, students had to break into small groups and assign tasks to one another and build their structures using materials that would have been used in the story. In the Minecraft Club, students had the opportunity to work in groups and accomplish tasks that I gave them.
I enjoy doing the above mentioned clubs because I have a genuine interest in them. I think that is important because students need to see the teacher’s enthusiasm in order to buy in. However, there are always new ideas for using innovative teaching in the classroom that I am open to trying. I definitely want to try some instant challenges with my students before the year ends, and I have some in mind. Now that it is a little less busy, it might be a good time to try something new.
Michael Conklin
Carpathia School
Cluster 1996