Think Like a Teacher

In the 1970s and 80s, “open” classrooms were vast expanses of space with free-flowing, flexible arrangements of furniture and students around a curriculum in constant flux. I know. I taught in an open classroom school that attracted VIP fact-finding tours from far and wide. Today we “open” our classrooms with technology, allowing people to visit, observe, and participate. Parents are today’s VIP invitees, and today’s technologies make opening the classroom easier and easier. Blogger Alison Anderson shares ten great ideas for opening your classroom to parents without making it a time-consuming teacher task. Her tech-savvy suggestions are just one layer among the advantages, means, and results of involving parents in today’s “open” classrooms. I agree that having students manage the sharing is ideal.  The tools are plentiful. To make the student sharing and parent involvement/home discussion even better, there is some deliberate thinking we may want to do as teachers. So I offer some overlays on the subject. I can tell this will be on my mind for a while, but here is part one:

1. Parents may need help knowing what to ask. When their question is “What did you do in school today?” the answer is doomed from the start. What was that thing you were laughing at in the science class video? Who decided which picture to post today?  Why did you share that picture? By sharing media that prompts questions, we and our students can make the home conversations more informative, more supportive of learning, and just plain fun for both parents and kids. We might even make parents lives a little easier. It never hurts to make  busy parents happy.

2. As teachers, we take the time to encourage higher level thinking and questioning from our students.  How do we encourage parents to think and question deeply? We should be deliberate about which images. words, or multimedia we encourage students to share. Ask the kids what would make their parents curious. Ask them which two images would best represent the day. Two will invite comparison, contrast, or analysis to explain why they go together.

3. Ideas invite questions. Assuming you have a class Twitter account, use the brief format for text-only ideas. Tweet students’ what-ifs. Tweet the oddest question asked in class today. Tweet an alliteration about today’s topic. Have a contest for the best end of class summary tweet in a clever format. (Your gifted students will spend most of the class period trying to think of the best one — and actually stay connected to the topic at hand for a change). If there are bonus point attached to authoring a good tweet, you may have more than you need. Or let the class vote for Today’s Tweet.

4. Kids WANT to share (or we can nudge them a bit). Kids are social beings and braggers. Elementary kids will share anything(!), any time. Middle schoolers may not select the things you would want parents to see (the smartphone shot of the kid picking his nose with the lab equipment), but they definitely want to share something. Give them incentives to brag a little. Teens in secondary classrooms are more reticent and dare not be uncool by sounding enthusiastic. But if we teach multiple sections of the same thing, why not spark a little competition between classes to share the most thought provoking or clever or insightful tweet, image, etc. on the same topic.

5. Learning about what is appropriate to share from your open classroom is an easy way to teach digital citizenship in context. Adults offer long lists of social network do’s and don’ts, but our students need practice. The reports that come back the next day: “What did your parents ask last night  after we shared that Instagram from class?” may be exactly the life lessons we need so students learn ramifications of sharing.  The lessons are ongoing, self-reinforcing, and authentic.

Are you seeing different overlays on this simple topic? Stay tuned for Part two…