Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing.”
Roosty Tovar
What's My Why?
When facing great challenges in my student life, which were not so easy for me to overcome, one specifically stands out. When I was in high school I struggled with organic chemistry, particularly the periodic table of the (chemical) elements. I can remember asking, “Why is it done this way?” and “What am I learning this for?” I had the hardest time investing myself into something I could not see a purpose for. As a teacher, this is often something I remind myself of when I am teaching my students. Making real-world connections to their learning helps answer the question why so they can better understand the purpose in what I am teaching them.
Simon Sinek once said, (Sinek 2013)… ”To empower and educate people everywhere so that they can improve their lives and achieve their goals.”
The impact I want is for everyone, everywhere, to improve their lives and achieve their goals. My contribution — WHAT I do to make the impact I desire: to empower and educate people everywhere so that they can improve their lives and achieve their goals. Indeed, only when I know my ‘why’ I will find the courage to take the risks needed to get ahead, stay motivated when the chips are down, and move my life onto an entirely new, more challenging, and more rewarding trajectory.
My Innovation Proposal RT proposes implementing blended learning using a station rotation two way dual language. Here is the Why, How, and What behind my Innovation Plan.
Why?
To give learners a lifelong desire for becoming independent learners who are well-equipped to embrace the digital age of information in the 21st century.
How?
By giving learners the ability to learn through creating a blended learning environment that provides them with choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities.
What?
To give learners the confidence to ask questions, find answers, and develop a lifelong love of learning in the digital world of their future.
TELL ME WHY?
Encourage critical thinking. Our students are growing up in the age of information that innovative technology has brought about. Everything they want to know is at their fingertips, and they know how to find it. But we have to ask ourselves if we are truly preparing them to be independent learners in the 21st century. Encouraging students to think critically can influence them to become lifelong learners. Exposing students to a variety of ideas and information, and asking them to consider their opinion, will inspire their interest and curiosity and give their inner critic something to think about for life.
AND HOW?
Through blended learning and the station rotation model, not only will students be able to learn through the use of technology, they will be given the opportunity to have a choice over their learning through authentic projects.
IT APPLY?
The way I apply learning in the lives of my students has to do with the perception and processing of information in every experience I have with them, from the social sphere, as well as the family and individual psychological processes such as the management of my emotions and thoughts. So what makes blended learning so different from the other innovative ideas of the past? The most important reason is because it utilizes a teaching practice we already know how to use, the station rotation, and combines it with technology we already have in our classrooms. Through blended learning we can achieve our purpose of creating lifelong learners who are ready to face the technology-rich world that awaits them when they leave our classrooms.
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