“You’ll use this all the time when you grow up.” “You’re developing skills you’ll need all the way through college.” “Someday, you’ll be so glad you learned another language.”
[insert eye-rolling here].
Even if true, relying primarily on these kinds of future-tense phrases to justify learning may have harmful effects. Nothing is worth draining our children’s inborn sense of discovery and enthusiasm.
The counterintuitive reality: instilling learning passion for the future only happens when we show students how to love learning today!
Requirements for Now Learning
Think back to your classes that most sparked your passion. Chances are, those instructors made relevance a daily priority–a skill that takes purpose and deliberate planning. In our experience, that purpose and planning must consist of the following:
- Student Choice:
Students must be enabled to tailor their learning in order to find relevance. Technological options for making this happen are almost endless–but possibilities outside the high-tech box abound, too, including project based learning, genius hour, and other innovative new strategies.
- Student Creativity:
Start the video below at 16 minutes for a wonderful anecdote by Sir Ken Robinson:
- Teacher Passion
Anwar Masood highlights the importance & depth of the teacher-student relationship #teaching http://t.co/A2rjcd1G99 pic.twitter.com/A91opWEPQl
— Annet Kil (@AnnetKil) December 7, 2014
Applying Now Learning in a Real Schedule
My first year teaching overflowed with the kinds of typical pursuits designed to prepare students for the future demands: book reports, math homework worksheets, and daily “independent study,” during which students would work for an hour on grammar, comprehension, vocabulary, and spelling. And guess where the most frequent strain on behavior occurred?
Over the years, we gradually replaced such activities with approaches that foster now learning–and I witnessed transformations in my students’ motivation, vibrance, and willingness to take risks.
How much of your student’s day involves learning for the present? Look below at tips for each part of my fifth grader’s schedule:
- Word Study
- Student choice: Is it really so earth-shattering to allow students to choose whether they read a book or study their spelling? When our school introduced Daily 5, that’s exactly what we did–and news flash: once they understood all the choices and their purposes, my students did in fact regularly choose from all the options. Status of the class also helped them develop purposeful decision-making skills (read more about that here!).
- Student creativity: Post a list of book report alternatives for students to take their reading and writing to a creative level.
- Teacher passion: Tell them about that cliff-hanger in your book, share your latest blog post, exclaim about your favorite authors, joke about common grammar errors. There is simply no underestimating the power of modeling your own literary pursuits!
- Reading Workshop
- Student choice: Help students discover their own interests and expand their reading horizons by giving them an interest inventory.
- Student creativity: Students’ literary creativity will take flight once they discover that book or series that helps them fall in love with reading. Make curating a classroom library of rich and varied texts one of your main priorities.
- Teacher passion: Throughout each reading unit and/or book group, read along with your students so you can more authentically engage in book discussions with them.
- Spanish
- Student choice: Individualize and gamify language learning with the Duolingo app!
- Student creativity: Download the Google Translate app on your classroom devices and encourage them to discover its possibilities.
- Teacher passion: At our school, another instructor would come in during this time. However, I would try to follow up with my own appreciation and understanding in my personal language learning (ie, discussing how I connect “mesa” in landforms and the translation for table, or my interest in Dia de los Muertos).
- Math
- Student choice: Ditch homework worksheets in favor for homework projects with real-world applications.
- Student creativity: Try flipped learning to give students more time in class for exploration, self-directed projects, or arts integration.
- Teacher passion: No matter what subject(s) you teach, if you’ve ever expressed self-deprecating remarks about math, STOP today, and never do it again!
- Snack/Lunch/Recess
- It’s laughable to believe these growing, active beings can be expected to sit still and focus if their bodies aren’t fully nourished. Make time. If your school has scheduled a too-small chunk of time for lunch, allow students to finish eating in class.
- Writing Workshop
- Student choice: Make writing choices more about which animal to write the essay on. Storybird, comic strip makers, Prezi, word clouds–the platforms and mediums for sharing ideas stretch for miles.
- Student creativity: see above.
- Teacher passion: Teaching a poetry unit? Write your own poems throughout, using the same techniques and skills as your students.Use your own daily struggles and triumphs as a writer as authentic teaching opportunities.
- Social Studies or Science
- Student choice: When it comes to students demonstrating their understanding, make sure their options are varied. A great resource for ideas is 50 Social Studies Strategies for K-8 Classrooms.
- Student creativity: Show your students how to create virtual field trips in Google Earth!
- Teacher passion: Keep a class field journal, noting student discoveries, documenting learning with photos, and jotting down collective or individual hypotheses.
- Blogging
- Student choice & creativity: Student blogs are a fantastic way for students to learn to curate their own work. They give students a real voice in the global learning community, and encourage dynamic discussion and debate in comment threads. To get started, check out our post on practical student blogging here!
- Teacher passion: Make sure you keep your own blog alongside your students’!
Photo Credit:
- Featured image: Frankieleon
- Quote image created with Recitethis.com