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Sunday, February 22, 2015

Finding Possibilities in New Standards

Recently, a small group of APS school leaders met to read and discuss the new standards which require students to use digital texts and tools. Using some documents that highlight these standards, the group discussed which of the standards seemed most important to them and how these standards connect to the work that happens in classrooms at their schools.

I got to listen.

Cari Roberts, principal at Frontier K8, talked about how digital tools can support all parts of the writing process. She spoke with her peers about how students can plan creatively and gather peer feedback collaboratively, remarking, "We don't have to use laptops exclusively for publishing."

Charting an important standard


Looking at the cross section of standards prompted  David Roll, principal of William Smith High School, to share how he's seen research projects and presentations evolve at his school. In the past, students presenting research at the end of the year would use trifold displays, science fair-style. Increasingly, Roll sees students using blogs at his expeditionary learning school and the trifolds are disappearing. We talked about how that shift might be an important one that has implications all year for students - they capture their research data digitally all year long and get to look back at their work "curate" what they've got for end of the year presentations.

For my part, I was happy the conversations jumped off of the standards and landed on emerging teaching practices with potential.


Resources we used for this professional learning:

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This is a professional blog associated with the Ed Tech Department of Aurora Public Schools. Comments and suggestions are welcomed and appreciated, but please keep in mind that this can be used in classrooms and viewed by anyone.