Geo

People often ask me what I love most about teaching. Most days, "the students" is my answer. Then some days I love how there is the flexibility to "live in the moment"; like those first few great days of spring where the sunshine and warmer temperatures are calling you, you can move your learning outside for a moment or two. Other days, it is the "magic" that happens in a classroom, where as a teacher you start the lesson, know where it is going, and then the lesson flips, and you are a member of the class, and the learning is going beyond what you could have imagined, and you are in the momentum of student-led learning. That happened today.

Today, Ms. Leom introduced the first of many Latin and Greek word parts for vocabulary development. The word part was geo, meaning earth, soil, or land. There is a visual shape, in this case a globe. There are six words related to geo, and students cut out the image, cut flaps, and begin to write the definitions. Technology allows the learning on the board to be shared to each iPad on Google classroom, so students can expand the image and move it for easier recording.

As students are working, Ms. Leom is monitoring student discussions and questions, and she realizes they need more support. With the smaller space, she wants them to only record the definitions, not the examples in sentences. She added highlighter on the definitions on the board. It still wasn't enough. So she was able to further modify, according to the class's needs. She highlighted clearly (more darkly, and alternated colors so they would be easier to track) on the board, then updated the change on Google Classroom, inviting students to "refresh" their screens for the change.

As students finished, they were invited to look for books on Epic (an ebook library we access on our iPads) for "geography" related books to read more. By students selecting books, they can have a choice and read about what interests them. The magic happened when students started noticing other "geo" words. They started taking a lead on researching the definitions and adding it to our class discussion and learning. The enthusiasm to search for new "geo" words took over, and someone wondered what the dictionary might show ... then someone looked in the dictionary ... unscripted, unplanned, and Ms. Leom learned new words too.

when five different students take over the white board and class learning

We have just started our climb on Mount Wordmore, and already it is MORE magical than the plans!

We are still discussing the terms, "Georgia" and "George" ... are these part of geo word parts? Some of our best learning doesn't have immediate answers ... and sometimes we learn more when we find out something doesn't fit.

Good thing we encourage students to talk in class, because we would have missed out if there was only one voice!