What is My Perspective?

Turn on any news broadcast, open any major newspaper, and you will find some commentary about how American Education does not produce a critical-thinking, innovative, and independent workforce. Those in education – from Pre-K to 16 – jump on the easy to blame bandwagon: state testing and an unrealistic culture of accountability and return on investment. The thing is – testing and governmental interference is an oversimplification of a highly complex problem. Experts in just about every discipline can offer possible “reasons” for why our students are graduating under prepared. But it really doesn’t matter how many “reasons” exist when we are ultimately responsible for one end result: finding solutions. 
           
It does not matter how much we want to blame state testing, a deconstruction of community, unrealistic expectations, and politicians. The problem still exists. And, if we do not stop focusing on who or what is the cause of this situation and start to find solutions, education will fall even further behind. We need to take action and provide our country with a dynamic workforce that is equally articulate and engaged in their profession. And, educators need to stop assuming that students automatically “get” the engaged part of a career. Instead, we need to model a dynamic classroom environment that asks students to engage and contribute to their own learning.

Let’s face it. No faculty member, no matter how talented, can “learn” a student. Students must learn on their own. No magic switch goes off in an 18 year old’s brain the moment they graduate from High School. The symbolic moving of the tassel from the left to the right does not signify an instantaneous maturity and wisdom. Those tassels are not light switches. Or, if they are, the light bulb is not screwed in tightly. I guess this means tightening that bulb is our job. 
           
We will never be able to tighten that 100 watt LED bulb with our traditional approaches to teaching – lecture, midterm exam, lecture, paper/ project, lecture, final exam. It is not enough for us to tell students to bend and learn the way we want to teach. Instead, we must reinvent ourselves and meet our students’ half-way. The best part? Through this reinvention we can find new life in our classrooms.

Come and explore the philosophy of Active Learning and where it’s roots began. 

Find out how Active Learning:
  • Inspires faculty to use a series of intentionally planned activities to provide continuous feedback to students on their cognitive development and problem-solving skills.
  • Experience 12 hours of carefully scripted Active Learning protocols to explore Active Learning
  • Begin to understand how to develop your own classroom based upon your personal vision of Active Learning. 

At the end of the training, participants will be able to…
  • understand the underlying principles of Active Learning;
  • discuss quantitative data and success stories associated with Active Learning;
  • examine how Active Learning aids student development of skills for a 21st century workforce;
  • design content specific active learning strategies to meet the cognitive learning structure of bloom’s taxonomy
Who Should Attend:
  • Faculty
  • Academic Leadership
  • Instructional Coaches
  • Professional Development faculty/staff