Learning from Week #1

I'd like to think room 408 has always been a welcoming, invigorating learning environment. But what transpired during our first four days of SDL opened my eyes to a whole new level of student ownership/engagement.

On day two (Wednesday), I planned to continue my introduction of how an SDL classroom would operate. (We hadn't yet discussed how they'd be graded!) But evidently the six words they latched onto from my day-one spiel were: "You will direct your own learning." They burst into the room announcing their projects and ideas. One wanted to prepare a journalism lesson for 5th-graders; two wanted to interview the new teacher; another wanted to work on making the classroom more "our own" by painting ceiling tiles. I hadn't realized how hungry students are to take control. Here I was at a fork in our road, barely 24-hours in. Would I praise their ideas but tell them to hold their horses until we had more guidelines in place? Or would I step aside? My response to their enthusiasm would say one of two things: 1) Wait. Let's do things my way, or 2) Let's roll! I went with #2, submerged my "teacher," and felt myself swept along (not in front of) their momentum.

By the end of the week (day 4) my students had begun calling themselves "the production team." They've designed t-shirts, held a press conference, conceptualized a mural for our wall, and written stories about jazz band, Pink-Out, the new teacher, and a big game between two schools with connection to ours. One student set up a blog, another is working out the logistics of writing an advice column (which involved teaching herself to make Google Forms). Two of my busy bees are producing "The Eye of the Needle" (a video re-cap of our news site--AHSneedle) and had already taped a mock-up by Friday.

I admit we are in the honeymoon phase. The pace of week one was breakneck. We're either going to crash and burn or rocket into the stratosphere. Here are my random notes:

1) Loved how L stepped up to help B with interviewing.
2) Loved how the Eye of the Needle team is including their classmates.
3) Concerned about how a couple ideas generated in one class period were dissed by others. I'm playing mediator.
4) I worry that my standards of quality work might be more picky than my students' standards. Whose do we use?
5) Of my 25 students, five or six will need help starting their engines. Must remember to bring jumper cables.
6) My primary content in this coming week will be interpersonal skills. Think I'll teach a few kids about "third point."
7) Each day I am posting suggestions of ideas/projects/tasks that they may want/need to tackle. No one has jumped at my suggestion to develop a system to keep others up to speed on our projects. I'll do this myself today.
8) Only one student (who carries a 4.0) has asked about grades.
9) My editors will have to step it up to keep pace with the SDL production team.

I'm eager to hear from others out there who are teaching in SDL or PBL classrooms. Give me your suggestions/reflections!