Monday, February 29, 2016

"The low-cost, high impact way to change education "


In the video above, a teacher named Michelle Blanchet talks on TEDxLausanne regarding how to highly impact education in a low cost way. She mentions several key components of education and uses a puzzle as an analogy. These key components are policy, business, skills framework, learning spaces, assessments, curriculum, and teacher training. In this video, she focuses on teachers because improving their efficiency is  low cost.

One thing I really liked about her message was her emphasis on creativity. She shared one of her experiences at a teacher workshop where another teacher was speaking about how to be more creative. However, the presentation was not creative per se because it was a straight lecture using a PowerPoint presentation. What her belief  is teachers should be creative in teaching so their students can also be creative while learning.

I personally feel that over the last two years my school has also moved in the direction of creativity which Ms. Blanchet is an advocate for. English presentations are no longer prepared with a PowerPoint slide show and reading off of it. Instead, teachers must keep  the classrooms attention with interesting activities. (The more original the better!) Also in history, new ideas which incorporate technology are integrated into the classroom. For example, online forum discussions, such as a class on Google Groups regarding political matters, or studying for a test as a class with the use of Kahoot!

Ms. Blanchet's point regarding the need for more creativity in the classroom improves teachers efficiency and is a direction where all school districts around the nation should be moving towards. This is a low cost method and at the same time has a very high impact.

Happy leap day and thanks for reading this four year exclusive post on February 29th!!!

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