C

C is for Connecting

The school experience is all based on connections; connections between peers, between older and younger students, between teachers, between students and teachers and even between other students and educators across the world via social media. However the most important connection is between the students and their learning. The best classrooms have genuine interactions with learning and help students find relevancy in what they do at school and what is going on in their lives or worlds beyond the classroom walls.
This is an idea stressed across the grades and subject areas. Debbie Miller highlights this in her book Reading with Meaning that focuses on classroom literacy and we know that the foundation to classroom management is engaged students who find purpose in their learning and who feel somehow connected in the school. Personally I can recall a few teachers I had who took a progressivist approach to teaching and centered learning around our topics of interest or passion and it made school a much better experience. As a teacher, I'm really interested in looking at taking inquiry based approaches to student learning and observing the way that it can empower students while they learn the curriculum materials. This also applies relates to classroom technology because of the tools and sources now available to students as well as the ability to connect with people all over the world who have the same knowledge or interest base that they do. By utilizing technology in the inquiry process, students can learn how to properly research and have access to such a wide range of information and a variety of means to share that information.