EduCon 2018

We are classroom teachers, librarians, learning specialists, and teaching coaches, and we’re constantly frustrated by the pre-portioned TV-Dinner approach to scheduling and curriculum. Asserting that the 45 minute period doesn’t help students is nothing new, but it persists as the primary tool schools use to achieve equity for diverse subjects. Our claim is that longer, less structured periods of cross disciplinary learning and exploration are not only better for student learning and engagement, but they have tangible and observable benefits for all subjects and classes. This is not just that students learn more from these open-ended projects, but that when given the opportunity for this sort of learning they learn and perform better in traditional classes as well. This conversation will present evidence and anecdotes from our broad experience and from other Educon participants. Materials and stories will be collected and shared on our blogs and via #NoZeroSum. Our session building a repertoire of repeatable experiments and best practices. If this assertion is correct, that students with access to open learning environments also perform better on traditional modes of assessment, then a compiled source of examples and information will help teachers everywhere make changes in their own environments.