This week we had a guest speaker, Sandy Wohl, from Genome British Columbia.  While his current role is in educational outreach, Sandy has been a public school teacher for over 40 years.  As he presented to us, it soon became readily apparent why he has been so successful and received so many awards.  He is very passionate about engaging his students, whether through his (sometimes questionable!) humour or by numerous other means, and it was inspiring to watch him talk about the places he has found the most success in his career.  I am very on board with his philosophical approach regarding the technical and highly visual world faced by students of today, and this was something I focused on in my practicum.  I like to find the most engaging media, pictures, webpages, etc. possible for my students to show them how awesome and exciting science can be, and from my formative assessments and student questionnaires, this was one of my most effective techniques in the eyes of my students.  They also seemed to really loved the use of technology in the classroom- I keep an overarching website where all my notes, videos, assignments and contact information can be found.  Twitter and blogging were additional mediums that I found useful to the connect with students, and I have been realizing more and more that as Sandy alluded, it is not about competing with student technology, i.e. we cannot say, "put away your phone and listen to me!" but rather realize that student interest in these devices and online platforms can be a tool with which we can reach them.  I have attended some of the Surrey innovators conferences, (which focus on using tech in the classroom) and though I think the proposed potential of some of their mandates may be a bit over-exaggerated, I fully agree that we as educators are responsible to learn how to communicate through these mediums.  If we cannot, the students will believe (and rightly so) that we are obsolete, with little to offer them in our rapidly changing world.

Another inspiring takeaway from Sandy's visit was his collection of excellent multi-modal student projects from his years of teaching K-12.  It really illustrated to me the effectiveness of given students choice in how they demonstrate their learning.  This was something that I was introduced to by Ross Powell, one of the FAs for the Imaginative Education module, in his discussion of differentiated instruction.  It took me a while to fully comprehend, but I can see now that this doesn't simply mean, "show what you learned in either a PowerPoint, poster, or an essay", but rather "here are the criteria for this assignment, you may express your growth in any way you are comfortable with, as long as you meet the criteria", then perhaps provide some suggestions.  One very impressive example of this from the innovators conferences was a student who did very little work in History class, but was obviously gifted.  When the teacher approached him about some way to show his learning and make up his grade, he replied that there was no point, because "what he wanted to do would take weeks past the class end date".  So the teacher humoured him and said, "well, if you finish whatever it is you have in mind and you hand it in, I will assess it".  And what the student came up with was a truly remarkable pop-up book covering all of World War 2!  So I think this type of assessment differentiation can be an excellent way to engage students because it allows them to learn and show their learning in the way that they desire most.  The only risk is that students will continually avoid the mediums that they are uncomfortable with, so it might be for the teacher to step in in these cases and provide additional structure.  But overall, I could a see a final portfolio containing student selected formats for assessment being a very powerful demonstrator of semester or year long growth.