Would I Want to Do This?

"Would I want to do this?"

What if we approached lesson development for our classes with this simple question?  When I ask groups that I work with to come up with the conditions that make up their "learn best whens" for students, typically the participants come up with something that looks like this (this one is taken from a session in Texas earlier this year):

'Engaged' is a term that pops out of the page, as does 'interested', 'challenged', and 'supported'.  If we agree that students need to be engaged, it is not a stretch for us to believe that part of engaging students is creating activities that they actually WANT to do.

Many might scoff at this idea.  "There are always things in life that we have to do, whether we like them or not!" some would say, and I couldn't agree more--there will be lots of things in life that are less than pleasant for us to do.  But it's not a dichotomy, is it?

Wouldn't it be better if school had as many engaging things for students to do as we could possibly come up with?  Yes, it is unrealistic for us to believe that our students are going to want to do absolutely everything in school (some of the Grade 9 Science activities I assigned to students come to mind).  But so what? I believe that if we can turn more of those 'have to do's' into 'want to do's' in our classrooms, in our faculty meetings, and in our professional development days, schools are going to be better places to learn.

But how do we do it?

One of the things that I have had to come to grips with is the fact that I am not cool.  And as much as I hate to break it to you, to today's teenager, neither are you.  In fact, anyone beyond the age of 21 is considered 'old' (just ask them)!  So when we think something is "cool", sorry, we are usually wrong, and if you are still using the term "cool", you have clearly defined yourself as old.  But kids know what is cool to kids, so why not have them be a part of the conversation in lesson design?

I still think that the High Tech High tuning protocol is a useful tool that can be used/adapted to determining whether a project (lesson, staff meeting, Pro D session) is going to be compelling for a target audience.  But a key component of this protocol is to have representation from the target audience!  Having our students involved in determining what would be engaging with respect to their learning empowers them.  Having staff members and team leaders involved in faculty meeting design and PD days empowers teachers as learners.  Isn't that what we want?

I do, and I have to make sure that when I am designing a lesson or a meeting, I ask that simple question:

Would I want to do this?

If the answer is "probably not", why the heck would anyone else?