Week 7 - Post 1 - Brian Crosby

            Brian Crosby teaches fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students at Agnes Risley Elementary School. His presentation entitled Back to the Future was very inspiring. It is powerful to see an elementary school teacher who is extremely passionate about his work and who makes changes to his teaching based on student needs. Crosby discovered a huge disconnect of some basic information for his students. Many of his students did not know their addresses and phone numbers or the city, state, and country where they live. Crosby realized that students weren’t connecting this and other information to their mental schemas. He developed a classroom based on active learning which empowers students to become learners. His lessons allow students to connect to the world and collaborate with each other as well as with different communities.

            Every student in Crosby’s class has a computer and a blog. The class has a wiki page and a Flickr account. After interactive lessons on air pressure, students embedded videos that they made of the demonstration and posted reflections on their blog. This led to creative writing in which students wrote stories from a balloon’s perspective, using facts they learned in their science lesson. Students felt motivated and published by posts to their blogs from other students all over the world. A project in which students set goals or high hopes for their school, community, and the world, led to a larger network as students from other places started posting their high hopes. By blogging and skyping students in Crosby’s class discovered their place in the world and learned about world events through other students’ comments. Crosby’s students taught the air pressure lesson by skyping with a classroom in New Zealand. This allowed them to review what they had learned, practice speaking skills, and develop confidence. What a better way to develop a frame of reference!

            Crosby shared several very inspiring insights. He said that we can’t keep racing kids through school and that we need to build schools that honor all kids. Crosby’s teaching style is called project-based learning also known as challenge-based learning or passion-based learning. Project-based learning takes a lot of time, planning, and passion. However, it leads to memorable learning experiences that create active learners. Crosby notes that this type of learning should be available to all students everywhere, not just reserved for gifted and talented classrooms. I will definitely be adding Brian Crosby’s blog, Learning is Messy, to my Diigo account!