Dr. Tim Tyson shares the importance of schools not accepting the idea of “this is the way it is always been”. The world is changing and so should schools. Students need authentic learning experiences to get them excited about learning. Dr. Tyson asks us to think about questions such as:
What if students really wanted to learn?
What if they wanted to create content?
What if they wanted to connect with people to share?
So, how can we make learning irresistible, so irresistible that students want to do it, all the time?
At what age does meaningfulness start?
Ask our students what do you have to say that is so important that everyone in the world needs to hear it?
For more information on student projects, visit Maybryonline.org
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5 comments:
When Dr. Tyson started sharing his stories, I was immediately impressed with his authenticity. I love stories! And his had a purpose...His vision for what school can be was consistent with mine. It was very inspiring to see his students' movies. What I'm left wondering is... why limit the movies to a two minutes? Yes, I understand the critical thinking involved in making hard choices, but what about a more indepth look at the issues? I'm also wondering where writing and math enter in? Do they? These questions will drive me to look at more of the videos on iTunes. Great way to start the day!!!
Dr. Tyson's mantra, Think tnereffid is so critically important for 21st century education. Some school districts are woefully unprepared to teach students for 'jobs that don't exist' which is critical to our making them prepared for the global world. His talk was insightful and inspiring and I feel lucky to have heard him speak.
I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Tyson after his breakout session. I asked him about what the atmosphere is like at Mabry Middle School. He said the level of energy in the school is palpable when you walk through the hallways and that students would bound out of classrooms to show him projects were doing on their laptops. I also wondered how he feels about leaving the school environment, since he retired last year. He said that it's hard to be somewhat disconnected from the school environment, and he misses it, but really wanted to be able to share Mabry Middle School's story with audiences like ours at the TIE Conference. I found Dr. Tyson's stories about Mabry exciting. The level of authentic engagement the students show is inspiring. I think this student engagement is directly related to the fact that they tackle such challenging and relevant topics for their projects, such as embryonic stem cell research, malaria in Africa, and the commercialization of pure drinking water. Another key is that Mabry celebrates the best work in a public and fun way with an "Oscars" ceremony at the end of five months of research and then development of short, two-minute films by students.
Dr. Tyson uses a slide in his show that says "Think Different" which is something that he really stresses. This is grammatically incorrect. It should be "Think Differently" as the second word is an adverb modifying a verb. I fear as we move along in the age of technology our literacy is slipping away from us. How many thousands of educators have seen this slide? And yet apparently not one has pointed this out to Dr. Tyson.
Hi Anonymous,
Yes, I do use the adjective on the slide instead of the adverb. I do so deliberately and knowing the difference. I've given that presentation hundreds of times, and to my knowledge, you are the first to ever comment on this fact. Maybe others miss it or get the point, I'm not sure. I would like to think they get the point.
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