I’m always up for a conversation. So long as it’s with someone else (and sometimes even with myself), a good conversation leads to me learning more.
And I really like learning.
Standing up to start my section of the keynote for the Ohio School Facilities Commission’s 21st Century School Design Symposium 2.0 today, I presented the audience with a slide devoid of title or name.
It read simply:
What do you want to know?
In the next line, I invited audience members to text their questions to the phone number on the screen or send a message to my twitter account.
The original plan was to follow the questions up later in the presentation and open my Google Voice account. Call it keynote formative assessment.
Due to some login issues, I wasn’t able to access my account while I was still on stage.
That was for the better.
Once I returned to my seat, I opened Google Voice and found several questions waiting.
“How do you run professional development to prepare SLA teachers for project-based teaching?”
“What do you use to clean your dry erase tables?”
“Any how-to tips for working with an odd BOE?”
In my 30 minutes, I hadn’t the time to speak directly and in a detailed way to the concerns each of the questions raised. If I’d attempted to do so, I would have missed the mark of what I was asked to speak about.
Still, each question shows at least the basics of curiosity surrounding the ideas that had been presented.
The texters were inquiring.
Any question worth asking is worth answering.
The same thing happens in my classroom. In fact, I’d wager the same thing happens in every classroom. Class discussion begins or the teacher asks what questions the students have, and the few noble souls pipe up.
Most of the time, it’s the same people. On particularly excellent days, other voices enter the mix.
Today, Google Voice helped me collect some of the voices and questions that would have gone unheard and unasked in class conversation. It was the tool for today, but it isn’t the only tool.
From time to time, when having a full class conversation around a text, I explain that my goal is to hear from all voices in the classroom. I explain the value I place on a plurality of ideas and that I’m genuinely curious as to what each student has to say.
When I asked today’s audience to share what they wanted to know, I was also genuinely curious.
In class conversations, I’ll often require students who don’t speak up in the physical spaces to share their thoughts (either a new idea or a reaction to a peer) on the class discussion board on MOODLE.
Those message board strands bear out some deeply thoughtful conversation.
That conversation is epically helpful to me as I attempt to understand each of the students in my charge and how they view the world.
Sometimes, I’ll jump in on the discussion board conversations. Other times, I’ll send a private e-mail in response.
Today, I sent a response to each text message I received. I might never hear from any of them again. I get that.
Still, when we’re banning and working to verbally diminish the power of new conduits of conversation in education, maybe it will serve as a reminder of the tools we have to draw more students of all kinds into the fray.