Examples of Empowerment

My friend, A.J. Juliani, with the help of other educators, has published a great blog post detailing many examples of empowering students. I'm pretty sure that everyone can find one important piece that will help them become a better teacher.

I contributed one of my favorite Renaissance lessons to the list as well if you want to check it out.

Sharing and helping equals learning. I learn the most by seeing the process of what others have went through. I then take things that I think are relevant to my class, subject, and students and then put them in place into my teaching. I really enjoy tweaking and making lessons better to meet the needs of my students. I have found that the teacher community is one of great sharing and A.J.'s post about the examples is something that can help many teachers (and students) in the classroom.

I can remember early on in my teaching career, that I made teaching more about me. Not as someone who needs a pedestal, but as more of the work side of things. I had to do this. I had to do that. I had to prepare this. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. That's a lot of eyes on me. :) I thought it was more about what I was doing and not what students were doing. Over the years, I have seen the value of empowering students. I now offer more choice. A lot of the time, I'll put this phrase into a project: "Do you have any better ideas for this ______?" My favorite thing to do is then share their idea of amazingness with the class. Usually when that happens, another student will have a better idea that stems from it. It's a nice little spark of creativity.

Be sure to check out A.J.'s post and then check out A.J's and John Spencer's new book, Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning.