High School Creative Learning Environment

Mr. Rodal decided that over Christmas break he was going to remove 19 desks.  Not all the desks, just some of them.  Group, collaborative work happens every day in his classroom.  The desks were taking up a great deal of space and required constant arranging and rearranging.

He fixed this.

He removed 19 desks from his classroom.

We are documenting his classroom experiences with candid responses from both students and teachers.  Let's hear from the teacher, first!

Video Link


Impact On Students:
Creativity:  Students are able to create their own learning spaces.  They are not confined to a desk.  They must also decide how to utilize the large white boards that are now in the room.
Collaboration: Removing INDIVIDUAL desks has eliminated INDIVIDUAL borders.  Gathering in learning groups is efficient.

More to follow...

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iDevices, Google Drive, and Over App To Document Successes

Mr. Fullerton, our middle school principal, and Mr. Krause, our middle school assistant principle, created an opportunity for staff to use two and one half hours of a professional development day to allow staff to create their own learning environment.  Staff were able to choose their own area to think, question, collaborate, and create.  Some staff chose our own school forest and made bacon over an open fire, some chose a local coffee shop, while others chose a comfortable couch in our school.

To document these great areas of learning, Mr. Fullerton and Mr. Krause asked staff to send in a picture via email or text of their learning environment and who they were with.  After receiving the pictures a place to house the photos was needed.  Before doing this, the Over App was used to include messages that were sent with the picture.  The Over App allows for text to be placed on a picture.  A Google Drive folder could be accessed by both men so they could simultaneously upload pictures to the same digital area.  To share the folder, the two gentlemen placed the link on their Google Docs agenda.  This work flow provides digital documentation of successes from the original agenda.

I am extremely proud of our middle school administration team as they are utilizing the technology to enhance their learning environment.  As they become familiar with the technology, they can offer innovative technology solutions for our teachers!

View Their Story!

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