A month gone by...and learning is hard!

It’s been a month into our school year and we have learned so much already about flexible learning spaces, but we still have so much learning to do.   The biggest discovery is how much our curriculum must change now that we have the furniture and the ability to move flexibly throughout a space.  Over the summer, we spent a great deal of time in different professional growth classes.  One favorite is using HyperDocs within our classroom.  If you aren’t familiar, HyperDoc is a term used to describe a Google Doc that contains an innovative lesson and the interactive resources needed to learn; consider it an interactive worksheet for our modern learners.  This method and term was coined by teachers Sarah Landis and Lisa Highfill.  Students are presented with their target learning objective and are provided with all the necessary learning resources: videos, websites, discussion questions, and/or graphic organizers.  Checkpoints and formative assessments are embedded throughout so we, as teachers, are able to monitor their progress and check in on their understanding. At the completion of our first doc, we were shocked at how well they understood the material and how well they worked cooperatively and learned as self-guided learners.  

Another highlight of this space is our ability to react to the instant needs of our learners.  As teachers, we are all aware of the facial expressions of our students, we know when we are losing our audience and when we need to shift our teaching.  We really love the ability to instantly get all students out of their chairs and into another location.  Depending on the needs of the students, we will have them turn and share a thought/question with a peer, or find a space on the wall to record any learning or questions.  What used to be a teacher led lesson, can instantly change depending on their needs.  We must admit that these rapid changes are a bonus when co-teaching!  We find that the second teacher is often able to really observe the faces of the students and is able to brainstorm on the fly.  Either way, both teachers are required to flex in their thinking and change quickly, but we find this to be fun.

We have included some screenshots from our recent HyperDoc as well as some other pictures from our spaces.