Last weekend I spent my time doing something that I find myself doing more and more often as my teaching years progress. It wasn’t grading, nor planning, nor wishing I wasn’t grading nor planning. I was attending a one-of-a-kind professional development experience called #CUEBOLD. And it both rocked my world and blew my mind.
Cue BOLD stand for Blended Online Lesson Design, but what it is all about is blowing up and smashing through and the rote way teachers have been doing things for years. It is three parts of great that equal an awesome experience, and I cannot wait to go back and bring as many of my colleagues as I can.
Part one of this #CUEBOLD triple threat is all about lesson design. It is taking those sad and tired worksheets, boring vocabulary, and mind-numbing quizzes and transforming them into engaging and authentic content that students want to do. There were many sessions on specific topics, like vocabulary, poetry, math and even book reports, that brought your old lesson plans and supercharged them with some of Madeline Hunter’s lesson design model. The goal was to blend the best of what works with students and learning and what is engaging for them as well. It was all about shifting that pedagogy and empowering students to take the reins to their learning. It was about flipping that classroom model, and having students learn through solving real-world problems, rather than trying to shove information at them with no context nor purpose but to regurgitate it sometime later. I went to a lovely session by Laura Spencer on design thinking, and how I could bring that model into the classroom. I also learned about EduProtocols, and how to effectively build capacity in my students through the use of these engaging and fun strategies. I got to see a lesson builder panel, where experts were on stage doing some live-planning and redesigning of lessons on the fly, using the EduProtocols, design thinking and some great lesson design. The presenters weren’t just talking the talk, they were actively walking (and running) showing all how it can be done. It was really inspiring to see.
Part two was another eye-opening experience, the #CUEBOLD Classroom strand. This strand was all about changing the learning environment to fit the needs of the lesson and the learner. Rebecca Hare and Bill Selak worked on transforming two classrooms at Laguna Beach High School to really make the space work for learning and not making the students learn despite the space. Rebecca got to work with a Special Education teacher, Michelle Foster, to make the space work for both small and big group instruction. Niches were carved out of the existing space using furniture and flexible seating. The room could quickly go from 5-6 small groups working independently to whole-group style direct instruction, to almost theatre like seating for presentations. On day one, much of the concept behind the room’s changes and science behind the learning was covered. Specific pieces of furniture and room placement was explained in detail and it was an impressive presentation.
BOLD classroom redesign by Rebecca Hare #CUEBOLD #theta360 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA
While the furniture they used was drool-worthy, it was more about leveraging existing resources and working with what we already have to change the feel and function of our rooms. She used much of the tenets from her book “The Space” (which I highly recommend and you should definitely pick up). Every time I had a break or fee moment I gravitated back toward her that room and just went in to relax, work, or just hang with colleagues. It was an inviting space I know the students will love being in, and even more, they will love learning in it as well. On day two, we were run though activities that utilized the room to its maximum potential. We were fast switching between lecture, independent work, and small group sharing. We did a gallery walk and went through a TAG protocol while looking at work. Then we were back to instruction and some independent work with minimal fuss and no loos of productivity time (and I had tons of fun drawing and learning about creativity).
Bill helped Cassandra Booker transform her science classroom. He was able to take a space that was just “cemetery seating” and turn it into a functional and interesting space for learning and teaching. They placed 10 screens in the room that can be linked to present as one or used individually to foster small group collaboration and presentations. Within moments you could go from presenting a lesson to small group instruction to mini presenting on various topics. In fact on day two, we did some speed geeking, which was an edcamp-style collaborative learning session.
There were 12 presentations in 40 minutes on three screens. Even with so many people talking and presenting at once, we were able to hear each other and learn some great things from some of the participants (thanks for the comic slides Jaime!). It really showed the potential of what you could do in a room with that many screens. Of course not everyone has the $50k budget to spend on a room, and Bill and ### went over some shoestring-budget alternatives that you can implement with little to no out of pocket cost. Once again, it was about the pedagogy and use of space, not the stuff in the space.
The last piece of #CUEBOLD was the great classroom simulators from some vendors, and how to really bring engagement into the classroom. They had Classcraft there, a MMO-style class game where students really gamify their learning and compete as a class to go on adventures, have epic battles, and get some sweet loot, all while engaging them in their work and keeping them interested and accountable for learning. They also brought in Alludo, which is a great gamification platform for PD. We spoke to Julia Francis from Alludo in episode 61, and we love their product. They have been gamifying cue events for a few years, and I can’t help but want to play and win. It really amps up the PD experience and brings out my competitive spirit. There were also presentations by Wevideo, Otus, and Track Technology systems.
I came home after day 1 with my head on fire with ideas on how to change my spaces and make learning the main focus in all I teach. I was so mentally exhausted after day one that I came home and slept the night through. Day two left me even more excited, especially after experiencing the new classrooms in use. I came home on a creative high and couldn’t stop telling my wife, who is also a teacher, about the awesome experiences and new learning that I did all weekend. It is something that I feel every educator should do at least once, going to a PD that fundamentally changes the way they view a big part of their profession. Even today at work, I couldn’t stop from trying to express the profound sense of epiphany I felt at #CUEBOLD. Thanks to the #CUEBOLD faculty I sat in sessions with: Ann Kozma, David Platt, Melissa Hero, Lisha Brunache, Ed Campos, Alice Chen, Martin Cisneros, Ben Cogswell, Rebecca Hare, Bill Selak, Michelle Ho, Steve McGruff, Cori Orlando, Danielle Rojo, Jeremiah Ruesh, Laura Spencer, and Valerie Sun. A;so big props to the CUE crew that put this shindig on, Jon Corippo, Cate Tolani and Lindsey Blass. Keep knocking them outta the park guys! I will definitely be back for #CUECOLD2019
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