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In my technology class, students are creating video tutorials that explain how their teachers can use various technologies and platforms (currently we’re making tutorials for Google Apps). The videos are simple for students to make, and we use Snagit to create a video recording of the computer screen, so teachers can see exactly how to use a product with audio narration from the student.  Screencasts also allow for anytime, anyplace, any pace learning on any device, which is ideal for a teacher’s busy lifestyle?” These student-created videos are important for two key reasons:

Students also love having input on their education. Asking them to help train teachers on technology and platforms they like and use empowers them, and captures their interest, so that when class begins, students are already prepared and engaged. That’s why my class – and hopefully many schools around the country – is making use of the technology and experts that we already have on site to enhance the learning experiences for students and teachers.

all a teacher can do – is work with students to create a classroom culture, a climate, a curriculum that will nourish and sustain the fundamental inclinations that everyone starts out with:  to make sense of oneself and the world, to become increasingly competent at tasks that are regarded as consequential, to connect with (and express oneself to) other people. 

I once sat in on several classes taught by Keith Grove at Dover-Sherborn High School near Boston and noticed that such meetings were critical to his teaching; he had come to realize that the feeling of community (and active participation) they produced made whatever time remained for the explicit curriculum far more productive than devoting the whole period to talking at rows of silent kids.  Together the students decided whether to review the homework in small groups or as a whole class.  Together they decided when it made sense to schedule their next test.  (After all, what’s the point of assessment – to have students show you what they know when they’re ready to do so, or to play “gotcha”?)  Interestingly, Grove says that his classes are quite structured even though they’re unusually democratic, and he sees his job as being “in control of putting students in control.”