ASCD Empower 18 Day 3

In addition to Starr, on Day 3 I saw a few other great sessions.

My morning session was by far the most engaging and hands on session yet. We talked about the "Question Formulation Technique" (QFT). They have all of their resources on a website for free (as long as you sign up): http://rightquestion.org/education/.

For me, the most rewarding part of the session was the opportunity to participate in the process. They gave us a prompt and treated us as students as we experienced the QFT. It was so much fun to have an opportunity to brainstorm with adults and it was enlightening to see how empowered you feel by simply asking questions without judgement! The energy in the room was wonderful. At the end of the process my group reflected and we laughed because we felt SO accomplished but we had not actually solved the problem that was posed to us in the prompt! I can't wait to try this with my class.

Schools need renovations. Not a new coat of paint. (Tomlinson)

In the afternoon I attended a session by the famous Carol Ann Tomlinson. What an inspiration she is! She talked about the difference between Differentiation and Personalization. The main take-away was that Personalization requires some really deep thinking. Creating an educational system that is personalized is a lot of work and may not even be possible in some schools. The question is NOT differentiation vs. personalization. The question is: Who do we aspire to be as a people? How do we create the kind of school that will shepherd teachers and their students to that place? Once we answer these philosophical questions we can decide what aspects of personalization we need and then how differentiation can help us get there.