OWL facilitator Chris spent two incredible days at Green Tech High School in Albany, NY! Read his recap below ?
I am writing this blog entry exactly one week after my visit to Green Tech High in Albany, New York and I am still riding the energy train generated by this amazing team! Not only did the teachers attend the OWL I workshop—the administrators did too! With this kind of support I knew this was a special place.
This brave staff started each day early and came with the most awesome questions, it was as if they could read my mind. We started our two-day experience with the most-content rich spectrum activity I have ever conducted. We discussed how we could use these types of experiences to connect with our students and provide relevant and authentic learning experiences from activities like this all year long. With both teachers accepting positions at the start of second semester, incorporating ways to connect with students was essential. A memorable experience from the first day was walking into a novice Japanese level from break. They handled the whole experience like pros!
On the second day we dug deeper into the OWL methodology and part two of the Japanese lesson. We explored proficiency-based versus traditional assessment types. The student demo really hit it home for this team. They were able to see students engaged and learning at the same time. The students were willing to stay after their lesson and provided some valuable feedback to the Green Tech team. This team was so eager they were ready to jump in with both feet the next day of class! We ended our time together exploring ways to implement OWL in the classroom in the days and weeks to come. Green Tech High rocked it!