Welcome to our blog

This is the story of two educators on one journey. Each day we will record our reflections on the process of being involved in an innovative educational environment. The decision on our part to leave the public education system was deliberate due to our growing frustrations over the factory "one size fits all" model of education. This model has dominated the educational landscape and is not designed to meet the needs of the 21st century learner. Step one in our journey was to find a place that would allow us the freedom to break out of the system. We needed a chance to just breath and facilitate learning in the ways that we both know are best for children. That step has led us to Rosemary Beach Florida to work with the students attending the OH Institute. The OH Institute is a unique educational environment that we find humane. The curriculum focus is on the individual learner with an infusion of technology project based learning. Currently, it has 20 students in grades 4-11 all of whom are seeking something different than what the factory system of education has to offer. This is where our adventure begins...

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Thursday October 14th

Thursday October 14

Randy

Morning - I helped with the fundraising meeting this morning and facilitated their efforts to improve on our mission statement for Costa Rica. I also spent some time helping Nathan prep for his formal presentation. His presentation was just fine for a first go at it and we took some time debriefing his experience. He still feels insecure and a bit nervous about public presentations which is a typical feeling for a 9th grader.

Block One - A great inquiry day in elementary. They took some cotton samples that were brought in by Hanna and made a company called the "Choo Choo Cotton Factory". They practiced making thread, deseeding the cotton and cleaning the product. Tomorrow we will look at how cotton gins changed American and World history and how textile factories work.

Block Two - Worked PBL with middle school mostly with a focus on helping Olivia get moving on her second project. Her topic is broad about Jamestown, but we were able to get a directions and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The Red Panda group has a script now for their PBL and Alyssa and Hannah were able to get moving on their Costa Rica projects. We may have to contact symbaloo tomorrow to get some extra help.

After Tennis, I spent some quality time with HS on PBL and we were able to identify a couple of road blocks and who needs to do what with their project. Connor, Kylie and Hunter have shared me on a google document that will be done over the weekend on their civil war project. Mackenzie is still about perplexed on an essential question around the roaring 20s. Alex is looking at how to match her standards to her trip to Seatle. Nathan is taking an ambitions attempt at looking at the history of bombs.

You can see that there is much going on here as it should be.

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