TED

TED: 

is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. These talks are easily accessible, short in length, and very informational. 

I had the opportunity to watch, Diana Laufenberg's How to learn? From mistakes

Diana started off her talk by explaining the difference between learners of the past and learners of today. Her grandparents and parents went to a single room school house. They had to go to the school to acquire that information from the teacher where as a result they would store it in their head, because technology was not as advanced at that time. When she was born, her parents bought a series of encyclopedias. These nifty resources made learning easier for Diana, because all the information she needed was in the house. Today, students have computers and don't need a reason to come to class-it is up to the teacher to make that mind set change.

Diana is an experienced teacher who has taught in Kansas, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.

1. Kansas--> 12th grade--> American Government
2. Diana created an authentic experience and had the students learn about the American Government for themselves
3. They were asked to put on an election forum their own community
4. As a result the students produced flyers, called offices, checked schedules, etc.
5. They even made an election forum booklet for the entire town this way they would have knowledge of all the candidates.
6. The students invited everyone from the town into the school for an evening to discuss politics.
7. All 90 students showed up dressed appropriately and acted out each appropriate part.
8. This project meant something to them, because they had to do all the work. It was their voice in the end.

• Arizona-->Middle School-->Geography
• Met the man who's life seen in Hotel Rwanda was based off of.
• The teacher had to come up with a way to talk about genocide in a respectful manner. 
• Diana helped the students see that he used his life to do something positive.
• The students task was to think of someone in their own world who has also done a positive thing.
• After the students chose their person, they were asked to make a movie and use their own voice as the voice over.
• Diana learned that when you ask kids to use their own voice and speak for themselves they share more.

1. Pennsylvania-->9-12-->public high school 
2. The school has a 1-1 laptop program--> the kids bring in their own laptop everyday
3. The teachers must understand, given the tool to acquire information to students. You have to be comfortable with the idea of allowing kids to fail as part of the learning process
4. Students were asked to make a response to the recent oil spill-- communicate ideas in a new way. Then come up with another man made disaster.
5. There are three parts of learning she wants her students to know. 1. to fail, 2. process what went wrong, and 3. learn from your mistakes
6. The students processed all of their ideas aloud and saw that the one with the most color and best design was actually not the best. The class continued to look at other projects and saw the ones with not as much color had better factual information on them.

"We deal right now in the educational landscape with an infatuation with the culture of one right answer that can be properly bubbled on the average multiple choice test. I am here to share with you, it is not learning.” (Diana Laufenberg)”

Here are three things you should strongly think about!

1. Learning must include failure because failure is instructional
2. Kids come to school for the information and they must decide what they are going to do with it.
3. School is about experiential learning, empowering your student's voices, and embracing failure

I learned quite a bit from this video. The first would be to let your students go out and find information on their own. It would be my job to give them a well written problem to figure out. The second thing I learned is to let children use their voice, and let them express themselves. Not only will I learn about them, but they will learn about everything they are capable of. The third thing I learned, was failing is a part of learning and it happens often. We are supposed to take failure and learn the best lessons from it.