When was the last time you attended a teacher conference where hops kept you hopping through an energizing breakout session?
Let me think…
Oh yeah. That would be NEVER!
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend the Oppi Festival in Helsinki, Finland. This was only the second time that this event had been held and they mareted it as not your ordinary teacher conference. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones where we learn about:
- “New” ways to teach from people who haven’t done it in the last decade, if at all;
- “Innovative” instructional techniques that ultimately lead to grades that indicate that a student sat in class X for a designated timeframe, whether they needed to or not;
- “Creative” structures to rethink how we spend our time in order to try and make an industrial-model system work in a knowledge-based world.
Unlike other teacher conferences, Oppi delivered on their promise!
Beer
I am an adult and I am tired of being treated like a child when it comes to my professional learning.
From professional development like this, where teachers were made to parrot back the exact words of the presenter, to conferences where we “earn” stickers to verify our attendance; the practice of treating teachers like children is pervasive. We are the largest college-educated profession in this country, yet we are treated as though we are not smart or capable enough to make decisions about our own learning, how to assess student learning, or how to manage our conduct at a professional event.
So when I read that I could; no I was welcome, to bring a beer to my session, I knew that Oppi was different. Suddenly, I was recognized as an adult.
You see, it’s not really about the beer. It’s about trusting me to be a professional who can make good choices for my students, my profession, and myself.
Badges
Remember those badges that you earned in scouts? To earn them you had to learn how to do something and then demonstrate that skill in action
What if students and teachers could identify what they want or need to learn, seek out learning opportunities, and then prove that they learned it when they were ready? And what if a digital badge that was encoded with what you learned and the way that you showed proficiency could be used to signify that accomplishment?
I realize that some of you who are reading this already know of this emerging field, but there are many who do not.
Historically, students (and teachers) have been made to sit in a class for a set period of time, regardless of how long it took to master the skills. This time-based system does little to acknowledge and adjust for the fact that everybody learns at different paces and reaches mastery at different times. Badging is one approach to personalizing learning that allows for individuals to show mastery in a particular area or skill.
I never quite grasped the badging movement until I attended sessions at Oppi. Interestingly enough, there seemed to be a sense of, “Of course this is the future of learning!” about badging and all of the other forward-thinking approaches at Oppi.
A Brighter Future
While there were many experiences at Oppi that were significantly different from a US education conference, none was more striking than the pervasive sense of optimism about creating a brighter future for ALL students around the world.
Teachers were there to design the future, and were supported and encouraged to do so.
From learning how joy is connected to learning, to how to create and award badges, to designing a school, teachers at Oppi were empowered to dream big and design the future of education in classrooms, schools, and countries around the world. There was a feeling that teachers were trusted professionals who could and should play a leading role in the future of education. And there was no sense of “Us” vs. “Them.” Everyone saw himself or herself as in this process together.
In the end, I found that drinking beer and creating badges helped me believe in the possibilities for a brighter future for ALL of “our” kids!
