[Applause]
many teachers like myself we entered the
vocation of teaching because of our
passion for learning and because there
was a teacher previously the influences
those previous teachers were innovative
and creative about what they did they
went beyond a teacher centered classroom
and they made it come alive it made it
relevant and authentic for us they
understood that nobody’s inspired by a
30-minute lecture followed by a
worksheet to prepare you for a test so
inspired we go off to college we learn
as much as we can about teaching and
education when we finish we leave and we
in our own classrooms with a clean slate
of what we think teaching is and what it
should be then I look around at my
colleagues and I notice those slights
are no longer clean
they’ve been scribbled on by years of
experience and interactions
unfortunately what is now written on
those slates is not very promising that
pure authentic love for learning that
attracted them to teaching it no longer
exists we’ve industrialized education to
the point that we no longer provide our
students with relevant application and
authentic engagement we’re now schooling
instead of teaching and learning our
public education systems are so focused
on passing a standardized test and
teaching to that test that we’ve lost
sight of what it’s all about we’ve lost
sight of that pure unadulterated passion
for learning our schools have this
overwhelming emphasis on it but we need
to evolve our public education systems
that were once the model for the world
we’re now playing catch-up to all these
countries around the world our students
are no longer mastering these essential
skills they’re no longer developing
cultural literacy and even though we
have a research community that the world
envies our teachers sit in the classroom
and dismiss the research that’s put out
they call it impractical it’s detached
it’s not going to work it’s in theory
only but what I call for is an evolution
of our education system we’ve got to
evolve to meet the needs of our students
as our world becomes more interconnected
because of Technology because of our
economies because of immigration
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teachers don’t not only have a
professional obligation but a moral
obligation to prepare our students for
this global society we have to react to
what is going on around them and meet
their needs it makes me think about a
quote by Henry Brooks Adams a teacher
affects eternity he may not know how
far-reaching that influence is so with
that responsibility these teachers have
to take the next step in education to
take our pedagogical approach to the
next level we’ve got to prepare our
students to develop these skills and to
be inspired it’s not going to happen by
doing worksheets and tests overload so
imagine this you have chemistry students
and you’re teaching them about common
boiling points of liquids so I ask what
is the point
of water and my students are going to
give me the textbook answer of 100
degrees Celsius
to which I would probably respond not
necessarily true as we change in
elevation and we change in altitude that
atmospheric pressure is going to change
so the boiling point will be a little
different in various locations
previously your students had to trust
you that take your word for it
their to trust the words on a page but
now we can collaborate with people
around the world or they can actually
watch students in Germany they can watch
students in Brazil in Australia they can
watch them boil these liquids and they
can actually see that the boiling point
is different it makes it come alive it
makes it real for them so I did similar
collaborations like that I had my
students connect through Google Hangouts
and things like that where they did
boiling points to compare they did the
world moon project they went on observe
the patterns of them and they recorded
those observations they shared them with
students around the world
we had collaborations in Mexico City in
Rio de Janeiro we had one in Venezuela
in Germany in Australia India and China
so we’re recording these observations of
the moon the pattern and then the
students share them with each other so
they can look at these patterns from
different perspectives and then they can
discuss things about what are these
patterns tell me and then I had also
project-based learning that I’m
implemented my students work with
students in Germany to build a
rollercoaster so they could observe
motion and energy their work with
students in Mexico to build lunar land
rovers again to analyze
and things like that and then my
favorite I had a collaboration with
students in the Dominican where we
approach this project they stuff we
wanted to make it meaningful not only to
their local community but to a global
community so they started talking about
the big issues they have to talk about
culturally what is important and they
decided to test water purity it’s a big
issue not only in the Dominican but in
Mexico and around the world so they
discuss what kinds of things will affect
water purity then they have to decide
how do I test it and then they took it
one step further they designed their own
water purification system that was low
cost and 3d printed because I have three
3d printers in my classroom so they
design these water filters low cost and
we designed a whole bunch of them that
we mailed them off so that way the
students in Mexico mechanic in Dominican
had them so what I’m saying is we have
to make things real and authentic for
our students we want to take it to the
next level our education system has to
evolve so why project-based learning or
the research supports project-based
learning in 2012 there were two schools
in Britain one use traditional style
lecture the other huge project-based
learning and they implemented this for
three years and then they compared the
two schools the project-based learning
school in Britain outperform the
traditional school in all of their
standardized tests they had three times
as many students pass that test
similarly in my classroom I’m going to
I’ve been using this for three years I
started when I entered I a ph.d program
at Texas Tech so I’ve been doing this
for three years in my classroom as well
and when you compare my students to the
state average on past most our tests the
state average is 70% my students took
the physics vo see for the one year that
it was out and I had 100%
students pass our school has about 95%
of our students passed the state
standardized tests so when it compares
to the state our students are learning
the content better because it’s not just
rote memorization its application it’s
meaningful they internalize it and then
when you compare me to local colleagues
we all share benchmarks so that we can
learn from the data okay when you
compare my students benchmark grades
from the pretest to the post-test my
students have a significantly larger
increase in the correct answers that
they did on that post-test of my
students have outperformed my colleagues
by about 15 points so what I’m saying is
we need to prepare our students by
taking it to the next level we have to
go beyond that teacher centered learning
and we have to make it students enter
and we do that by engaging their
students and things that are relevant
and meaningful to them it will prepare
them by developing those essential
skills so that they can solve problems
that are about to be in their lives
they’re going to be the future they have
to solve the problems we want them to
develop skills like global awareness
cultural competencies problem-solving
skills communication teamwork and
they’re going to do that through these
types of collaborations when you bring
in outside perspectives so that way it’s
not just a cultural bubble that’s
isolated by people that are similar to
them thank [Applause]