UEN Homeroom: KnowledgeWorks

Daily Resource / December 8th, 2022

There are conversations that I have as a podcast interviewer that I wish could go on forever. Speaking to them for hours and hours just sounds like a delightful way to spend the day. Often it is because the interview sits in this great sweet spot of my own personal interest in the subject and the interviewees are so knowledgeable and engaged in their own work that their passion just shines. Dani and my interview with KnowledgeWorks experts Virgel and Lillian was one of these interviews.

The general space of personalized learning is just such a sweet spot for me. I remember being in college hoping that the professor would say that we could choose our own subjects for our term papers. Alas it was not so; we had to write about the Vietnam War, which is a fantastic subject to learn about and teach, but I wanted to discover my own topic in that class. I wanted to explore the roots of specific questions I have had/have about the topics I can to college to study. Sadly it was not to be. When I discovered to my shock five years later that I had a writing class of my own, I let students have the freedom that I so desperately wanted in my own studies. My students flourished. They discovered topics and reasons to learn beyond my classroom, some even found their majors in my classroom and went on to have incredible careers. Personalizing learning allows for this type of choice and voice in learning earlier and in a deliberate way for both learner and educator.

Our conversation with Lillian and Virgel helped me to see the future of PCBL in schools both locally and nationally. Check it out and see how choice and voice in student learning could radically change your classroom.