Thoughts on Partnering in the Classroom. . . . .
Partnering, as explained by Marc Prensky is ". . letting students focus on the part of the learning process that they can do best, and letting teachers focus on the part of the learning process that they can do best." (Prensky, 2010 Teaching Digital Natives)
Is this possible in today's classroom? In my opinion - absolutely. Will it take a bit of a perspective shift and perhaps a bit more initial set-up work? Perhaps, but I bet it is not as much as you think. Partnering is not a new idea. It is a new term for older ideas, with a little bit of a spin. I would bet that most teachers do a lot of partnering without even knowing it and therefore putting it all together shouldn't be as overwhelming as it might seem.
My recipe for Partnering is below:
take an integrated classroom,
add a good sized amount of differentiated instruction,
a bunch of inquiry-based learning,
sprinkle in some real-life experience,
a dash of constructivism and
all the technology available.
Encourage discussion, collaboration, mistakes and do-overs.
Ta-da! You have now created a partnered classroom.
The hardest part about partnering, in my eyes, will be for teachers letting go of their idea that they are responsible for imparting all knowledge, and embracing the idea of students and teachers learning things together. This is not to say that the teacher is replaceable - far from it! They need to present the curriculum, and model the learning process, and sometimes that means trying things they aren't 100% confident about. Sometimes it will mean making mistakes and showing the class how to learn from those mistakes. Scary, for sure, but a vital piece of the educational process and one that cannot be done with out the teachers.
This also cannot be done without technology. We need to wake up and embrace the technology because it is not going anywhere, and the Millennials that we are teaching are only getting more and more immersed in it. Technology is much more than trying to incorporate the use the internet or trying to find a way to make a video game educational - it is about digital communication, expanding horizons and experiencing things that you couldn't afford/have time to do otherwise.
Start slowly, play with some things yourself, or if you are willing, be brave and ask the students to show you some ideas. You don't have to reinvent the wheel - take that lesson that you have where the students give an oral response to and put it on voicethread. This way they can use their cell phones and call in their presentation, or use their webcam to respond. I bet their engagement will go through the roof!
Check back in a little while for some other ideas and feel free to share you own!
