Have you seen Office Space? Peter loses all motivation for his job. When two consultants, “The Bobs” are hired to cut out the fat in the company, Peter is miraculously cheered for his ‘don’t care’ attitude. It is clear that he has no passion for his job, and the Bobs are oblivious—they think they can fix him with incentives. Peter admits to arriving late, spacing out while at his desk, and hating his eight bosses.
Do you have a couple of Peters in class?
LUASANNE LAPTOP INSTITUTE
At the Luasanne Laptop Institute, I attended a session by Patrick Woessner titled, “Fostering Digital Literacy through Passion-Based Learning.” He showed us this Office Space clip, and it brought it home for all of us that passion is ‘motivation in action.’ He asked what we were passionate about. One said reading. One said card-making. Another mentioned cycling. Mr. Woessner’s goal: find the passion of his students, and put it in action!
HIS STORY
Mr. Woessner was charged with making all of his 7th graders ‘digitally literate’ in eleven fourty-five minute face-to-faces. Feeling unsure of how to do this, he sketched out a plan with a set of essential questions, student objectives, and outcomes. Knowing that ‘passion is everything,’ he framed his essential questions:
+ How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and a learner?
+ How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?
If he let student passions drive their work, he knew he could be more successful than if he pounded home a specific set of technology skills in such a short time.
Another challenge for Mr. Woessner was that seventh graders don’t necessarily know what they are passionate about. He used a variety of surveys to get at how students like to learn, what their interests are, and how students most prefer to express themselves and what they know. Once students were thinking about their passions, they were able to begin planning a project of their choice.
Students took complete ownership of the project they were asked to create. Along they way, they learned about social networking, website evaluation, effective search strategies, social bookmarking, copyright/fair use policies, and other necessary digital skills. The course turned into project-based learning at its finest.
MY TAKEAWAY
The core of Mr. Woessner’s presentation reminded me of the most simplistic of ideas driving home education: know your students, engage your students, give them a voice. Even though these are ‘no-brainer’ concepts, educators get lost in the muddle of everyday teaching and sometimes forget about what drives their kids. The students in Mr. Woessner’s class gained so much more when they were allowed to work with ideas and tools that they were passionate about. They will remember the necessary technology skills because it was important to them to use these skills effectively.
These takeaways may seem so obvious, but I needed a reminder. I needed to sit in a classroom on a hot July day and be reminded that I love teaching, I love kids, and that finding my passion for teaching will help students become passionate about learning.
My Teaching Portfolio 