Do they have a vested interest?

We've been hearing quite a bit about essential learnings and essential questions in the education world for the past several years. What are the critical elements of a lesson that students should take away? What is it that we want them to really know and understand? This is an excellent focus for our planning, teaching, and reflective time. In addition to determining the key learning points for students, teachers need to grapple with essential questions related to their teaching methods and delivery.

One essential question with which I am faced every day and upon which my teaching, for the most part, is centered is: Do my students have a vested interest in what I'm dishing out? Whether I like it or not, the culture in which we live and teach is constantly changing, for better or worse, and I have a responsibility to conduct lessons that meet the changing needs of my students. That's one reason, for example, that I love blogs as a tool for learning. Most of the kids are already using blogs, so why not meet them where they are? Blogging has become another widely used method for communicating news (check out any major news agency's website) and is used by a growing number of employers in different industries. It makes practical sense, then, that teachers incorporate this technology as one of the tools in their toolboxes. My experience with three years of blogging in the classroom has shown me that more reticent students can share amazing learning using technology.

At the risk of sounding trite, I offer the observation that teachers have been inspiring kids and changing lives for years. We're good at it because we care. But today we're finding that the old ways of teaching, maybe even last semester's lesson plan, is ineffective. We are competing with an increasing number of varying interests ... and the competition is fierce! Sometimes, maybe more often than we're willing to admit, students would rather be doing something else than sitting in class. That's why reflective teaching -- essential questioning -- is so important. How do we get the learning to stick?

I've got to show kids they have a vested interest in what they're supposed to be learning. They need to be able to practically relate their learning to something beyond school. Why is it important to know this? How will it benefit me in the long run, past my school experience? For example, telling a senior in College Prep Reading something like "Today we're talking about active reading" is far different than helping the student understand why we're talking about active reading. If you don't learn strategies for active reading, then when you get to college next year you'll find that you're spending far too much time trying to read nearly impossible stuff you won't understand. On the other hand, active reading strategies will not only help you understand that impossible stuff, it will save you time. What I have discovered is that students take that practical piece of justification and make connections that are highly personal. In other words, active reading helps me understand, saves me time, and that means I have more time to do the stuff I actually want to do. That's the kind of connection that leads to comprehension, interpretation, and retention.