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So many of the things we run as clubs make great classroom activities. How do we take the opportunities out of clubs, and find ways to integrate them deeply into classroom practice?

Newspapers

I was supporting a school recently on launching a school newspaper club. What might that look like as a classroom activity? I’m not referring to a newspaper unit, but a year-long occupation running a newspaper. How much of the curriculum could be packed into long-form pieces about Science and Social Studies. Could students authentically report about current events both in their community and in the school? Does the guise of reporting allow for more opportunities to reach out to external experts for information and comment? Do inquiry projects transform themselves into investigative reports? In an age of information overload, does adding student voice loudly to the zeitgeist allow for reflection and critical thinking about media, and bias, and satire, and fake news, and the ways in which the online world allows us to shape stories (there are elements of digital citizenship in here too, as we “report” on our own lives through social media accounts).

This video details some one of the technical ways you might pull that off here at HWDSB, using the Commons and the Editflow plugin.

Podcasts

If not a newspaper, perhaps a Podcast, reporting on the news of the week, or examining a new topic. If you aren’t tuning into Podcasts, check out the CBC’s Podcast Playlist show to get an idea of the exciting stories coming out of the genre.

Code Clubs

The Code Clubs running around the school board are another example of work we are already seeing transition into the classroom. What solutions to issues could students create through technology? The partnership with the IEC (Hamilton Code Clubs) provisions external experts in our clubs in ways that  shift the classroom locus of control from seeing the teacher as an expert, to seeing the teacher as a co-learner. The emergence of the new Workflow app on iOS provides opportunities for students to streamline tasks, and begin working towards creating apps.

Could  they help to develop websites for external, local organizations (using tools like WordPress, Hugo, or Jekyll) . Again, thinking not in terms of Units of study, but occupations that students practice within the classroom. How do we ensure that the work they do is relevant, and has an impact outside of the school? (There is some amazing work coming out of @MrCoxall’s class in Ottawa around app development for an authentic audience. You can read more about that here.)

These clubs are launched because we know they attend to the curiosity and interest of our students. They are engaging in ways that we want our classrooms to be. If we ran our classrooms more like we ran clubs at school, what changes?

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Source: From the Club to the Classroom – mrjarbenne

Published by jarbenne

Jared Bennett is the Student Information System Consultant at Hamilton Wentworth District School Board.