In an educational world that offers new, better ways to teach Millenials on a daily basis, we continue to ask the question: What's Next? If it seems impossible to keep up with technological changes to education, you're not alone. As a school that has committed to having all students and faculty use iPads as learning tools for the 2013-2014 academic year, we are acutely aware of the interplay between technology and learning for our community.



With three teachers piloting iPads in their classes this spring, we are gaining valuable insights into what works and what doesn't. Tom Morgan, one of those teachers, shared the following email with me two weeks ago, "We've talked about the importance of creating a tech-embedded, inquiry and project-based, learner-centered teaching model that emphasizes proactivity, grit, and cooperation. This blog post by Shelley Wright gives great insight as to how this can be done."



"Why I Flipped Flopped on the Flipped Classroom" speaks to the Wright's change of heart regarding the flipped classroom, "Although I didn't ­disagree with anything I'd written in the earlier post, I had found that the flip didn't produce the ­transformative learning experience I knew I wanted for my students." A year prior to this post, Wright lauded the flipped classroom.



Perhaps most applicable to how we aspire to guide our classes at Proctor is the final sentence of Wright's post, "My goal as a teacher is to help them become independent learners, to give their learning a purpose that is apparent to them (beyond simply passing the unit exam). I prompt them to reflect on their thinking and learning while sharing stories of my own journey as a learner. I help them develop skills, such as finding and evaluating sources and collaborating with their peers.These days, I'm no longer an ­information-giver and gatekeeper. Rather, my aim essentially is to work myself out of a job by the time they graduate."



While we acknowledge we may never be able to fully implement the 'next big thing' in education before there is 'another big thing', we believe with confidence that through a continued philosophy of relationship focused, inquiry based, learner-centered classrooms we will be able to more effectively integrate 'the next big thing' as it comes along. Our belief is that it is on this foundation that our academic curriculum has been, and will continue to be built, as we move into the future and integrate iPads into our classrooms next fall.